What does David Rodan's post richmond career say about the Wallace era?

[tdy]

I had a look at David Rodan's stats at Port Adelaide just today.  He appears to have improved significantly since leaving Richmond.  He averages not quite a goal a game and his disposal count has been getting better every year. But Ill acknowledge he is still no world beater.

Obviously the people at Port Adelaide saw something in him we didn't.

Season    Num    MT    Team    K   H   D    M    HO    T    FF   FA    G.B   
2009   15   19   Port Adelaide   7.7   11.3   19.1   2.2   0   3.3   20   10   13.7   
2008   15   22   Port Adelaide   7.7   9   16.6   2.2   0   2.5   19   16   22.9   
2007   15   25   Port Adelaide   7.5   8.5   16   3   1   3.9   25   12   28.11   


2006   18   5   Richmond   3.4   2.8   6.2   2   0   2.6   1   1   0.2   
2004   18   16   Richmond   5.4   5.1   10.6   1.8   0   2.9   7   7   8.3
2003   18   22   Richmond   7.6   4.2   11.8   2.8   1   2.2   12   9   18.10
2002   18   22   Richmond   5.7   3.2   8.9   1.8   0   1.4   4   9   17.10

http://finalsiren.com/PlayerStats.asp?PlayerID=319

We kept only 4 or 5 similar aged players during the last 5 years.  Pettifer, Newman, Moore, Coughlan, Tuck and we recruited 3 I know of. Jordan McMahon (at great expense), Jake King and Polak.  Many of these players get similar or worse stats.  There may have been some recruits that came and went in that time too of a similar age.

Isn't Rodan's post Wallace career the perfect example of what was wrong with Wallace's coaching?  Maybe our recruiting over Wallace's tenure really wasn't that bad, it was the coaching. 

As a 21 and 22 year old with 50 games experience Rodan got almost no game time under Wallace and Wallace definitely did not get the best out of him.  To me this this highlights one of the problems with Wallaces tenure.  The little regard he had for young players recruited under the Frawley regime.  Players of that era must not have felt wanted, just superfluous to the main aim of bringing more talented players through the system.  How is that going to help the confidence of a player?  Wallace never got the best out of his younger Frawley recruited players.  He deliberately created an age hole in our list and the age hole is why we bottomed out in 2007.

Rodan surely wouldn't have been dropped if Wallace wanted to keep him, nor Andrew Krakour who's career and performance nose dived under Wallace.  Brent Hartigans is one whose career never began either.

How do others see this thesis, is it too harsh on Wallace and too easy on the recruiting dept?  Or was Wallace just a poor coach who didn't get the best out of what he had?

More importantly is this a mistake that Hardwick is going to make?

[mightytiges]

D-Rod's first year with Port (2007) was terrific but he's been very inconsistent since. This year he was dropped back to the SANFL then was brought back played some good footy then dropped again for the last round. If he had stayed at Richmond on current form we'd be calling for his axing. We didn't lose much letting him go apart from letting him go for nothing while keeping others who were more deserving of the flick because they were ridiculously contracted (Krak given 3 years for instance). Rodan was the classic ACL case of having an ordinary year first up after a knee before hitting his straps again the following (2nd) year. He was flying in that preseason when he did his knee.

[Infamy]

Unfortunately delisting Rodan was one of the good calls we made, we hang on to some players far too long and Rodan had been given plenty of time. As was commented in the opening post, he's no world beater, in fact he's still a fringe player at Port as well. We need to lift our standards and not just say we should have kept someone because he's played a little better elsewhere.

[tdy]

D-Rod's first year with Port (2007) was terrific but he's been very inconsistent since. This year he was dropped back to the SANFL then was brought back played some good footy then dropped again for the last round. If he had stayed at Richmond on current form we'd be calling for his axing. We didn't lose much letting him go apart from letting him go for nothing while keeping others who were more deserving of the flick because they were ridiculously contracted (Krak given 3 years for instance). Rodan was the classic ACL case of having an ordinary year first up after a knee before hitting his straps again the following (2nd) year. He was flying in that preseason when he did his knee.

His stats say he has actually improved each year at port as far as possessions go.  Though less goals.

You may be right it was just an injury story. 

To rephrase one of my points if we had kept average players from that era we would have avoided the age hole and had experienced average players rather than inexperienced average players as we do now.  In general I would expect an experienced average player to play better than an inexperienced one.

The current gutting that is going on will not guarantee good new players, it may do the exact reverse and guarantee that the last few players you pick will be average to poor.  If your going to do that then is the way Wallace did it the wrong way as you end up with an age gap?

I'm not 100% sure on the answer to that myself, are you always going to end up with an age gap?
And does an age gap matter?
Hawthorn won its premiership with a few old players (dew, croad, crawford) and quite a few younger ones.  But as we have seen with hawthorn as soon as the experienced players are gone they leave some very big holes to fill.

At least Hardwick appears to be dropping the older players in general so we wont end up with an age gap.

Eh who knows

[mightytiges]

Stats don't always show the value the of a player. Rodan's kicking stats haven't changed but his handballing has increased and his goalscoring output has dropped over 50% since 2007. The latter stat shows Rodan was pushing forward more from the midfield and kicking goals in 2007 than since. He was far more damaging in 2007. Apart from a few and far between very good games he seems to have fallen back into the habit of running around in circles hence the increase in handballs for mine. He's just a fringe midfielder for Port these days as Infamy said.



As for Richmond's age gap it was created before Plough arrived and yes it's a bad thing. 

The draft was designed to even up the competition but in reality it favours clubs who have a decent core group of players in their prime to build around from below. As the older top end of the core group age and fall away they are replaced by the best of the younger crop as they hit 22-23. Well managed clubs with good recruiting are able to maintain a healthy core group so they don't have long periods of rebuilding and don't end up with massive age gaps in the middle of their list. If the quality of the list starts to drop away and they miss the finals they dip down into the bottom 8 for just a couple of years and grab as many picks (hence the best kids and as many of them) as possible to regenerate their list and then away they go again.

The problem at Richmond which caused the age gap problem in the first place is our last core group really came from KB & Northey's era. Post '95 we just topped up with fringe players using good picks and drafted very few kids. We were trading away our future. 2001 was really a last hurrah for the 95 group rather than a completely new era. We were still relying on Richo, Knighter, Cambo, Brodders, the Gales who were around 6 years earlier and who apart from the evergreen Richo were nearing the end. The quality of players underneath them in terms of age was thin. Gas, Chubba, Tivs, etc weren't actually youngsters either. Topping up again after 2001 just left a vacuum of talent under Richo, Johnson, Browny, Gas, Chubba etc by the end of Spud's reign. We had a list mainly full of mid-20 something duds and virtually no youngsters. We had to start again from scratch clearing out the deadwood in the middle while recruiting lots of youth year after year.

Plough failed though because although he brought kids in he didn't cut as hard and fast enough as needed to turnover the list. Other clubs would chop and bring in 20 kids over a 3-year period via the National draft. We were picking up just 2 or 3 kids a draft and still trading decent picks away for experience fringe players. We followed this so-called 'Geelong model' and wanted to give the old players something to play for which meant we didn't truly bottom out and use the priority pick system to rebuild. We tried to rebuild and play finals at the same time. It doesn't work that way in the position we were in in 2004 without a solid reliable core group to build around.

We've now got a few quality kids to at least build around (so we are in a better position than 2004 believe it or not) but unless we cut hard and fast and involve some strong talent-spotting at the draft table given the upcoming drafts are compromised then we'll repeat the mistakes of the past. We do have a dozen or so cubs you can build a premiership side around. I see us where Hawthorn were in 2004 actually however without a dumb club like North to hand over first round picks for our dud players and without automatic pre-first round priority picks. As I said we need to be smart for once in this club's recent history and after 23 National draft finally understand the best talent enters the AFL via the National draft especially via the early rounds.

[Fishfinger]

The little regard he had for young players recruited under the Frawley regime.  Players of that era must not have felt wanted, just superfluous to the main aim of bringing more talented players through the system. 

Wouldn't bringing more talented players through the system be a plus rather than a minus?

How is that going to help the confidence of a player?  Wallace never got the best out of his younger Frawley recruited players.  He deliberately created an age hole in our list and the age hole is why we bottomed out in 2007.

Which players of similar age to Rodan who were delisted would you have kept and made feel wanted? I think there is a fair argument that he got rid of them because they weren't up to it.
Here's the list:

McGrath
Ednie
Roach
Vardy
Haynes
Fleming
Sipthorp
Nicholls
Morrison
Weller
Krakouer

[bojangles17]

prob says that players generally mature after their first 2-3 years of afl football

[tdy]

The little regard he had for young players recruited under the Frawley regime.  Players of that era must not have felt wanted, just superfluous to the main aim of bringing more talented players through the system. 

Wouldn't bringing more talented players through the system be a plus rather than a minus?

How is that going to help the confidence of a player?  Wallace never got the best out of his younger Frawley recruited players.  He deliberately created an age hole in our list and the age hole is why we bottomed out in 2007.

Which players of similar age to Rodan who were delisted would you have kept and made feel wanted? I think there is a fair argument that he got rid of them because they weren't up to it.
Here's the list:

McGrath
Ednie
Roach
Vardy
Haynes
Fleming
Sipthorp
Nicholls
Morrison
Weller
Krakouer

Why did Karakouer fall away?  He could have been another Leigh Montagna (well maybe thats stretching it but he was in a similar position to that Leigh at that time).  Doesn't this just indicate Wallace was a bad or had a bad development coach?
Tim Fleming hung around for a while
Nicholls was solid, couldn't kick too well, but was starting to develop under Frawley.

By keeping three or four more average players like this we would have avoided that age hole and avoided the three or four average players we now have to drop. 

I suppose my issue is that assuming an entire generation of players previously recruited were all bad seems just a wrong headed philosophy.  It just leads to an age hole.

And my second issue is I don't think Wallace was or had a good development coach.  I'm not too sure who was really in charge of development but it has been as poor as the drafting.

But then if we'd drafted and developed players better then maybe Wallace would still be coach.

[tdy]

Stats don't always show the value the of a player. Rodan's kicking stats haven't changed but his handballing has increased and his goalscoring output has dropped over 50% since 2007. The latter stat shows Rodan was pushing forward more from the midfield and kicking goals in 2007 than since. He was far more damaging in 2007. Apart from a few and far between very good games he seems to have fallen back into the habit of running around in circles hence the increase in handballs for mine. He's just a fringe midfielder for Port these days as Infamy said.

Fair point.  I don't think he is a world beater by any step of the imagination.

As for Richmond's age gap it was created before Plough arrived and yes it's a bad thing. 

--snip--

The problem at Richmond which caused the age gap problem in the first place is our last core group really came from KB & Northey's era. Post '95 we just topped up with fringe players using good picks and drafted very few kids. We were trading away our future. 2001 was really a last hurrah for the 95 group rather than a completely new era. We were still relying on Richo, Knighter, Cambo, Brodders, the Gales who were around 6 years earlier and who apart from the evergreen Richo were nearing the end. The quality of players underneath them in terms of age was thin. Gas, Chubba, Tivs, etc weren't actually youngsters either. Topping up again after 2001 just left a vacuum of talent under Richo, Johnson, Browny, Gas, Chubba etc by the end of Spud's reign. We had a list mainly full of mid-20 something duds and virtually no youngsters. We had to start again from scratch clearing out the deadwood in the middle while recruiting lots of youth year after year.

Plough failed though because although he brought kids in he didn't cut as hard and fast enough as needed to turnover the list. Other clubs would chop and bring in 20 kids over a 3-year period via the National draft. We were picking up just 2 or 3 kids a draft and still trading decent picks away for experience fringe players. We followed this so-called 'Geelong model' and wanted to give the old players something to play for which meant we didn't truly bottom out and use the priority pick system to rebuild. We tried to rebuild and play finals at the same time. It doesn't work that way in the position we were in in 2004 without a solid reliable core group to build around.

But the first group Plough cut was our 18 and 19 year olds and our entire (Im pretty sure of this but not 100%) rookie list.  This was what lead to our current age gap.

We've now got a few quality kids to at least build around (so we are in a better position than 2004 believe it or not) but unless we cut hard and fast and involve some strong talent-spotting at the draft table given the upcoming drafts are compromised then we'll repeat the mistakes of the past. We do have a dozen or so cubs you can build a premiership side around.

I agree we are in a better position than 2004.  Frawley did waste a lot of good picks on duds like Morrisson.  But if Hardwick takes a similar line as Wallace did then he could just as easily screw it up like Plough.  If he takes the line our 20-22 year olds are no good and gets rid of most of them over 3 years we will have another age gap.

If a coach is going to take the bottoming out philosophy then he has to do it in his first two years.  Thats the only time supporters will give him.  But in an era of compromised drafts I would have thought a bottoming out philosophy is pretty pointless.  Harwick is almost forced to go the Geelong / Sydney path and build from the middle.

Cutting hard at this stage almost guarantees you will pick some poor players with your last picks.

[mightytiges]

But the first group Plough cut was our 18 and 19 year olds and our entire (Im pretty sure of this but not 100%) rookie list.  This was what lead to our current age gap.

No one under 22 was cut in Plough's first draft/trade period and only the injury-plagued Dragga was cut from the rookie list. Kel and Axel survive to this day and Thursty was added.


Playing list - end of 2004:

32: Campbell (vet)
31. D.Kellaway (vet), Rogers
30: Stafford
29: A.Kellaway, Richardson
28: Gaspar, Marsh
27: Blumfield, Chaffey
26: Brown, Bowden, Fleming, Fletcher, Houlihan, Johnson
25: Hilton, Tivendale
24: Hall, Ottens
23: Fiora, Morrison, Nicholls, Tuck, Dragicevic#
22: Coughlan, Hyde, Newman, Pettifer, Weller, Zantuck
21: Krakouer, Rodan
20: Moore#
19: Hartigan, Roach, Schulz, Foley#
18: Archibald, Gilmour, Jackson, Raines


Changes:

Out: Ottens, Fiora, Blumfield, Fleming, Fletcher, Houlihan, D.Kellaway (vet), Marsh, Nicholls, Rogers, Weller, Zantuck, Dragicevic#

In: Deledio, Tambling, Meyer, Pattison, Polo, McGuane, Limbach, Graham, Knobel, Simmonds, Thursfield#

Rookie Promoted: Moore

I agree we are in a better position than 2004.  Frawley did waste a lot of good picks on duds like Morrisson.  But if Hardwick takes a similar line as Wallace did then he could just as easily screw it up like Plough.  If he takes the line our 20-22 year olds are no good and gets rid of most of them over 3 years we will have another age gap.

If a coach is going to take the bottoming out philosophy then he has to do it in his first two years.  Thats the only time supporters will give him.  But in an era of compromised drafts I would have thought a bottoming out philosophy is pretty pointless.  Harwick is almost forced to go the Geelong / Sydney path and build from the middle.

Cutting hard at this stage almost guarantees you will pick some poor players with your last picks.

Agree if Hardwick makes the same mistakes as we did under Plough (taking just 13 kids in 4 drafts) he'll fail as well. Also I agree Hardwick has to bottom out in his first two years while his honeymoon period exists. It won't be easy (no priority picks) but it's not pointless. A bottom side will still get pick 4 and a bottom 3 side a top 10 pick. That's a far better scenario than other sides whose first pick won't be until the 20s effectively meaning no first round pick for them in still compromised drafts 2010-2012. Our trading with GC17 and West Sydney needs to be smart as well to score another reasonably early pick. I'd rather back a kid in the draft than trade for fringe players as we've done in the past who we know aren't up to it. Clubs that put their faith and resources into getting the most out of each and every National draft eventually succeed. Sure not all the kids you draft will make it (usually only half of them even at the top clubs) but that only shows you need to have as many reasonable early picks as possible so you have a number of kids coming through that you can sort through. Drafting only 2 or 3 kids a year as we've done means we need every kid to end up an AFL player and if they don't (a la 2005) it's a disaster that hurts you down the track.

[mightytiges]

Why did Karakouer fall away?  He could have been another Leigh Montagna (well maybe thats stretching it but he was in a similar position to that Leigh at that time).  Doesn't this just indicate Wallace was a bad or had a bad development coach?
Tim Fleming hung around for a while
Nicholls was solid, couldn't kick too well, but was starting to develop under Frawley.

I believe Plough wasn't a good development coach but having said that I don't think we can blame him for Krak, Fleming and Nicholls. All three had way too many flaws and simply weren't up to it. Krak had no endurance, Fleming couldn't kick and Nicholls preferred his Big Mac to big stats lol.

By keeping three or four more average players like this we would have avoided that age hole and avoided the three or four average players we now have to drop. 

All that does though is leave us with far too many list cloggers who lift us to 9th but no higher and then poor draft picks.

I suppose my issue is that assuming an entire generation of players previously recruited were all bad seems just a wrong headed philosophy.  It just leads to an age hole.

Our recruiting philosophy has been bad for a long time. If Craig Cameron repeats what he did last year he deserves to join Beck and Miller as ex-RFC list managers.

And my second issue is I don't think Wallace was or had a good development coach.  I'm not too sure who was really in charge of development but it has been as poor as the drafting.

Postie publicly saying he only spoke with Plough a couple of times was pretty damning.

[Mr Magic]

That is doesn't matter who coaches him, DRod is ultimately a dud.