Gary March and Craig Cameron Futures at RFC

[gerkin greg]

tanking = 186

[yellowandback]

I don't support not winning when you can win. I want us to give our best every week come what may.

I support your post but we would end up with the same win/loss record anyway

[Hellenic Tiger]

Cameron needs to go.
Never liked him.

What are his achievements?

Melbourne's drafting when he was there has been poo.
Richmonds drafting when he was here has been poo.

They guy has had 2 innings and been bowled for 2 golden ducks.

Adios.

Wouldn't say two golden ducks. Definentely has not been in and out just like that in either role.
Lets just say he's had two 20/20 innings and used up 20 balls and gotten out for 0 in both.
Tavare the tortoise.

[10 FLAGS]

Cameron needs to go.
Never liked him.

What are his achievements?

Melbourne's drafting when he was there has been poo.
Richmonds drafting when he was here has been poo.

They guy has had 2 innings and been bowled for 2 golden ducks.

Adios.

Wouldn't say two golden ducks. Definentely has not been in and out just like that in either role.
Lets just say he's had two 20/20 innings and used up 20 balls and gotten out for 0 in both.
Tavare the tortoise.

Where did you remember Tavare from lol. Id forgotten him. Came straight out of the Boycott school for Batting.

[Hellenic Tiger]

Cameron needs to go.
Never liked him.

What are his achievements?

Melbourne's drafting when he was there has been poo.
Richmonds drafting when he was here has been poo.

They guy has had 2 innings and been bowled for 2 golden ducks.

Adios.

Wouldn't say two golden ducks. Definentely has not been in and out just like that in either role.
Lets just say he's had two 20/20 innings and used up 20 balls and gotten out for 0 in both.
Tavare the tortoise.

Where did you remember Tavare from lol. Id forgotten him. Came straight out of the Boycott school for Batting.

Somehow on Youtube stumbled on the end of the Ashes test from the MCG in 1982-83 lol.

[Penelope]

nah, he was much more painful than boycott  

Theres a story that england wanted quick runs in a test and the message went out to boycott to up the ante. the message that came back was basically get stuffed so botham volunteered to run boycott out, which he duly did.

apparantly boycott hasnt spoken to botham since.
 

[Hellenic Tiger]

nah, he was much more painful than boycott 

Theres a story that england wanted quick runs in a test and the message went out to boycott to up the ante. the message that came back was basically get stuffed so botham volunteered to gun boycott out, which he duly did.

apparantly boycott hasnt spoken to botham since.
 

Heard that story too Al. Botham did that in his second year of Test Cricket in 1978 against NZ in NZ. 

[Penelope]

i see that when you fix tpos it doesnt flow through to quotes.

yeah the NZ part rings a bell

[Mr Magic]

tanking = 186

Not quite that simple but it's a fair post re the 'tanking' debate.

You still need a mix of seasoned quality & strong leaders to extract the most of young quality draft selections.

Richmond and Melbourne are in a similar boat in this regard. We just don't have senior leadership quality at the pointy end.

West Coast have a good mix with Cox, Glass & Embley etc. Carlton have benefitted by having Judd & GC with Ablett.
Cousins was a step in the right direction but he was at the wrong end of his career and had too much on his plate to make any real difference.

Kids need to see what it takes on field otherwise their talent can go to waste. It's a crucial part of their development.

[FooffooValve]

My issues with Cameron as initially our list manager and then promoted to head of our footy dept....

(i) In his first draft (2008) as list manager we only picked up two kids (Vickery and Post) when we were meant to be rebuilding our list. He then traded a decent 3rd round pick for Adam Thomson who couldn't kick to save himself and as a inside mid couldn't get a game in a bottom 4 Port side that was crying out for inside mids. Cameron gave some garbage reasoning about Thomson being the number 1 clearance player in the AFL per time on ground. Then he used a 4th round pick on Hislop. That kind of recruiting was no different to under Greg Miller's reign who Cameron replaced.

(ii) When Wallace was sacked mid-2009, Cameron by then was head of the footy dept. and should have mapped out plan for the next 3 years to maximise our draft selections and use the draft system and priority pick rules to our advantage. The club knew GC and GWS would hog the 2010-11 drafts and the club knew we were going down the youth path. We had just 2 wins at the midpoint of 2009 so Cameron should have instructed caretaker coach Jade Rawlings to make sure via team selections and matchday match-ups we won no more than 2 more games to gain a end of round 1 priority pick which could have got us one of Nathan Fyfe or Ryan Bastinac. Instead we threw it away winning meaningless games against other bottom sides in the second half of the season.

(iii) Just 4 wins in 2009 would have also set us up to get picks 4 and 6 in the 2010. We knew we had the very young and inexperienced list and a new first-time senior coach and that showed losing the first 9 games. Once again we reached the midpoint of the season with hardly a win on the board and once again threw a chance of getting priority pick winning games in the second half of the season to exceed the 4 win mark. So we could have still got Conca plus one extra top kid such as a Heppel, Lynch or Gaff for example.

So in total not planning to make the most of priority picks on offer in the past two years has cost us another two quality young players who could have played for us alongside Cotch, Martin, Jack and co. for the next decade. It's no point complaining about lack of funds for recruiting if you throw away the chance to gain bonus top 20 draft picks. Sure people can say we screwed up our top picks in 2004-5 but since 2006 when Francis Jackson went full time as a recruiter he has drafted Jack, Cotch, Rance, Vickery, Martin, Griffiths and Conca with our top 20 picks which is a pretty good return. Too bad we were dumb as a club and didn't give him the chance of two more top 20 picks!

(iv) Wasting rookie list spots on keeping or recycling duds such as Hislop and Miller. Richmond has been there done that many times in the past.

(v) Some re-signings have been quite questionable such as giving McGuane as 3 year contract  ???.

(vi) Our fitness staff has basically remained the same since Wallace was still senior coach.


Another thing that needs addressing is we still have a too small and light-weighted playing list. We have an excess of smalls and most aren't up to AFL level. It's no point drafting players under 6ft unless they have exceptional skills, speed and footy smarts.

What makes you think that these decisions are solely Craig Cameron's work? Is it the Football Manager's decision alone to unilaterally decide that we must lose games? Aren't you projecting your philosophy of losing and tanking onto Craig Cameron?
What is/was Francis Jackson's role in these decisions?

And what of our drafting and trading in the past 2 years? Not going to mention that? Or are the good decisions made by someone else?

[one-eyed]

Out of interest here is what Craig Cameron said when outlining the Club's 5-year plan at this time of year in 2009 .....



SOLID FOUNDATIONS THE KEY TO SUSTAINED TIGER SUCCESS
Richmond's General Manager of Football, Craig Cameron
Fighting Tiger bulletin - Issue 2, July 2009

Richmond entered the 2009 season full of hope, and expectations of playing finals football. Unfortunately, that's not going to eventuate, which clearly is very disappointing to us all.

I can assure our members, however, that proper foundations are now being put in place, to give the Tigers the best possible opportunity of experiencing success in the future on a constant basis. We're devising a strategy that will build a sustainable structure within our football department. This will ensure that when we recruit our players, we develop them (both on-field and off-field), we maintain injury-prevention levels, physically prepare them, as well as supply them with the required mental skills. As a result, we can then provide our coaching panel with a playing list they can mould into a successful unit. The overall objective is to make sure we have a football department that can extract the maximum talent out of all the players on our list.

It had reached a point where we just had to say, okay, we're going to take a long-term view to structuring the football department and the playing list. But, even though we are adopting a bigger-picture outlook, that doesn't mean we're in a rebuilding phase. The long-term vision is based around getting the right structures in place and ensuring that whenever a player is recruited to Tigerland, he is given every chance to fulfill his potential.

I asked each of the people, who head up the various areas of the football department - operations, recruiting, list management. coaching, elite performance, (strength and conditioning and medical), and the development side - for them to talk to their staff members, to get their input, and then report back to me.

Under CEO Steven Wright's direction, at the Gold Coast in early July, each Club department presented their specific strategic plan. We then worked on integrating those strategic plans into an overall five-year vision for the Club. The plan is for the entire Club to end up on the same page, and over the next couple of months, we'll reveal the details of this five-year vision.

From a football department perspective, by the end of this [2009] season, we should have a much better understanding of where our list's at, and how the development of our younger, developing players is coming along, with a view to them being able to play good AFL football for a long period of time.

.... [edited out stuff about finding a new coach]

I firmly believe we are an exciting prospect for a coach, with our young list and the structural plans we have in place for our football department. The successful coaching candidate will be stepping into a football department that will give him every chance to coach a thriving team. . .

At the end of this year [2009], it's likely that we'll have more than the usual number of picks in the National Draft. Our intention is to go to this Draft and give our recruiters every opportunity to select talent. The same objective applies to the Rookie Draft a few weeks after that. The recruiters have to go out and recruit the best players, however, from a list-management and succession-planning viewpoint, we probably need to find a power forward. And, if we could snare another A-grade midfielder, we'd be pretty happy. We think our ruck stocks are quite good, with Tyrone Vickery and Andrew Browne coming through and Angus Graham showing significant improvement this season. Our defensive end is solid, with Luke McGuane, Kel Moore and Will Thursfield, along with young players such as Jayden Post and Alex Rance developing through there as well. Forward of centre, Matthew Richardson can't play forever. I'm certainly not retiring 'Richo', but we need to find a young power forward, who can step up when the Tiger great does eventually hang the boots up. And, you can never have enough A-grade midfielders, so that also will be high on our list of recruiting priorities.

It's worth pointing out that our recruiting department has been significantly boosted   this year. Francis Jackson remains our Recruiting Manager, and he's been joined by two full-time recruiting officers, in Matthew Clarke and Richard Taylor. Both Matthew and Richard had been involved in recruiting on a part-time basis for more than 10 years. Not only do they bring experience to the role, but having them in a full-time working capacity gives us more resources to view games. It also enables us to start buidling a three-year knowledge base of young players before they become eligible for the Draft. In addition, being better resourced in recruiting, has allowed us to explore some of the other areas that we have not been able to in the past, such as the NSW scholarship program. Francis visited Ireland a few months back to investigate the possibility of us recruiting there, and we may have an Irish youngster come out and train with us at some stage later on in the year. Matthew Clarke went to Papua-New Guinea to watch their under-15 and under-16 championships, then saw them play against Queensland. He made good connections with Ray Hall, the former Richmond player, who's now up in New Guinea and helping out with their junior teams. There's an international scholarship program that we'll probably investigate as well. The main bonus of having the additional recruiters, is they can cover the country much better. You've got three sets of eyes to watching vision of players all week, so there basically won't be a player who  goes through the system that we won't have seen or won't have good coverage of. It also allows us to build better relationships with second-tier clubs, second-tier coaches and team managers, so that we receive all the information we require. We've gone from 2005, where we didn't have a full-time recruiter, to now, this year [2009], having three full-time recruiters, which is a significant step in the right direction for us.

http://oneeyed-richmond.com/forum/index.php?topic=9775.0

[Penelope]

OK, exactly what does craig cameron do?

does he have input into all the different football depts or does he just a managerial role where he collates and processes what they give him.


doe he march to his own tune or someone elses?

[RedanTiger]

OK, exactly what does craig cameron do?

does he have input into all the different football depts or does he just a managerial role where he collates and processes what they give him.

As General Manager of Football Operations you would hope that Cameron is responsible for all areas ie the buck stops with him.
In the article posted he says that he has integrated specific strategic plans into an overall five year plan that was due for release in 2009.
Like Benny Gale's overall plan I hope the Footy one has goals and is benchmarked for each area.
Benny has said he couldn't find a prior five year plan at the club, presumably he wasn't talking about this plan from Cameron. 

[Stripes]

He was a little off the mark with his assessment of our ruck and defence but otherwise just the usual supporter message rubbish

[mightytiges]

What makes you think that these decisions are solely Craig Cameron's work? Is it the Football Manager's decision alone to unilaterally decide that we must lose games? Aren't you projecting your philosophy of losing and tanking onto Craig Cameron?
What is/was Francis Jackson's role in these decisions?

And what of our drafting and trading in the past 2 years? Not going to mention that? Or are the good decisions made by someone else?

Craig Cameron has been head of our footy dept. since 2008 as well as our list manager from 2008-2010 until Blair Hartley came on board this year. The buck ultimately stops with him regarding footy dept. and list managerment decisions as it should. You don't want the coach making short-term top-up decisions to save his own backside in the final year of a contract. FJ as chief recruiter would advise Cameron on the strength of upcoming drafts and have a major say in new draftees chosen at each draft pick but he isn't the list manager nor can FJ instruct the coach to make sure wins are limited to 4 to gain a priority pick. Only Cameron has the authority to implement a whole footy dept. strategy and then delegate respective tasks to the various parties within the footy dept. to implement it.

Am I projecting my philosophy of tanking onto Craig Cameron? While I do support and have argued for us to tank for a number of years now as the draft system rewards tanking, I would argue any cluey footy dept. head and list manager wouldn't need to be told to tank if in the position we have found ourselves in. The benefits should/would be so bleedingly obvious and automatic to anyone (re)building our list. They would've jumped at the opportunity for long-term gain. The ability to pull it off in our case should have been simple to implement as well given we had just 2 wins by midseason 2009 and just 1 win by midseason 2010. It was hardly a stretch to keep our wins in both years to 4 each. If Cameron had/has a 'moral' objection to tanking and taking advantage of the draft rules to benefit the RFC via bonus priority picks then he's in the wrong job.

Our recruiting record since 2008...

2008:
Trades: pick 42 for Adam Thomson
ND:      8. Vickery, 26. Post, 58. Hislop
PSD:    6. Cousins
RD:      8. Nahas, 26. Gourdis [demoted], 39. Browne, 53. Gilligan

2009:
Trades: Raines for pick 44, Schulz for Farmer and pick 71
ND:      3. Martin, 19. Griffiths, 35. Astbury, 44. Dea, 51. Taylor?, 67. Webberley, 71. Nason
PSD:    2. Grimes
RD:      7. Hicks, 23. Contin, 38. Roberts, 51. Westhoff, 62. Polak [demoted], 70. O'Reilly

2010:
Trades: Collins for Grigg, Tambling for compo pick and pick 51
ND:      6. Conca, 30. Batchelor, 47. Helbig, 51. MacDonald, 63. Derickx
PSD:     3. Houli
RD:       11. Jakobi, 28. Miller, 45. Hislop [demoted]


2008 was poor with just two kids picked up in the ND. The Thomson trade was pathetic as I said at the time.

2009-10 the philosophy was at least right loading up with 13 picks in the two NDs and PSDs and using them all on kids/newbies (Houli being the only exception in the PSD which is fair enough).

2009-10 trade periods have been reasonable given what we had to offer up with the Tambling trade being by far the pick of the bunch. Grigg and Farmer were sideways trades but as I said we didn't have much to offer other clubs outside our half-dozen or so untouchable young guns.

Our use of the rookie draft is still poor. Last year's RD was a complete waste. You could clean out most of our rookie list and we wouldn't blink. Given other strong clubs have done very well with rookies over the past 5 years we are still behind the eight ball. 

Anyway my main point is how we missed out on top talent because we didn't plan to tank in 2009-10 and gain as many top picks as we could have. Take away the stupidity of the Thomson trade and add us "tanking" over 2009-10 and the same NDs without changing any selections would look something like this:

2008:      8. Vickery, 26. Post, 42. Liam Anthony, 58. Hislop
2009:      3. Martin, 18. Bastinac/Fyfe, 19. Griffiths, 35. Astbury, 44. Dea, 51. Taylor?, 67. Webberley, 71. Nason
2010:      4. Gaff/Heppell, 6. Conca, 30. Batchelor, 47. Helbig, 51. MacDonald, 63. Derickx

Take your pick of Bastinac/Fyfe and Gaff/Heppell but in the end we've given up the opportunity to get 3 quality young up and coming players who would walk into our best 18 and make us a strong side over the next decade. Two of them we missed out on for the sake of 3 meaningless late season wins over 2009-10 that only meant the difference between finishing 15th and 16th on the ladder in both years.

Whether supporters want to blame Cameron or the Club as a whole, there's no doubt not tanking and using the draft rules to our advantage was dumb dumb dumb policy/philosophy/planning! We can't use lack of funds and resources as an excuse either as it costs no money to tank.