RFC Bravery - Build a premiership list from today

[TigerLand]

Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on me. For all us RFC fans, it's shame on us 432nd times. Can we learn our lesson for the 433rd?


What I find really interesting, is comparing other clubs development to ours. As much as it hurts.

Take a look at 3 clubs for example. St.Kilda, Western Bulldogs and Collingwood.
Bulldogs lost Griffen, Ward and Cross over a 2 years period, all 3 still currently playing. They currently have their best midfielder Libretore on the sidelines with a season ending injury. Have a look at where they are. Top 4.

Collingwood have lost Beams, Shaw and Thomas all three still currently playing. They currently have Sidebottom sidelined. Have a look where they are. Top 4.

Can anyone name more than 3 notable 'best 22' players in our history that have left in the past 30 years? I stop at Brad Ottens, Jason Torney and Stuie Maxfield.. Go back further and you get Jeff Hogg. Look at any other club and they move players on to get better. We don't. We keep our own. Ottens wanted to leave, from memory Torney didn't and Maxfield I don't think did either. But in the past 15 years we haven't moved anyone on that wanted to stay at Richmond, for the better of the club. We love our own bath water, our own luke warm muddy bath water. What is Blair Hartley doing to get a better list? Hope that the standard draft picks alone will develop into a premiership list. Awful when comparing that theory to GWS and GC concessions. Moneyball, please...

Now is the time to set a list up the proper way. We have currency right through the list we have some premium players that will hurt to lose but if we can get 2 picks in the top 20, included 1 in the top 12 for someone like Jack Riewoldt, Cotchin, Deledio. Then I'd take it, do this 3 times over a 3 year period and potentially have 6 picks for 3 players plus our 3 first rounders we would get anyway through natural drafting. Over 3 years we can add 9 top 20 draft picks (potentially 4-6 of them would be top 10) to a list that is aged no greater than Dustin Martin at aged 28. Nick Vlastuin as captain.

2015 draft Trade Deledio to NM, Geel (who will happily top up and give us a first rounder for Deledio now that he's slightly injury prone and at 29 next year we have to be realistic, we may be lucky at have a bidding war and get a 2nd round pick as well)
Get Pick 10-14 and Pick 20-30

2016 draft Trade Cotchin to any club (endless bidders, someone wil give up 2 first round picks for Trent in his prime. Need to do it this year as Cotch could go FA the year after and will only get one 1st rounder for him)
Get Pick 6-10 and Pick 10-15


2017 draft Trade Riewoldt to GC (Will be crying out for a KPF when their premiership tilt comes round. He'll be 28 and have 3 years left in him. 1st rounder easily for Jack a premium forward with a decade of experience and a Coleman)
Get Pick 8-12

Add our first round picks of 2015, 2016 and 2017 there are 8 players to the list over 3 years, 6 in the top 10.

2018 team - all under 27 except for players aged quoted:

B: Pick 8-12 2017, Rance (29 yo), Pick 10-15 2016
HB: Vlastuin (c), Astbury/Grimes, McIntosh
C: Conca, Martin (28 yo), B.Ellis
HF: Pick 6-10 2016, Griffiths, Lennon
F: Pick 10-14 2015, McBean, Pick 1 round 2017

R: Pick 1st round 2015, Miles, C.Ellis
Int: Edwards (30 yo), Pick 20-30 2015, Pick 1st round 2016, and 1 more player out of the young kids we have currently. (Elton, McKenzie, Menadue, Drummond, Hunt)

I'd get rid of Chaplin, Knights, Hampson, Houli, Grigg, Petterd, Vickery and anyone else not mentioned over the age of 24 for a packet of twisties straight away.. This also highlights the very very poor stock of forwards we have at our club. I blame Hardwick direction for this and the stupid theory of having 'midfield goal kickers'. Look at any top 4 team and the spread of 'forwards' not midfielders they have kicking goals. Bruest, Roughead, Gunston and Puopolo.. Pavlich, Mayne, Ballantyne and Walters.. Westhoff, Schultz, Wingard and Monfries. Who do we have Riewoldt.... Lloyd... Gordon. YUK.


Point being, every other club loses star best 22 players and survive and play finals, finish in top 4. We never do, we over rate our own and whinge that losing Matty White has cost us top 4. Please. Start to get ruthless, retire the players who need to be, move around some currency and maybe we might just somehow find our 'Richmond Way'...

[TigerLand]

Alternatively, we can over rate our own and hope our diluted list (comparing youth to GWS and GC) will be good enough to compete post Hawthorn and Sydney dominance - and end up where Carlton is now. They waited far to long to accept their list wasn't good enough and when they tried to move on their 'better players' they had bugger all currency. Waite, Robinson, Gartlett, Betts. All could have given much more if Carlton acted sooner.

[Zlatan]

pretty good post

i worry it we are too far behind GC and GWS

then you have saints, melbourne, footscray, lions already more advanced in the rebuild. collingwood have several high draft picks.

what is the point removing deledio and cotchin? you rob peter, to pay paul - but even then - RFC list will be behind several others in regards to young talent.

[No More]

Its absolutely clear to everyone that the rebuild has failed. That's just the reality of it. A lot of clubs have flown past us by picking up better players in the draft. There will be no flag for us in the next 10 years IMHO.

[TigerLand]

pretty good post

i worry it we are too far behind GC and GWS

then you have saints, melbourne, footscray, lions already more advanced in the rebuild. collingwood have several high draft picks.

what is the point removing deledio and cotchin? you rob peter, to pay paul - but even then - RFC list will be behind several others in regards to young talent.

You may rob Peter to pay Paul. But Deledio won't win a flag at Richmond. That is just about fact unless you are a delusional romantic. Look at what Saints did with Goddard and Dal Santo. Let them go and received compensation in picks that 'could' be part of a premiership when the develop and mature. We won't get a better player than Deledio from a trade but we will have a younger player who will be on the list when we might be challenging for top 4. If we keep Deledio in 3-4 years time he will retire and we effectively throw away a first round draft pick.

What would you rather,
see Deledio run around for Richmond for the next 4 years. Maybe make a few finals. Then see him retire and our list depreciates in value

or

Trade Deledio and develop a first round draft pick and have him ready at 22 to be part of a tilt in 3 years led by Martin, Ellis and Vlastuin.

[Diocletian]

If we're going to give up our stars I'd be giving them up for GWS & GC kids like Shiel, WHE, Matera, Bennell, McKenzie or blokes like Aish who already have a couple of years of AFL development in them and have demonstrated their quality at the highest level.....not unproven draft picks. With smart & brave list managers we could probably still have good picks, get some GWS, GC talent, scavenge the likes of Yarran from the upcoming Carlton fire sale and grab a free agent like Selwood....which would beat the hell out just starting from year zero yet again.

[🏅Dooks]

I'm all for a rebuild. Really, no one should be safe. palm off 2-3 better players per year for picks.

As for robbing Peter to pay Paul, Peter is a bastard anyway.

[Hellenic Tiger]

Yeah allright here's how it will go down.


1. Stick with coach and stay loyal. Regardless of no game plan, list clogger selections and poor results.

2. Suffer a number of humilaiting non competitive defeats. Then suffer one worse than all the others combined either by points margin, game turnaround or opponent.

3. Club reluctantly acts due to dwindling crowds and poor results. Sack coach.

4. Put assistant in charge for rest of the year. Win some games initially to boost spirits, but within a month back to the same old garbage. Fans divided go with assistant full time or seek process for new coach. Latter tends to win more often than not. Unless you beat Carlton at Optus Oval and you deprive them of a finals berth. A few token wins at the end of the year wallpaper the cracks.

5. New coach selected. Says all you want to hear. Like what a mum wants to hear from her straying teenage son. You can see it in her eyes she wants to believe you so you oblige.

6. Start off okay win a few lose a few finish 9th by not cutting too deep into the list other than a few rookies and kids who were in and out of the side for 20 odd games.

7. After you trade away your later round picks for bona fide Blair Bargain Basement BS, you have a poor run of form that sends off alarm bells in the club. Fans are getting restless. Skata Cycle is heading close to 40 years. Mid year revival boost spirits until you play a genuine contender around rd 17 needing to win to get into 8. Sixty eight points to the bad you only win one more game for the remainder of the year to finish 12th.

8. Club still doesn't heed warnings. Equivalent of Ben Marsh, Simon Fletcher and Kent Kingsley arrive at the club with later picks . Club suffers a number of consecutive non competitive humiliating defeats that leave it stone motherless last by a long way and in a nutshell you are back to point one again because this is the RFC.

Individually feel free to stretch the coaching tenure from anywhere between 3-5 years, depending on your mood and your care factor.

No full rebuilds, just tokenistic finals appearances and half hearted/baked measures apply.

[🏅Dooks]

You forgot:-

- repeat cycle again every 5-7 years indefinitely.
- powers that be scratch heads and arses.
- every second or third cycle, demand fans to financially contribute millions in extra payments to either save club or keep it up to speed with others.
- misspend funds with no improvement in output.
-powers that be scratch heads and arses. Apply topical cream.
- repeat cycle again.

[MintOnLamb]

All true, list management is the problem, i like all your suggestions Pope Lord, even Hawthorn traded superstar Buddy, we lose Delidii to injury and the whole team is stuffed.

You can talk  about player and club loyalty, the fans are the ones who stick with the club, not old players.

[Jackstar is back!!!]

Would suggest that players just " bleed the system "
Who is at fault ?
RFC who repeatedly fall in love with ordinary players
Gordon .Arnott Lloyd Grigg,etc

[Eat_em_Alive]

The writing is on the wall....
What will the club do??

I can see at Carlton they are already in full swing, Malthouse has till the end of the year to coach and I can bet almost anything they are already looking for the best coach to be his replacement. Wouldn't be suprised if they were throwing massive offers to managers of coaches like Clarkson, Lyon, Roos etc

whilst we will play the stability card let Dimma coach out the year and midway through next year have to sack him with a 1-9 result. Having missed our opportunity to grab a quality coach, assistants recruiters etc.

I think Dimma has done a good job with what he had, as at times I think his desicions have been forcefully club based. In fact I believe had we got in some quality senior assistants at end of 13' it could've made a difference to the way he coaches. Oh well....

[WilliamPowell]

All true, list management is the problem, i like all your suggestions Pope Lord, even Hawthorn traded superstar Buddy,

Incorrect

The Hawks didn't trade Buddy, he left as a free agent and they received compensation for him - massive difference

[Hellenic Tiger]

You forgot:-

- repeat cycle again every 5-7 years indefinitely.
- powers that be scratch heads and arses.
- every second or third cycle, demand fans to financially contribute millions in extra payments to either save club or keep it up to speed with others.
- misspend funds with no improvement in output.
-powers that be scratch heads and arses. Apply topical cream.
- repeat cycle again.

Thanks Dooks. Juggling a few things last night.  Just hurried my post. Thanks for that champ.

[🏅Dooks]

You forgot:-

- repeat cycle again every 5-7 years indefinitely.
- powers that be scratch heads and arses.
- every second or third cycle, demand fans to financially contribute millions in extra payments to either save club or keep it up to speed with others.
- misspend funds with no improvement in output.
-powers that be scratch heads and arses. Apply topical cream.
- repeat cycle again.

Thanks Dooks. Juggling a few things last night.  Just hurried my post. Thanks for that champ.

No worries. Hope the plums are on the mend