mightytigers - what a great post you put together regarding our recruiting in the past. It really put things into context for me and coupled with smokey's recent recruiting post explains very clearly why we are where we are at as a club and why we are now starting to show some promise.
I think it is very clear that we are on the brink of some long awaited success at Tigerland and it is our recent recruits that will take us there.
If I was to create a current team out of your recruitment list from 2004 onwards Smokey it would look something like this -
Rance Thursfield King
McGuane Gourdis Oakley-Nichollas
Cotchin Putt Deledio
White Polo Connors
Tambling Riewoldt White
Edwards Hughes Morton
Interchange - Collins, Pattison/Graham, Meyer, Collard.
If you throw in some addition players such as Schulz and Moore into the backline (2002 draft), Raines and McMahon that looks like a strong, promising unit to me. Add more new recruits over the next few years and we have the makings of a powerful team IMHO.
Stripes
Yep Stripes it's a pleasant to change at Punt Rd to be able to write down a full 21 and under side even if some of those above as a reality of footy life won't make the grade (only about half of them do even at top clubs - a bonus if more do). There no guarantees of ultimate success for any club but as you say we add more youngsters in the next few drafts especially in areas we still need (ruck, onballers and another KPP or two) and in a few years time we'll have a strong list with depth all maturing and coming through together to genuinely and finally challenge after 3 decades of chasing quick fixes and a ficticious messiah who will cure all our ills both on and off field.
ficticious messiah ,lololol l like that.
we have had a few of them .
but l agree recruiting of youngsters is the way to go.
but what l find worrying is some of them struggle to hit targets with there disposals.
they seem unsure alot when they get the ball,and wallet continues with his game plan which l think the players we have cant execute it properly.
and the chip chip game is not the way we should be heading its flawed .
lm not judging wallet on the position of our ladder finish .
lm judging him on how he gets our team to preform week in week out,and how he improves our younger players ,at this stage our more experienced players are holding the fort for us.
Richo, Browny, Simmo, Tuck, Sugar, Newy, Bowden and McMahon are our experienced players in terms of age and AFL games played from this and next weekend. That's less than half the current team. The others like Tivs, Petts and Hyde are on the outer for obvious reasons. We are still filtering and adding to our future core who are 22 and under at this stage to see who is really up to it.
Team vs Essendon. Ten U22s to the Bombers' six on the weekend:
30: Bowden (247), Brown (204), Johnson (214), Simmonds (173)
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26: Tuck (85), Newman (127)
25: McMahon (130)
24: Moore (40)
23: Schulz (62)
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22: Foley (65), Pattison (50), Thursfield (34)
21: Polo (30), Tambling (69), Deledio (78), Hughes (16), McGuane (26), Morton (23), White (32)
19: Edwards (26), Riewoldt (20)
18: Cotchin (9)
31: Michael (232)
30: Lloyd (246), Lucas (255)
29: Peverill (139)
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27: Hille (140), Ramanauskas (128)
25: Lovett-Murray (79), McPhee (141), Welsh (129)
23: Atkinson (3), Laycock (54), Watson (66)
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22: Dyson (58), Nash (35), Slattery (46), Stanton (92)
21: Lonergan (14), Monfries (66)
20: Jetta (17), Neagle (
, Ryder (46)
19: Reimers (16)
I know what your saying in terms of how we play. We need the whole side running, supporting and working hard together for Wallace's gameplan to work. When that doesn't happen (3rd qtr on Saturday) we go short, wide and move the ball slowly and then cough up the footy chronically via lack of options in space, poor disposal and decision making
. Being too safe is footy suicide. When we're on we can score quickly and kick bags in a quarter as we've shown this year. Likewise when we're off during a game (mostly 3rd quarters this year) we can similarly concede a lot of goals in a row. We still lack the leadership and experience out on the field to break the sleeping spell we seem to go under as a whole team for chunks of a game. Unfortunately young sides are up and down like yo-yos
.
As for Wallace yep he'll be judged on list management and gamestyle in 13-14 months time but ladder finish will still have a big say in whether Wallace is still around after 2009. He needs a finals appearance at the very least. If he doesn't he'll be gone.