We overate and fall in love with players

[Jackstar]

Looking at what players scored votes in the Brownlow last night makes me think of what a mess our list really is and how much we fall in love and over pay ordinary footballers.
We had a total of 7 players who scored votes.Pathetic !
36 Votes in total were scored with Richo and Brown contibuting half of that.Now for those sticking up for Ottens who is massively overpaid should take a closer look and give an opinion from the head and not the heart.
Yep, you guessed it , NO VOTES.
Other Richmond champs who didnt get vote are Rodan, Krakouer, Chaffey, Kellaway,Pettifer, Stafford,Fiora,Hall,Hyde,Newman,Fleming, Zantuck and dont forget Dr Who ( Gaspar)
Now you can see why we are where we are.
Have a good look at the other clubs and who got votes.

[JohnF]

Great topic Jackstar.

Even though the Brownlow isn't the best gauge for a players worth, there is no denying that we overrate our players and i'm glad that the Brownlow medal votes we recieved backs that up.

In particualr it was telling with Ottens, who for all the good statistics he had, failed to have any impact in turning matches.

Also not surprising to see other overrated players like Krakouer not get a vote.

The worrying thing is that if there were votes for the best ten players on the ground, the players you listed probably still wouldn't have registered a vote!
 

[Jackstar]

The Ottens situation is very interesting. The media tend to build him up and the public grab hold of it and run with it. His stats in regards to hit-outs are absolute crap as they go to NO advanatage.
How many contested marks did he take this year, my 2yo could tell you that and  she can only count to six maybe seven with a bit of prompting.
There lies our first BIG problem
We overate our players, that for sure.
John F, I take on board that the Brownlow mighten be the best guage although over the past 3-5 years, the best player has usually won the award.
And also it is pretty unbiased , unlike the media awards

[mightytiges]

There's no question we overrate our players. The amount we have payed some of them is a clear sign of that. However given we are the wooden spooners who won only 4 games out of 22 then it's not surprising we only had 7 vote getters. Just an obvious outcome IMHO.  We had no one who was consistently outstanding in a poor side when you look at Scotty West who got 20 votes in a side that won only one more game than us.

If you look at our games the only ruckman to get votes was Everitt in rounds 6 and 21. Ironically round 6 was probably Otto's best game of the year and IMO he and Everitt came out even. They were both in the best players for each team. Otto was out injured along with Stafford by round 21. 
Alternatively the votes to our opposition continually went to their midfielders and key forwards which comes back not surprisingly to our lack of quality and depth in our midfield as well as weakness in key backline posts.   

I still have alot of time for Otto as IMO he still has the talent to be a top player. He needs a decent coach who can get the best out of him and won't tolerate below standard efforts (unlike Spud) and  that will build (as opposed to Spud who destroyed) the team structures around him to get him there. He also IMO needs to be played in the forward line with only occasional stints in the ruck. Thank you Terry!

[froars]

When you've had someone in control of our list for the last 5 years or whatever who's done what he's done, I'm not surprised we're down the bottom with no Brownlow votes.
I did expect more from some players - but injury and playing with a woeful team has meant their performance degenerates to the same rabble or hardly likely to get a vote even if they played ok.
I can't remember who got our votes - but they were mainly Bowden, Richo, Brown and Johnston -  all our older players.  That makes it a worse situation IMO.
Makes me think be a long time before we win another medal. 
Brownlow Medal voting must have changed a bit though over the years.  I remember in years gone past perennial cellar dwellers in the Saints, Dogs, South Melbourne etc players all doing well.  Could be wrong, but how could players from eras where a team was on the bottom poll well in the Brownlow.
MT, do you have a list of Brownlow medallists and where their teams finished for the year?  I'm thinking of the likes of Skilton, Bedford, Schulz, Murray, Ross Smith.  They might have been higher up the ladder and my memory is blurred, but i think that many of the Brownlow medallists came from clubs who were near the bottom of the ladder or close.  Just wonder why. 

[Fwoy3]

I was actually surprised at how many votes we got...considering how pathetic our games were. To be ranked in the top three on field when quite often we were lucky to put in half a games effort was amazing. Credit to Joel Browny and Richo for their efforts.

That said though, I agree that we rate our players too highly. Bring on the trades...

[mightytiges]

Here you go froars  

Skilton (Sth Melb)
1959 - 9th
1963 - 11th
1968 - 9th
Bedford (Sth Melb) 1970 - 4th
Schulz (Foots) 1960 - 10th
Murray (Fitz) 1969 - 10th
Ross Smith (St K) 1967 - 5th

All the above were in a 12 team comp.

In the last 9 years only Crawford (99) won the medal playing for a side that didn't make the finals and the Hawks finished 9th that year out of 16 teams.

Source: AFL 2004

[froars]

Thanks MT - have you got a link for that pls?

[mightytiges]

I got that info from the AFL history/stats book (AFL 2004) that was available preseason.

A link to the brownlow winners is:

http://stats.rleague.com/afl/brownlow/brownlow_idx.html

froars you should be able to find where each club finished on the ladder on that website as well.

[froars]

Mucho

[JohnF]

Good players are good players. Guys like West and Ricciutto would poll votes even if they played for Richmond. Guys like Ottens won't poll votes anywhere becuase he is OVERRATED!

[Jackstar]

And that is why when the trade deal is done with Ottens, we mighten think we get much back in return eg Saddington.
Unfortunately the truth hurts.
At least this will allow us to attract the best uncontracted player now.
On Scott West, he is a very good example of a player who performs every week and is worth every cent. Unlike ,most players on our list !

[om21]

Aint that the truth......We kept guys on our list for being good clubmen. Re: Nathan Bower spending how many years on our list.
We do become too attached....instead of hammering players we embrace them and fail to see the fact that (for example) a guy like Otto cant win one hitout.....or a guy like Ray Hall struggles to take contested marks and is key-position....or a guy like Fleming cant hit a target.

We find an excuse everytime......good bloke, hes injured, but he tries hard, no support...and the list goes on.

Top thread!!!

[Puntroadroar]

(for example) a guy like Otto cant win one hitout.....

We find an excuse everytime......good bloke, hes injured, but he tries hard, no support...and the list goes on.

Top thread!!!

nah your wrong there!! 

Otto wins plenty of hitouts but not one of them hit our midfielders or are placed to our midfielders advantage. When was the last time we saw Otto thump a centre bounce 20 meters in our favour?

Nottens the limp wristed w@nker

[2JD]

Sorry to drag old topics back up to the top, but I have been away and have some catch up to do lol. This topic heading is one of my BIGGEST faults. I constantly fall in,love with the hero of the day, and hold on to the hope that they did it once/ twice, they can do it again...cant they?????
Then again, I'm not the one who hires and fires thank god (or we'd have a team full of the best looking duds in the AFL lol)