Agree that we need to take our medicine, but I'd rather develop our own immunity rather than take the antibiotics.
Put another way, what are the factors that have produced such an apparently underperforming list? We need to properly identify and correct these fundamentals before we need to address the list. It might well be possible to do both simultaneously, but all I'm saying is, given a choice, I'd rather see us address some fundamental deficiencies in our on and off field structure and processes than lay low for half a season. If we can achieve both, fine, but if we don't address some basics, then I can see the list (no matter what the make-up) underperforming ad infinitum. And if addressing these problems now means that we win some games, then that is palatable, even preferable to losing games. I'd also rather see us trade for picks than lose for them — something we haven't done enough of in the past.
Fair enough question. What factors have produced such an apparently underperforming list?
I guess a short reply is another question - Is this list actually underperforming or are we truly where we are at?!
Anyway what factors? Okay IMHO.....
1) PersonnelSimply put our lists including 95 and 2001 (outclassed and blown away in 2 out of 3 finals both times) have never been since 1983 anywhere near good enough to go with the more skillful and classier sides. We've in the past 15 years shown the classic signs of a club that has struggled for a long time. We overrate the playing list as soon as we win more games than we lose. Even now we are not underachieving or at least we cannot kid ourselves we are underachieving. The scoreboard and ladder never lies. In a year where 4/5s of the comp is mediocre we are sitting 15th four games and % behind even these mediocre teams after just 11 rounds. A blunt summation of the season is we've been outclassed in virtually every game even against Melbourne
. We try our guts out for 2 quarters and each time we get a sniff the opposition shift into another higher gear and we get left for dead. We need a significant addition of class into our playing list and the best chance of doing that is via early picks in the National draft and a number of them.
As I said we have some talented youngsters and a young core now to (re-)build around and all is not lost but we have only done half a job. To complete the rebuild we need to go to the well again and bottom out scoring as many early picks as possible. Trading blokes like Schulz, JON, Petts, Jordie, King and alike won't get you those early picks. Cogs won't either. You'll be lucky to even get a late pick for any of them. Unless you're willing to trade say a 27 year old Tuck or some quality youngster with potential then only tanking this year will enable us to score three top 20 picks needed to begin the necessary second rebuilding phase. We need to do it this year as well as opportunities will be limited due to the new teams coming in and raiding the drafts from 2010-12.
2) A man's team's got to know his their limitations!We allow expectations to well exceed the abilities of our list and then talk up these expectations even further in the media. That is asking for trouble and is a waiting disaster. When reality hits it totally devestates confidence and belief. Mentally it must be totally shattering for the playing group let alone us supporters to have such high hopes crushed within week or so into a new season and realising what high expectations you had you'll never get anywhere near and 6 months of hard preseason training equates to zip! It happened under Spud in round 2, 2002 against Essendon and now in round 1 this year under Wallace. Both coaches were deadman walking to use a Herald-Sun headline from those respective games. Geisch's Waterloo was round 22, 1998 but everyone knew with the club making no changes after that debacle he'd be a gonna by 1999. In each case the playing list and especially the older core were also goners and a cleanout and rebuild was required. After 1998 and 2002 we didn't have a cleanout and didn't rebuild. Let's not make the same mistake this time around.
3) ResourcesWell we've know for ages we've been one of if not the worst club in terms of resources or lack of. 16th in spending on the footy dept., no development coachs until 2 years ago, facilities dating back to the 80s at best, no permanent or quality preseason training base (Vic Park ain't it
), etc. This should improve dramatically by 2011 with the new MCG size Craigieburn facility and the Punt Rd realignment (Dome size) and total redevelopment giving us finally state of the art facilities to train, recover and develop our players. We've added development coaches. Next up would be looking at our fitness, conditioning and medical areas. I'm presuming this review would have looked into the latter. Our improving finances should give us greater scope to move in all areas of the footy dept. especially recruiting and having more scouts out and about. That's another argument for grabbing as many early draft picks as we can. We are finally starting to arrange a fully equip recruiting dept. that we need to compete in the AFL 2009 and beyond rather than one person beit Miller, Beck or whoever left to do our recruiting by themselves like we are back in the 1960s. The majority of our current list was chosen under the latter deficient 'process'. Now that we are putting in more money, resources and personnel into our recruiting let's give our recruiting staff the best chance to bring the best young talent in numbers to our Club via the National draft.
4) LeadershipNo argument here it's been poor. Not only within the playing group but right through the Club up to the top. The Club needs to shut up for once and let what happens onfield do the talking. We've been a gunna club - we're gunna do this and we're gunna do that. No more false promises and false dawns. Just shut up! The leaders of the club also need to present a firm, clear and consistent position for the rest of the club to follow. They need to set the standard. You can't have mixed messages coming out of Punt Rd where we're rebuilding via youth one minute, trading picks away for 22 y.o. players on the fringe the next, then rate one year a 5/10 effort but promise finals the next in the same breath as though we just had to turn up this year to make the top 8
. Same goes for the coach. We've had Spud with plan A but no plan B followed by Plough with plans A-Z but which one we played changed from week to week and year to year. Why change a gameplan and players positions over summer that was working for us ???. Same goes for the list manager - are we truly rebuilding or not! The whole club loses focus far too easily as soon as results don't happen as quickly as we would like them and we start taking shortcuts that hurt us. Surprise surprise that is what we see also onfield.
Hopefully Rawlings' changes this week is the first sign that the whole club from top to bottom is reseting our focus back on youth and the long-term future as 2009 is a write-off.
Really, if winning premierships were just as simple as collecting the most high draft picks, then we may as well just stop playing games and give the flag to the club with the mostest. I'm with Demetriou on this one — clubs that put their store in tanking for picks as the solution to problems have their priorities skewed.
I never said winning a flag is as simple as collecting the most high picks but it is the first step to bring into the Club the best young talent that you need to build towards one. Class wins flags. The best coaching and player development programs while still being necessary components (I agree we need them too) can't compensate if the cattle is ordinary to begin with.