Young guns

[dawson]

Would Rocket Eade have played Rogers???

What about McVeigh, Bevan, etc.

Roos may be forced to have to play them due to injury but I just felt during the last months of the Eade era that he wasn't playing any kids.

[TheHood]

Fixter was the last kid he played and he wasn't exactly talked up by Rocket.

I tend to think that Roosy unearths them, then finds a position they can excel in regularly and then talks up their contribution as being a highlight for that game or whatever.

Speaking of the Fix, does anyone else remember that game he had against West Coast at Subi in 2002? What a game he played, chased everything down, kicked goals, I thought we had a potential star on our hands. Sadly it's still just potential.

[stellation]

He played Ricky Mott... which I guess was because of injury... but he was still a kid... and he kicked the goal to beat the bombers at staidum oz and save Eade's coaching career!

[TheHood]

Originally posted by stellation
He played Ricky Mott... which I guess was because of injury... but he was still a kid... and he kicked the goal to beat the bombers at staidum oz and save Eade's coaching career!

In hindsight, I am glad he missed!

[NMWBloods]

I think Eade played young guys (eg: Barry, J Bolton, Crouch, Fixter, Fosdike, Goodes, James, Kennelly, Mathews, Nicks, O'Loughlin, Saddington), he just often didn't give them that much time on the field and didn't tolerate mistakes.

[Charlie]

What is a good return from youngsters/debutants?

Eade debuted 28 players in his tenure as coach. They were, if anyone's interested:

Gerrard Bennett
Jude Bolton
Amon Buchanan
Fred Campbell
Stefan Carey
Troy Cook
Jared Crouch
Stephen Doyle
Simon Feast
Ryan Fitzgerald
Ben Fixter
Nic Fosdike
Adam Goodes
Heath James
Tadhg Kennelly
Clinton King
Mark Kinnear
Brett Kirk
Paul Licuria
Ben Mathews
Ricky Mott
Matthew Nicks
Ryan O'Keefe
Brett O'Farrell
Brent Piltz
Jason Saddington
John Stevens
Scott Stevens

Out of that group, that represents 6.5 yearly 'crops' of debutants, we currently have 14 still on the list - 50%. Of those, the jury is still out on Buchanan, who hasn't had a great chance to show what he can do.

So I'll say we've had success in obtaining 13 proven players from those crops. That includes Doyle, James and Fixter, who it should be noted have all had their significant injury problems. Of the ten remaining, Adam Goodes is a superstar. Bolton, Crouch, Fosdike, Kennelly, Kirk, Mathews, O'Keefe and Saddington are all senior players. Nicks was, but the general consensus here is that his career is nearly, if not already, over.

The question I have for you all is, do you think that 9 current senior players, 3 talented but developing players and 1 unproven player represent a good, average or poor return from the original 28 players?

[dawson]

Originally posted by stellation
He played Ricky Mott... which I guess was because of injury... but he was still a kid... and he kicked the goal to beat the bombers at staidum oz and save Eade's coaching career!

I thought he missed............

[swans_premiers]

I think he was being sarcastic.

[robbieando]

With Eade, I think his problem wasn't selecting the young players, but how he used them once he had them in the senior team. Most of the time, they were used off the bench and in some cases if they did play from the start it was out of position. Take Nic Fosdike, under Eade he played most of his football off the bench and in fact one season he was the most interchanged player in the AFL. He hardly had time on the ground to make a difference.

Once Roos took over, he backed the young player and gave them plenty of game time to grow into the footballers we need. Even now we have Paul Bevan getting a fair bit of game time, which under Eade would not of happened.

[timthefish]

not that anyone has really had a mean go at rocket, i think it should be remembered that he was under a lot of pressure to maintain the level and hope to just go one better in his final year.

he appeared quite reluctant to take lockett back, but with him in the team and kelly and cresswell every chance to give it away at the end of 2002 i'm not surprised that he came to the conclusion that rebuilding would have to wait.

in hindsight it all went horribly wrong for rocket, but things were a whole lot clearer by the time roos took the helm. season was stuffed. lockett was gone. kelly was going. rebuild.

it is true though that he was impatient with developing players when he did play them, and i think that was a strong sign that he'd lost his connection with the group.

tim

[Nico]

Originally posted by robbieando
With Eade, I think his problem wasn't selecting the young players, but how he used them once he had them in the senior team. Most of the time, they were used off the bench and in some cases if they did play from the start it was out of position. Take Nic Fosdike, under Eade he played most of his football off the bench and in fact one season he was the most interchanged player in the AFL. He hardly had time on the ground to make a difference.

Once Roos took over, he backed the young player and gave them plenty of game time to grow into the footballers we need. Even now we have Paul Bevan getting a fair bit of game time, which under Eade would not of happened.

I think what you are saying here Robbie is that Eade did not know how to develop young footballers, and/or did not have the personal skills to develop them. I reckon that both Fosdike and Bolton did not have a full game under Eade and at the best only ever played a half.

Self preservation mode I call it. Would rather pick up average so called footballers to plug holes which developed mediocrity, but enough to keep him in the job. You could hardly call Eade a "professional coach".

[Bart]

Originally posted by Charlie
Brent Piltz

Jeez, remember this poor bloke. Eerily shades of Rogers this weekend.

Elevated from the rookie list....First and only game against the Bombers....in Melbourne.......

IIRC he came on in the last quarter, had one handpass, one kick, one clanger that led to the Bombers getting within a kick, and a few minutes later it was all over.

Never to be heard of again.

[undy]

Originally posted by Bart
Jeez, remember this poor bloke. Eerily shades of Rogers this weekend.

Elevated from the rookie list....First and only game against the Bombers....in Melbourne.......

IIRC he came on in the last quarter, had one handpass, one kick, one clanger that led to the Bombers getting within a kick, and a few minutes later it was all over.

Never to be heard of again.

He had one tackle too.

Looks as though he plays for North Albury - Kirky's old club. Check out the Kirk look in the last millenium:

here