Midaro's Weekly LRT thread

[ROK Lobster]

He has not got it. Sorry, thanks for your time Lewis but I am afraid you will have to move on. Really, for all this talk of potential and grooming and development, what would he be worth on the open market? Is there a single club that would take him? I doubt that he would get picked up by a VFL, SAFL or WAFL club. The club is wasting his time, and its time, playing him. It is not going to happen. As much as it would make for a wonderful story - Sydney private schoolboy comes good in the AFL - LRT wont come good. Henry Playfair went to Shore I think. Let's try and get him back...

The club would be better off naming Sanecow at CHB this week and saving on the airfare...

[stellation]

Originally posted by ROK Lobster

The club would be better off naming Sanecow at CHB this week and saving on the airfare...

I guess the cow at CHB would be okay, but only for one week. He has a touch of the Jon Browns about him and I'd wager on a suspension.

But back to LRT- I'm not saying he is the saviour, but I don't particuarly agree with the sink or swim approach that Roos seems to take with his younger tall defenders.

[Newbie]

Originally posted by stellation

But back to LRT- I'm not saying he is the saviour, but I don't particuarly agree with the sink or swim approach that Roos seems to take with his younger tall defenders.

We have absolutely no @@@@ing idea on how to nurture and develop young tall players. If Playfair was drafted by us, his fate would likely be no different than what we have seen of LRT today. LRT did show promise in his first year and it had been all down hill since.

This problem is directly linked to the culture of this club. All of our decent talls at the moment, were not developed from within. The last decent one we were able to discover is Dunkley. If Mooney and Carey were picked up initially by any other club, their fates might have been different.

Perhaps, since we dont know how to develop them, we incline to draft them. There is no young tall in our list after LRT at the moment. If the LRT experiment fails, we should be looking for:
1. A trade to get a tall from somewhere else.
2. At least another five year before we could see a home-grown decent tall.

Neither of the options are appealing to me. The pattern is balistically disappointing.

[liz]

Originally posted by Newbie

This problem is directly linked to the culture of this club. All of our decent talls at the moment, were not developed from within. The last decent one we were able to discover is Dunkley. If Mooney and Carey were picked up initially by any other club, their fates might have been different.

What exactly is the "culture" of the club and how does it contribute to a failure to develop any quality young talls? Are you saying it is to blame for career ending injuries to Carey, Mooney (yes, both were physically gone before they left the club), Fitzgerald and probably (soon) James and maybe Doyle?

I might buy an argument that there is a lack of knowledge of how to nuture a young tall's body - although that would be speculation only - but am fascinated on how this mythical "culture" is to blame.

[RogueSwan]

Originally posted by ScottH
It is about time LRT got dropped, he did nothing last night. Nothing!

The biggest nothing was Robertsons screamer he just floated across the front and missed the whole thing.

With everyone's golden boy Dempster the launching pad

[LittleSchneider]

I would have to agree the LRT hasnt got what it takes - especially at CHB.

But, all this talk of changing the team week in week out with multiple changes may not be the answer. A team needs to time to knit together and work combinations etc. If we continue to chop and change the personal no one will settle and everyone will be more afraid of making mistakes and getting dropped than attacking the footy and concentrating on winning games.

It doesnt take a genius to work out that the Swans have no flow in their game at the moment - and maybe this could be contributing to that fact.

Personally - I think we need to let the younger ones settle and play their own game and the older ones to step up (obviously) but chopping and changing is not the answer.

[Newbie]

Originally posted by liz


What exactly is the "culture" of the club and how does it contribute to a failure to develop any quality young talls? Are you saying it is to blame for career ending injuries to Carey, Mooney (yes, both were physically gone before they left the club), Fitzgerald and probably (soon) James and maybe Doyle?

I might buy an argument that there is a lack of knowledge of how to nuture a young tall's body - although that would be speculation only - but am fascinated on how this mythical "culture" is to blame.

We tolerate senior players with marginal roles. We emphasize accountability, chase, and tackle more than basic footy skills (kickings and markings). Combining these makes a dangerous cocktail. Accoubtability puts a heavy toll on the bodies. With marginal roles taken by established players, younger players have to be throwed into the deep end often before they are ready.

Saddo and Schneider are both victims of this culture. I would not be surprised to see Davis would be the next one.

[liz]

Originally posted by Newbie
We tolerate senior players with marginal roles.

Who at the moment is a senior player with a marginal role?

Originally posted by Newbie
We emphasize accountability, chase, and tackle more than basic footy skills (kickings and markings). Combining these makes a dangerous cocktail.

Do we? Surely accountability, chase and tackle are integral parts of a successful team. Certainly it is something that Brisbane, Port, Geelong and St Kilda do and do well. Which was the last team to win a premiership playing a non-accountable, non-physical style of football.

The best teams know how to be accountable while still knowing when to run to present.

Accoubtability puts a heavy toll on the bodies. With marginal roles taken by established players, younger players have to be throwed into the deep end often before they are ready.

Saddo and Schneider are both victims of this culture. I would not be surprised to see Davis would be the next one.

That is strange because the common criticism on here is that younger players are kept in marginal roles for far too long, and not given the licence to get more heavily involved.

How are Saddo and Schneider victims of this? Are you suggesting that their injuries are due to too high a workload too young? If so, how do you explain the persistent injuries to Doyle, James, Fitzgerald, Sundqvist, Malceski et al? How about Jason Ball? Was he given too much responsibility / workload to young?

How about Goodes who debuted in his second year at the club and largely carried the ruck on his own that year due to injuries to others. He's currently on a consecutive games streak of well over 100 games.

Regardless of my comments above, the characteristics of which you speak are not elements of club culture. They are aspects of style of play.

Would the club's culture become this mythical "winning culture" of which Footyhead speaks so often if Roos were to employ a Terry Wallace style of free-wheeling, total lack of accountability that he is trying to implement at the Tigers and was well displayed on Saturday?

[Barry Schneider]

Wake up Liz.Stop the defending the indefensible.We have to develop a winning culture and lengthen the SCG by 20 feet.
That is the only way forward.

[Newbie]

Originally posted by liz
Regardless of my comments above, the characteristics of which you speak are not elements of club culture. They are aspects of style of play.

The style of play is directly linked to the club culture. The Kangaroos is one of the most obvious example. Geelong case is another apparent case. Same for St Kilda of old. A new coach could stir the cup and add a bit of new flavour to it, but unless we change the substances, it is still the same cup of tea.

I feel we do really well to develop players to be competitive but we do not know how to help players to reach their full potentials.
That is a direct implication of the club culture where mediocrity is accepted. If Barry Hall was drafted by us, I would not be surprised to see him develop as decent player with no ego. Yet he would be contributing much earlier but would never reach the level of performance that we expect of him today.

For this same mentality (i.e., safety first), we could not make hard decisions at culling players. That is one of the reasons that our players get complacency too easily. And that is a part of the our culture obviously.

[liz]

Originally posted by Newbie
If Barry Hall was drafted by us, I would not be surprised to see him develop as decent player with no ego. Yet he would be contributing much earlier but would never reach the level of performance that we expect of him today.

And yet Hall has become a clearly better player since coming to Sydney, since becoming (at his admission) more team orientated and clearly better disciplined.

Culture is one of these words bandied about but few really know what it means, how it grows or how it is changed. It is also very very hard to know the culture of an organisation unless you have a fair amount of direct contact with it.

The only belief that I can see that maybe contributes to the Swans "culture" is that we can't afford to be down the bottom of the ladder for an extended period. That has undoubtedly affected recruitment in the past and maybe it still does to an extent (though I don't see it over the past couple of years).

I don't see how that affects the players' ability to kick more directly - or indeed kick to a team mate.

Maybe there are skill deficiencies within the Swans football department. Maybe our recruitment is suspect or our skills coaching deficient. Maybe there is a lack of knowledge of how to win a premiership - though the recruitment of Ireland should have partly addressed that. But I consider that these relate to the abilities of those at the club - not the "culture".