Schwab Backs Roos

[Thunder Shaker]

Originally posted by NMWBloods
I looked it up a few months ago. Found a site about it, but I can't seem to find it any more. It was somewhere in the highlands IIRC.

Google is your friend.

[Snowy]

Originally posted by Schneiderman
Maybe. But James Hird was recruited at pick 70. MOL was pick 40. Goodes was 43. Simon Black was 31. For every Judd (remember he was 3 not 1) or Reiwoldt, there are plenty that get picked up very late in the draft.

Paul Roos has stated that he has lost some of the faith in the draft. He is not the only one mind you, as Kevin Sheedy is in a similar predicament IMO, and has used the Rookie list well too.

Things to consider:
1. The Draft is a lottery. Apart from the reward-for-poor-performance regime it employs, there is also the Father-Son element that messes things up. And then the pre-Draft trading.
2. The kids you get to look at are 17 or 18. Thats a good ten years before most of them mature to their maximum capabilities! Do you know what you will be doing in ten years? There are so many hurdles (form, development, bulk, injuries, mental strength) to cross before you get there that its the most difficult crystal-balling excercise for the coaches. The only players worth anything are the rare exceptional few who are good enough to play AFL at 18-20, which is not even the first round of picks in most Drafts.
3. If you need an immediate boost to your stocks, the Draft certainly wont provide it. The players are too small and weak at 17-18 to slot straight into your side, and simply playing them every week wont necessarily ensure they mature faster. Instead they may well get more easily injured and mentally scarred by playing on battle-hardened 28yr olds. Look at poor Richard Tambling for example.
4. There are ample stocks of Rookie potentials out there. These are young men who have 4 or 5 yrs of senior footy under their belt. They have developed mentally and physically to the point where assessing them is a surer bet. They may not make it in the AFL, but you are a heck of a lot more informed about what they can and cant do. Vogels is a great example of this. He can walk onto the field in only his fifth month at the club, and not stand out like the raw recruit that Ericksen would have made at the same stage in his tenure.

Still don't agree with that line of thinking, someone like Hird was picked up before the scientific database for drafting was created. You rarely get gems late in the draft these days. The trick is to get the earliest picks. You might have to wait a couple of years for them to develop but that's the only way to build a flag winning list. The present one hasn't got a snowflake's chance in hell of pulling a flag off it and most Swans fans know that deep down. Anyway I think that young draftees seem to be developing earlier these days.
p

[cruiser]

I recall a doco on ABC about the draft and Des Headland was picked up early in the draft by Brisbane. Now he's struggling to maintain his spot at Freo (picked this weekend after being dropped). In that same draft, Fevola was picked up around 35-40.

[Bear]

hee hee

funny how other coaches are happy with the way Roos has the Swans playing...............

[hammo]

Schwab's article raised some interesting points and mostly I agree with him.

But one which concerned me was our history of early draft picks. McVeigh looks composed at times but is not developing as fast as we might hope, Fosdike is a handy player at best, Willoughby is yet to make his debut, and we traded away our last pick for Jolly who admittedly is one of our best this year.

It just seems to take an eternity for our early draft picks to establish themselves.

I look at the top 10 picks at Hawks, Tigers, Dogs and their youngsters all seem to be AFL-ready.

[chammond]

What a pleasure to read a considered and reasonably balanced assessment from a former player and coach.

Compare it with the hotch-potch of half-baked cliches, motherhood statements, and headline-grabbers that we get from twits like Robert Walls and Mike Sheahan.

[Nico]

Originally posted by hammo
Schwab's article raised some interesting points and mostly I agree with him.

But one which concerned me was our history of early draft picks. McVeigh looks composed at times but is not developing as fast as we might hope, Fosdike is a handy player at best, Willoughby is yet to make his debut, and we traded away our last pick for Jolly who admittedly is one of our best this year.

It just seems to take an eternity for our early draft picks to establish themselves.

I look at the top 10 picks at Hawks, Tigers, Dogs and their youngsters all seem to be AFL-ready.

That's because they don't get picked for the firsts. When they do eventually get a game the Rotational King uses them as burst players for approximately 2 minutes and 45 seconds, but 20 times a game so it appears that they have had 50+ minutes ground time.

After 2-3 games they are sent back to the 2's because they have lost fitness and need to regain it. In the fine tradition of young players coming through the ranks at the Swans they are said to "not if they are Arthur or Martha".

This is a tradition at Sydney set by the last 2 coaches. The previous coach to that was very good and got the players fit and playing good footy. The coach prior to that did not resemble a coach's lemonade and didn't know if his posterier was on fire, so the players were unfit, didn't have a clue and didn't know the game plan if we had one. This coach followed the fine tradition of ex Hawthorn coaches in that apart from one, are very adept at stuffing up a football club.

The point of the matter here is we should have tradition at this club no matter what. We should follow that tradition blindly and all will prevail - in 2106.