If He ReBuilds it, Finals will Keep Coming

[Donners]

You are not calling Kennelly quality?

Dean Cox came from the rookie list, and he is the premier ruckman in the AFL.

Brett Kirk is a champ, came from the rookie list.

The rookie list is a great idea from the AFL.

I think you're inventing your own point here. Are you just reading a couple of words in every sentence? I never said it's not a good idea at all, and nor did I say that great players haven't come from it.

I merely said that it is not a guarantee of a steady stream of quality players [how you get from that a suggestion Kennelly is not quality is beyond me], given that from about six players per year (albeit some recycled from previous years), only a handful have gone on to become senior players. Hence, as Liz originally said, our expanded list doesn't necessarily make rebuilding any easier.

[hammo]

I agree with SimonH's posts.

Injecting some new fringe players is not rebuilding, that will occur when our KPP - Hall, MOL, Leo, Kirk - retire.

Sydney proved in 2005 that clubs can win premierships without "bottoming out" and harvesting high draft picks. Geelong did exactly the same thing in 2007 (thay have been a consistent mid-table finals side like Sydney).

St Kilda's woes prove that bottoming-out is no guarantee of winning a flag, even if you do assemble the best talent on paper through high draft picks.

As Liz said, it remains to be seen whether Hawthorn can convert potential and talent into a grand final winning team.

[Legs Akimbo]

Hawthorn have achieved nothing yet.

And while I agree our expanded rookie list is some advantage, I don't think you can say it is "massive". The only senior players we've got from it are Bevan and Barlow. I think it's a long bow to draw to say other youngsters developed more quickly because they got to play alongside Rowe, Shaw, Clarke and Potter for a couple of years.

Liz, how can you wax lyrical about 'cracker jack' in one thread and not refer to his two years on the rookie list in this one? Would Sydney have perservered with him without the extra spots? How about Kirk's lifeline. Would he be with us today without the low risk opportunity afforded to him through the rookie list? So we are up to Kirk, Jack, Barlow, Bevan, Kennelly (see comments below on Murphy), Brennan (depth player), Grundy (likely type), Smith.

Perhaps more importantly, if you look at it from an opportunity cost perspective, the benefit of a rookie spot is an open spot on the senior list. Could we afford to experiment with Murphy and Orreal if they took up two spots on our senior list? I believe that our current draft strategy is founded on our expanded rookie list. We use high picks to draft proven senior players and use our expanded rookie list to find the roughed up diamonds like Jack so there are younger players coming through underneath. I stand by my comment. It is a "massive" advantage.

Re bottoming out, I'll emphasise:

1. It is not a gaurantee of success, but having top picks and priority picks is likely to pay off in the long run. It's all about probability. If this were not true, the NBL and others would not have instituted a draft lottery (something the AFL should consider).

2. Bottoming out is not a precondition to doing well. Merely one avenue to eventual success, if you play your cards right. Clearly, Richmond has not drafted well despite its many opportunities and Hawthorn has (and so has Carlton, and so did St Kilda). St Kilda just had a dickhead for a coach.

[hot potato]

The rap that Paul Gough was giving Roosey and the Swans shows again how perplexing this team is to many observers. As a member you find them perplexing: viz the win against the Eagles and the one against Port. He did fail to mention the medical staff, and the brialliant job they perform and have performed for many years now. Ther'e a tough bunch, take a ton of punishment but enjoy the best practice medical and recovery care availabe it appears.

[liz]

Legs

I will concede that it is not quite as straightforward as saying that Bevan and Barlow are the only two local rookies to graduate, and that the expanded list may influence the way the rest of the rookie list is used. However, you can't get away with attributing Kirk, Kennelly, Grundy, Smith et al to the Swans' expanded list. Nor do I believe that the recruiting of Murphy or Orreal were significantly affected.

For a start, both Kennelly and Kirk graduated before Sydney was granted an expanded list so they are clearly irrelevant. Grundy and Vogels? I guess you have to look at Hayes, Clarke and Shaw and decide which they'd have chosen if they could only have 3 of them. I suspect they'd have gone for Shaw, simply because he was a ruckman, but it is just as likely to have been at the expense of Garruba or Potter getting a second year as at Reg's expense. (I read that Sydney had been following Reg for some time and were linked with him in the main draft - clearly they had some concerns that led them to let him slip to the rookie draft but he was on their radar. Would they have picked Clarke over him? Who knows - it's speculation.)

Go to the following year. Let's assume that their first rookie pick, Simpkin, would have been chosen anyway. So then we come to tossing up the likes of Barlow, Rowe and Prior against Currie and Wall (sticking to comparing talls with talls). Who knows which they'd have picked if three had to go by the wayside?

The Jack question is an interesting one since (as I'm sure you know) he was not a local rookie. Did he get that last place on the list just because they'd already been able to stack up with Barlow, Rowe and Prior? I accept it's a reasonable argument to make but one we don't know the answer to. And of course he may well have been chosen over Flipper, since Flipper's size was always going to be more of an issue than Jack's.

I don't think you can make any argument that Smith's recruitment had anything to do with an expanded list. He was their next choice after the national draft. The impact of the local rookies last year was a bit ambiguous since I think we went in one spot short. I have no idea which two of Shaw (who was redrafted) and the retained Barlow and Rowe counted as locals. But since we didn't use all three spots, it is hard to mount an argument that we wouldn't have taken Brennan or retained Jack were it not for this concession.


If we'd been consistently getting a higher hit rate out of our local rookies than national ones, your argument would be stronger. But the facts don't support that.

[SimonH]

I think everyone has a piece of the truth re: the rookie draft.

While the number of quality long-term players picked up by Sydney as local rookies hasn't been huge, just 2 or 3 players is 2 or 3 more than the other 14 teams (bar Brisbane) are getting. In an even competition, that can be significant.

Of course the rookie draft is a crapshoot, where you can win big but the odds are on you losing. So it's a numbers game. And your club needs to be fairly solvent to play. Sydney had 9 rookies (3 local) on its list fairly consistently across the 2003-2007 period. This was a huge advantage compared with the Roos who for most of that period couldn't afford more than 1 or 2 rookies. Even at a 10% success rate, that's about 4 long-term players across 5 years, that we have gained on them and a few other impoverished Melbourne clubs. Again, where the system is tailored to spread talent as evenly as possible, that kind of advantage is very significant.

For all of the unhappiness about Canberra, I think that having a true reserves team, coached by the inner sanctum, can't be underestimated. Would Bevan, Jack, Bird (played a fair bit of 2s even though wasn't on the list), Moore, White, Currie, Smith and a few others be in the same position in their development if they were fed off to some unrelated team under a coach whose only priority was winning games now and playing under his own gameplan, where they would be playing in the 2nds if they couldn't make the top 12 discarded Swans for that week? Sure, most of our guys take some time to debut-- but once they do, they fit into the team comparatively smoothly and quickly.

There are a whole lot of things that contribute to the Swans turning dud draft picks, and rookies, into gold with such monotonous regularity. Let's just hope the other clubs don't crack the secret.

[Legs Akimbo]

Legs

The Jack question is an interesting one since (as I'm sure you know) he was not a local rookie.

I defer to your superior knowledge and use of sarcasm.

[liz]

I defer to your superior knowledge and use of sarcasm.

No sarcasm intended. You're an exceedingly well-informed poster and I had presumed you were aware of this.

[31 hard at it]

I think a team culture is very important in the success or otherwise of any group.
How often said that the best team will beat a group of champions.

The Swans culture , presided over by Roos , Kirk & Co has shown how players of average achievement elsewhere can lift to new heights.

A champion culture is what allows a team to stay competitive even though the odds are against them.

We have had very few blow-out losses over the last 4 years.
Swans don't give up or stop running!

[Legs Akimbo]

No sarcasm intended. You're an exceedingly well-informed poster and I had presumed you were aware of this.

I am opinionated but not informed. Didn't mean to offend (I actually did not know).

EDIT: I feel an inch high. There is something particularly mortifying about falsely accusing someone of sarcasm.

[NMWBloods]

The team that played last week has 16 of the same players as the 2006GF. Hardly a "rebuild".

[swantastic]

The team that played last week has 16 of the same players as the 2006GF. Hardly a "rebuild".

6 newbies thats over 25% of the team,i'd say thats a fairly decent "rebuild."

[swansrule100]

i still wonder where the goals are comming from in 3-4 years

we also need a 2nd ruckman to help jolly, unless everitt plans on a stunning end to this season and keeps going.

Fact is even last year we werent that bad, our best forward was struggling with injury form and confidence and we lost a few games we normally would win. We are still the side roos built in 2003 onwards with the odd variation

[SimonH]

6 newbies thats over 25% of the team,i'd say thats a fairly decent "rebuild."

6 changes in a year and a half is actually a relatively small change, bearing in mind injuries and 'form loss' (let's not make this another Davis thread). Compare any other team's 22 from last week with the 22 that played in their last game in 2006.

There's a lot of hype about 'rebuilding' and 'cleaning out'. It's unavoidably an incremental process in the modern age with salary caps, drafts and restricted trading. In 2007, the Pahhhhr made a big marketing point about the 'Powerrevolution', the youth coming through and building a new empire. 10 of the same 22 players ran out for them in the 2007 GF as in the 2004, including many of their most important: Cornes x 2, Lade, Tredrea, Burgoyne x2. A large number of teams would have turned over about half of their best 22 in the same 3 years, without making such a song and dance about it. (Sydney have been relatively stable, with only 7 players who played in the last game of 2004 no longer on our list.)

Unless you just admit defeat that your list is totally crap and you won't get from the bottom of the table for years until the young'uns develop, you can't turn over 7-10 players in a year. 3 to 6 is all you can, or want to, manage: and that number includes never-debuted youth being axed, as well as superannuated older players and outgoing trades.

[swansrule100]

the things roosy is getting praise for now

if we had fallen this year as "experts" claimed, theyd be laying into him for having players like hall, kikr, jude, leo, micky o etc in the team