NAB AFL Pre-Season/Rookie Drafts

[wedge.maverick]

He's 178 cm now...

That's 3 cm in 2 months he is growing. Sorry.

[Steve]

The whole 'we may as well take as many players as we can regardless of whether they're any good, just in case one might improve out of sight' argument doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

AFL is far from the only industry/profession where there is fierce competition for the best talent - but you don't see the top companies in their industries hiring all the stragglers they can find a desk for, just because there might be a 0.0001% chance they could be a good CEO one day.

We're putting our money into identifying and developing potential talent, which again is what is done in all other decent organisations.

[707]

Today's Age suggested budgetary constraints meant we didn't take our quota.

Given the comprimised drafts in 2010 and 2011, I would have thought we should have at least used pick 10 as there were still a number of players available that were rated "highly" -were considered likely ND picks. Here I'm thinking Dare, Weston, Panos, Hooper etc.

Time will be the arbitor of course, we may have saved money or we may have missed out.

[cruiser]

Put your hands up if you're hard to please . . . . . . sheesh.

We have done outstandingly well since September - appreciate that fact and get a grip.

I've just had a novel thought . . . . Anybody here criticising the decision not to draft extra rookies think that they know more about the kids/adults we passed up on than the club's recruiters? Anybody else seen them play once, let alone the required several occasions?

Thanks Claret, my thoughts exactly.

[Aaron]

I trust the staff know much more than we do but here are a few comments.
1. We had a list of 46 players last year including the likes of Fosdike ( I think the staff would have known his fate at PSD 2008). We have 45 this time.

2. We have two OUTSIDE veterans last year, but our 2 veterans are now listed as INSIDE which will affect the salary CAP and budget.
3. We had an operating lost for 2 successive years now.
4. The number of listed players we can have in reserve game is RESTRICTED.
5. The composition of the whole team has changed. There are now more younger and inexperienced players that require development and welfare attention. Some of the new recruits are still young and have good potential to guarentee our future.
6. We have invested more than 400 K for scholarship players ( I think we have 6 and may add more)
7.The Wetern Bulldog raised $50,000 at a fundraising event at Whitten Oval on Monday night(14/12) to allow them to have the fifth Rookie. WE HAVE 7 Rookies

[Chilcott]

I trust the staff know much more than we do but here are a few commnets.
1. We had a list of 46 players last year including the likes of Fosdike ( I think the staff would have know his fate at PSD 2008). We have 45 this time.

2. We have two OUTSIDE veterans last year, but our 2 veterans are now listed as INSIDE which will affect the salary CAP and budget.
3. We had an operating lost for 2 successive years now.
4. The number of listed players we can have in reserve game is RESTRICTED.
5. The composition of the whole team has changed. There are now more younger and inexperienced players that require development and welfare attention. Some of the new recruits are still young and have good potential to guarentee our future.
6. We have invested more than 400 K for scholarship players ( I think we have 6 and may add more)
7.The Wetern Bulldog raised $50,000 at a fundraising event at Whitten Oval on Monday night(14/12) to allow them to have the fifth Rockie.

Have noted your comments Aaron. But what are you trying to imply?

[Aaron]

Have noted your comments Aaron. But what are you trying to imply?

It means NO COMPLAINT from me. I am happy with what we have achieved in the Draft process.

[Hartijon]

It means NO COMPLAINT from me. I am happy with what we have achieved in the Draft process.

Yeah,me too. The 46 last year to 45 this year does not truly indicate the huge increase in workload on everyone in the club including the older players. Settling such a large number in, getting a strong statistical base ,knowing their strengths and weaknesses, checking their diets, organising new routines for them.Every coach from Roosey downwards has a huge challenge with this new bunch. Then there is the "Youth Factor " with hours of wise counsel needed and allowance for their exuberance and handling their frustrations if they don't get selected.

As much as I would like to have seen Panos or Crichton in our squad,I believe that the recruiters and club have made a wise decision financially although I don't really know, but certainly a wise one in Human Resource management.Even if we took these available blokes then could not develop them enough through games in the B's or opportunities in the A's they would be off at the first opportunity and all our investment would be wasted.

[liz]

This is a bit of an embarrassing article from Jake Niall - embarrassing because the premise behind it is that the Swans couldn't find a single rookie to draft from the whole state...despite the fact they actually drafted two.

Swans prove NSW is a no-go zone for talent

He also neglects to mention that two NSW/ACT players were taken in the main draft, and another 3 or 4 (apart from Gordon) have been given rookie spots on other clubs' lists.

[BSA5]

This is a bit of an embarrassing article from Jake Niall - embarrassing because the premise behind it is that the Swans couldn't find a single rookie to draft from the whole state...despite the fact they actually drafted two.

Swans prove NSW is a no-go zone for talent

He also neglects to mention that two NSW/ACT players were taken in the main draft, and another 3 or 4 (apart from Gordon) have been given rookie spots on other clubs' lists.

Shocking journalism. Of course, most people who read it won't have any idea who Dylan McNeil or Nathan Gordon are, nor any of the other NSW players taken in this draft. They may once they start playing senior football, but by that time the details of this article will have faded and just the general impression will remain, reinforcing the anti-AFL bias in NSW, and the anti-NSW bias in the AFL.

[SimonH]

Where did they say that?

Um, here?

"it passed on four non-compulsory selections, due in large part to budgetary constraints" and "The club said that tight finances were part of the reason."

Your joking, surely!!!!

My joking what? I don't have a joking surely (but it may be a good Xmas present for the man that has everything).

Perhaps they chose not to take any more rookies, not for financial reasons but simply because the time and work needed to be put into ALL the newbies would just be spreading the work load that bit too far and is a better LONG TERM INVESTMENT spent on the boys we have already picked up.

The truth is, I don't know why they passed up the picks, you don't know why they passed up the picks, NONE OF US, ON HERE, KNOWS WHY THEY PASSED UP THE PICKS.
All I do know is that THEY SEEM TO KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING and for us to be so damn critical is ridiculous!

Well, THEY SEEM TO PRETTY MUCH HAVE TOLD US (see above). No club has ever said 'we didn't pick up any more rookies because our coaching staff are over-stretched with the young talent we have, and it was just beyond them to develop more kids as well'. Nor would any club that values its credibility ever say such a thing.

What we know is: Adelaide 47, Brisbane 46, Carlton 46, Collingwood 47, Essendon 46, Fremantle 46, Geelong 47, Hawthorn 48, Melbourne 46, North Melbourne 46, Port Adelaide 47, Richmond 46, St Kilda 47, Swans 45, West Coast 46, Bulldogs 46. The difference is relatively slight, until you realise that we're entitled to have on average a list 3 players larger than all other clubs bar the Blions.

And some of the above clubs are on the bones of their arse-- North Melbourne and the Bulldogs' accountants have, in the recent past, signed off in their annual report that but for support of the AFL, the organisation is insolvent. The ND and RD are a numbers game-- even where the odds are way less than 50% on any given bet, the more balls you have in the draw, the better your chances of coming out a winner. Remember that we took not one single freakin' new player in the open part of the RD, and so every player available after pick 9 was one that we passed on (b/c we could have taken Playfair anywhere). And there was some undeniable quality out there-- not perfect, of course, but still quality. You'd be a rich man if you could identify now which ones, but we know that there will be some players picked after pick 10 in the 2009 AFL rookie draft, who will go on to be 100+ game players.

So the club's finances certainly indicate we're no Adelaide, Weagles or Essendon. We might not even be a mid-tier fiscal club like Blions, Freo, Hawthorn, Geelong. But even if we're in the bottom rung of clubs financially, we're doing worse than the rest of the bottom rung on this issue. it's a mistake to cut your on-field stocks to save money unless everything else has been cut first. And in terms of the way the club conducts its business, I haven't seen that happening. When in financial trouble, the absolute last thing you cut is on-field investment-- putting it on the field is the core of why you exist.

I have no problem at all with our 45-man list as it stands. It's a good list. It's just that it should have been larger. If you think that's over-critical, then maybe you shouldn't be looking a thread that has in its name "Rookie Drafts". Because in a thread with that name there has to be some silly outside chance of someone mentioning, in passing, that in a draft where only one other club passed at all, we managed to pass four times.

[liz]

So the club's finances certainly indicate we're no Adelaide, Weagles or Essendon. We might not even be a mid-tier fiscal club like Blions, Freo, Hawthorn, Geelong. But even if we're in the bottom rung of clubs financially, we're doing worse than the rest of the bottom rung on this issue. it's a mistake to cut your on-field stocks to save money unless everything else has been cut first. And in terms of the way the club conducts its business, I haven't seen that happening. When in financial trouble, the absolute last thing you cut is on-field investment-- putting it on the field is the core of why you exist.

You are ignoring the significant amount invested in the scholarship scheme. No other club has as many scholarship kids as the Swans (and only the Pies and Hawks come close). Time will tell what the hit rate is from the scholarship scheme (and the soon-to-be-replacement-scheme of the Academies). But the club has been quite open about the fact it is investing heavily in that scheme as a way of developing and recruiting young talent outside the traditional draft system.

You are right, to an extent, that the rookie system is a numbers game but it is a very low return on largish numbers and it really is impossible to say whether the Swans going into 2010 one rookie short of the average is really going to cost them even a handy player, let alone a decent one.

[caj23]

Lions didnt take their full complement of rookies either

[707]

If it was just financial then I think we've sold ourselves short. I agree that the very last place to make cuts is players, even though the strike rate is low with rookies, you may have just passed over a Kirk, Jack, Grundy, Mattner, Cox, Fletcher, Q Lynch, Priddis, Morris, Bock, Rutten, Drummond, Lockyer, Lovett, Sandilands, Rooke, Sewell, Aaron Davey, Jolly, Brogan, Pearce, Milne, etc, etc.

Yes, it is a lottery but you've got to have as many balls in the barrel as you're allowed and right now we're three balls short. After we first passed, 15 clubs took 27 players, excluding redrafts, so 15 other clubs wanted their share of the lottery balls.

By using our first three picks, we could have got two or three of the following players, and I for one would have liked to seen them trying out in red and white rather than other colours - Jack Weston, Joe Dare, Matthew Panos, Andrew Hooper.

As I've said before, time will be the arbitor on these guys and even with no new (not previously selected) rookies, the trade period has been unbelievable for us, I reckon we've got some bargains. I just think that for the money involved we should have had another three balls in play.

[Hartijon]

If it was just financial then I think we've sold ourselves short. I agree that the very last place to make cuts is players, even though the strike rate is low with rookies, you may have just passed over a Kirk, Jack, Grundy, Mattner, Cox, Fletcher, Q Lynch, Priddis, Morris, Bock, Rutten, Drummond, Lockyer, Lovett, Sandilands, Rooke, Sewell, Aaron Davey, Jolly, Brogan, Pearce, Milne, etc, etc.

Yes, it is a lottery but you've got to have as many balls in the barrel as you're allowed and right now we're three balls short. After we first passed, 15 clubs took 27 players, excluding redrafts, so 15 other clubs wanted their share of the lottery balls.

By using our first three picks, we could have got two or three of the following players, and I for one would have liked to seen them trying out in red and white rather than other colours - Jack Weston, Joe Dare, Matthew Panos, Andrew Hooper.

As I've said before, time will be the arbitor on these guys and even with no new (not previously selected) rookies, the trade period has been unbelievable for us, I reckon we've got some bargains. I just think that for the money involved we should have had another three balls in play.

Your logic is right of course but what some of us are saying is that "If we could have ,we would have!" and that we have no reason to doubt the judgement of the Club on these issues as they have proven themselves first class judges of Footy talent. The other issues like finance and staffing are hard to comment on . So relax ,sit back and enjoy the 2010 Swans all 45 of them. Its a fantastic squad with ever kind of player even the x factor ones I so favoured recruiting last season.If Hooper,Panos or Dare win a Brownlow remind us of your posting!