Player development is our biggest issue.

[Klem]

The general opinion after 2008 rightly or wrongly was the Hawks were going to have 3 to 5 years of continued success.

08 was a perfect storm of young talent and older established players having one great year. And a magic last magnificent game where it all came together. Without the mercurial Dew and Williams doing their thing as the perfect plan B we wouldn't have won. But their gone.

I dont see anyone who has really improved since 08 to the level they should have. Some have actually gone backwards and we have lost a tonne of talent that are close to irreplaceable in the current climate of new franchises and teams.

Player development is obviously a big issue at our track record over the last 3 years has been crap.

Has this been addressed now with new coaches and people or are we just supposed to ignore this major deficiency in our club.

This could be the last year of our window unless something or someone steps up. And what a great great shame that would be.

 

[Collins-Langford-Ayres]

Agreed few have improved much, but I think Renouf, Murphy and Rioli have all ticked the box.

Can't see why with the money we have, the facilities and playing list, the club hasn't recruited the right coaches.

 

[Hawka_de_Haven]

This could be the last year of our window unless something or someone steps up. And what a great great shame that would be.

I dare say you're almost correct but as long as Buddy and Roughy are around the window is between 1 to 3 years.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

wow, talk about hitting the panic button!

Last I checked, very few of our players have been given game time at senior level.

Of those still on our list, Ellis is only 22, Morton is 22, Savage is 19, Shiels is 19, Schoenmakers is 20, Whitecross is 20, Renouf is 22, Stratton is 21

That is a fair portion who have yet to hit their straps, and Renouf has proven he is more then handy in the ruck, Shoey has proven a revelation in defence in the small optortunity hes gotten, remember, he did destroy lloyd in his final game.

Stratton hit the scene is great form, now, the club must have been able to prepare him for AFL level, he came from the WAFL, thats about 3 tiers lower then the AFL.

Ellis has been great as a midfielder, just because he doesnt get acolades from the media, doesnt mean he hasnt been developed well by the club.

Morton hasnt been given a lot of chances, but he has proven that he could make a good negating midfielder/forward, and as RIOLI continues to develop, there may be a forward position open up, when rioli spends more time in the middle.

Savage and Shiels play like the midfielders of old, and have clearlyt learned from the 2 elite leaders in our side (mitchell and hodge). They go in with absolutely no fear for their own safety, look back to 2009 when they played due to injuries. As some of our midfielders begin to slow next season, expect to see these two show how good at developing players the club is.

Whitecross has gone from a no-frills back pocket to a forward who teams have begun to man-up on. Not bad for a 20 year old. And also, some development in there to be able to switch him around like that.

 

[PottSie2]

Agreed few have improved much, but I think Renouf, Murphy and Rioli have all ticked the box.

Can't see why with the money we have, the facilities and playing list, the club hasn't recruited the right coaches.

I think it is a real problem, even out of those you mention,

Rioli came in ready for AFL football, and really hasn't improved that much on his 2008 season, probably because we had to move him to the midfield too soon.

Murphy was given pretty much 50 games of development and is now, just a good honest player.

Renouf has come good.

I'm more dissapointed that players such as Dowler, Muston, Kennedy only ever get sparodic stints at AFL level, then never to be seen again, even when our "best 22" are performing sub-par.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Agree with the OP that this is a major concern.

Too many of our youngsters have loitered in the VFL and not developed, to the point that we've had to cut quite a few promising(at one point) picks who've either stagnated or gone backwards.

The connection between BH and the HFC seems to be of some concern as there is mumblings of mis-communication and mixed messages towards those running out for the Mustangs each week, and indeed some guys need to be given the time and encouragement of senior game time.

It goes with all levels of football, but if your 'seconds' are happy and committed, the club is all the better for it.

 

[go hawks!!!]

Agree with the OP that this is a major concern.

Too many of our youngsters have loitered in the VFL and not developed, to the point that we've had to cut quite a few promising(at one point) picks who've either stagnated or gone backwards.

The connection between BH and the HFC seems to be of some concern as there is mumblings of mis-communication and mixed messages towards those running out for the Mustangs each week, and indeed some guys need to be given the time and encouragement of senior game time.

It goes with all levels of football, but if your 'seconds' are happy and committed, the club is all the better for it.

yes agree, the issue stemmed this year from the change of game plan, which filtered from the seniors to the box hill team. Further, the non-performing HFC listed players caused a bit of frustration for BHH listed played who were thrown into the development squad, and poor perfroming HFC players such as morton, stokes, moss and others took their spot.

I can tell you though that our r'ship with BHH is a long term r'ship. We have invested heavily in Box hill and that will not change.

The key challenge for us in the short term is developing our youngsters. We can measure that in 2011 with the 2009 draft stock namely:
- Williams
- Duryea
- Grimley

These players need improvement, Duryea has a great attitude but struggled with confidence.

Also, like to see 6-7 players pushing for senior selection each week. That should include depth players such as shiels, savage, milne and morton.

Rick Ladson should captain box hill, and his KPI will be leadership and development of youngsters. I would like to see him in the 1sts but do not see that happening.

Brendan Whitecross - a few posters view him as a key player for us. he is in his 4th year and will have a full pre season this year. Has great leadership abilities, for me, he will be a 200 game player for our club and future captain, he needs to play one position this year and that is half back flank. Would like to see him play 24 games and develop into a champ.

Big year for our club, we don't make top 4, clarko is done and huge changes across the club. We win the p'ship and everyone will be happy. No matter what, i want to see less reliance on key players such as hodge, mitch, buddy and rioli and see our youngsters in the best.

end of rant...

 

[worthy]

yes agree, the issue stemmed this year from the change of game plan, which filtered from the seniors to the box hill team. Further, the non-performing HFC listed players caused a bit of frustration for BHH listed played who were thrown into the development squad, and poor perfroming HFC players such as morton, stokes, moss and others took their spot.

I can tell you though that our r'ship with BHH is a long term r'ship. We have invested heavily in Box hill and that will not change.

The key challenge for us in the short term is developing our youngsters. We can measure that in 2011 with the 2009 draft stock namely:
- Williams
- Duryea
- Grimley

These players need improvement, Duryea has a great attitude but struggled with confidence.

Also, like to see 6-7 players pushing for senior selection each week. That should include depth players such as shiels, savage, milne and morton.

Rick Ladson should captain box hill, and his KPI will be leadership and development of youngsters. I would like to see him in the 1sts but do not see that happening.

Brendan Whitecross - a few posters view him as a key player for us. he is in his 4th year and will have a full pre season this year. Has great leadership abilities, for me, he will be a 200 game player for our club and future captain, he needs to play one position this year and that is half back flank. Would like to see him play 24 games and develop into a champ.

Big year for our club, we don't make top 4, clarko is done and huge changes across the club. We win the p'ship and everyone will be happy. No matter what, i want to see less reliance on key players such as hodge, mitch, buddy and rioli and see our youngsters in the best.
end of rant...

This is what we desperately need, without this, we may still be top 8 but I doubt we can make the big dance. It will only take a couple of youngsters to make a decent contribution for us to be genuine contenders.

 

[sgbn77]

The general opinion after 2008 rightly or wrongly was the Hawks were going to have 3 to 5 years of continued success.

08 was a perfect storm of young talent and older established players having one great year. And a magic last magnificent game where it all came together. Without the mercurial Dew and Williams doing their thing as the perfect plan B we wouldn't have won. But their gone.

I dont see anyone who has really improved since 08 to the level they should have. Some have actually gone backwards and we have lost a tonne of talent that are close to irreplaceable in the current climate of new franchises and teams.

Player development is obviously a big issue at our track record over the last 3 years has been crap.

Has this been addressed now with new coaches and people or are we just supposed to ignore this major deficiency in our club.

This could be the last year of our window unless something or someone steps up. And what a great great shame that would be.

Agree, I think it is hard to fathom (much as it was with Collingwood for a great deal of the 2000's) how we are so well resourced, but seemingly not getting the right people and processes in (since 2008). This is all based on appearances obviously.

The club can only do so much, and we obviously are putting in fantastic sustainable facilities for the club...but it has been a frustrating couple of years when we hear things like Dowler being played in a defensive position, making you think Box Hill is doing what we need, only for him to then play forward, and you end up in the same position...with player development seemingly all over the place.

The OP asks a great question, as to how we are structuring to get players in positions we need, doing what they need to do, and do we have the right people mentoring them?

 

[Collins-Langford-Ayres]

I think what ruined it for us this year was the coaches.

They developed a gameplan that was flawed and couldn't win us games.

They got through over a third of the year and then realised that it needed to be changed.

In a desperation to then try to win games they kept with our best 'on paper' 22, which robbed young players of the opportunity to play firsts, and probably caused them to drop their heads a bit because no matter how hard they trained and how well they played, they wouldn't get a game. In addition our best on paper 22 knew that they weren't going to get dropped, so had no incentive to bust a gut.

For mine if we don't make top 4 this year, then we need a refresh and that includes Clarko.

 

[Furn]

I was thinking about this the other day and was wondering if the Box Hill arrangement is working.

I love Box Hill especially as i can walk there and i think we have a great thing going with the club, but the evidence recently is that players playing there are not getting ready for the AFL.

Most of the young players that have been successful in the Clarko era, made there improvement playing for Hawthorn, guys like Buddy,Roughy,Cyril,Young,Ellis,Murphy,Renouf and Stratton this year havent spent much time at BH.

Now i know that you will learn more playing AFL than VFL, but the fact is that players have played a bit for Hawthorn through injuries etc adn shown a bit and then gone back to BH and played 20-30 games and havent improved or even got worse when they come back to seniors.

It just seems that getting 30-40 seconds games into a kid isnt helping them get ready for AFL. Guys like Shoey and Shiels who looked too raw for seniors but have obvious talent should be better when they come back after a year in the 2's and it not the case with most of our players.

 

[go hawks!!!]

I was thinking about this the other day and was wondering if the Box Hill arrangement is working.

I love Box Hill especially as i can walk there and i think we have a great thing going with the club, but the evidence recently is that players playing there are not getting ready for the AFL.

Most of the young players that have been successful in the Clarko era, made there improvement playing for Hawthorn, guys like Buddy,Roughy,Cyril,Young,Ellis,Murphy,Renouf and Stratton this year havent spent much time at BH.

Now i know that you will learn more playing AFL than VFL, but the fact is that players have played a bit for Hawthorn through injuries etc adn shown a bit and then gone back to BH and played 20-30 games and havent improved or even got worse when they come back to seniors.

It just seems that getting 30-40 seconds games into a kid isnt helping them get ready for AFL. Guys like Shoey and Shiels who looked too raw for seniors but have obvious talent should be better when they come back after a year in the 2's and it not the case with most of our players.

Mate, i understand your concern and your argument. Their development is based on their instruction which relates to the coaching dept, including Bolton, Flood and Fagan. I would focus on them first.

 

[Hawker_Ant]

I think Leon Cameron had a bit of a moan about the way the Hawks talent was being developed at BHH when he was interviewed for the forward coaches gig.

What I haven't particularly liked is the way players at BHH have been moved around in position willy-nilly without much of a chance to settle into a role. It's hard to figure out if players like Morton, Schoenmakers, Lisle etc are being groomed as key forwards or key backmen. It's nice to have someone that is able to play anywhere, but I think they need to learn their craft first.

We have a new BHH coach and some movement in the Hawks coaching staff. Next year will tell if players will be developed differently.

 

[pipcoo]

Attitude work ethic will to WIN across the hole TEAM was MISSING.

Will it come back to 2008 desperation efforts , do anything to get the ball & win.

Claro will be not top of this game again player's won't get away with mediocre crap again.

2011 the year of NO excuses.

 

[ArmaHawk]

I think what ruined it for us this year was the coaches.

They developed a gameplan that was flawed and couldn't win us games.

They got through over a third of the year and then realised that it needed to be changed.

In a desperation to then try to win games they kept with our best 'on paper' 22, which robbed young players of the opportunity to play firsts, and probably caused them to drop their heads a bit because no matter how hard they trained and how well they played, they wouldn't get a game. In addition our best on paper 22 knew that they weren't going to get dropped, so had no incentive to bust a gut.

For mine if we don't make top 4 this year, then we need a refresh and that includes Clarko.

Have to agree with this. I think there was a siege mentality after round 7 which meant Clarko stuck with the older, established players in a desperate effort to make the finals. And we did. But it was never that convincing. Next year I don't think Clarko necessarily needs to change the personal but he has to be ready to if they're not performing or someone at Box Hill is performing better.

Contrary to the OP, in my opinion the window is wide open. All we need is a little improvement from players like Whitecross (which I think is a real shot particularly playing in the forward line), Ellis, Stratton and Birchall, Burgoyne and Gibson to have a good year and the emergence of a Shiels, Savage or Shoenmakers. We have a really strong list so despite several years of mediocrity there is no reason to think we shouldn't be heading up the ladder.

 

[saaam]

2011 the year of NO excuses.

Along with lack of player development an equally important issue is we have become a team only too happy to trott out excuse after excuse for sub standard performances for 2 years now. There comes a time when the leaders need to stand up and be accountable but, I still feel we aren't there yet. Go have a look at Clarko's last press conference after the Freo final as the latest example. Until this changes and excuses are no longer tolerated, we will continue to flounder in mid table.
In professional sports teams and squads have structure and I feel our squad doesn't mainly due to the lack of talent promoted into the first team. Pinning our hopes on the likes of Morton, Suckling etc to bridge the gap to the first team is, IMO a real long shot.
I ask myself this, where is the improvement going to come from to get back to 2008 levels and as hard as I try, I honestly can't answer that in a positive way.

 

[Leather Poisoning]

I ask myself this, where is the improvement going to come from to get back to 2008 levels and as hard as I try, I honestly can't answer that in a positive way.

Here's where the improvement will come from:

Ellis - has the goods, was taken at pick 3 for a reason. Once he has a good pre-season he'll be an absolute gun.

Hodge and Mitchell - the captaincy change could be a great thing from both. Would love to see Mitchell regularly getting 30+ touches and influencing the stoppages like he used to. Hodge to walk even taller.

Burgoyne and Sewell - both had severely impacted pre-seasons last year. Look for increased output from both in 2011. Burgoyne's now had a season to 'learn' his teammates.

*note, the improvement I'm proposing in Mitchell, Burgoyne and Sewell is really not a big ask. Hodge would find it difficult to improve on 2010 form.

Ruck department: Having two ruckmen that can win regular tapouts will be beneficial? A fit Bailey will also mean we have depth in the ruck. Remember 2008? Bob, Taylor and Renouf to pick from every week.

Development of youngsters will simply be icing on the cake if we can see improvement in the guys I've listed above.

The problem is trying to cover the small forward role - the key defender is not as big a problem as we tend to think. We've got a really strong 22 and last year most of us were struggling to fit some very good players in it.

 

[Hawkzzz]

Here's where the improvement will come from:

Ellis - has the goods, was taken at pick 3 for a reason. Once he has a good pre-season he'll be an absolute gun.

Hodge and Mitchell - the captaincy change could be a great thing from both. Would love to see Mitchell regularly getting 30+ touches and influencing the stoppages like he used to. Hodge to walk even taller.

Burgoyne and Sewell - both had severely impacted pre-seasons last year. Look for increased output from both in 2011. Burgoyne's now had a season to 'learn' his teammates.

*note, the improvement I'm proposing in Mitchell, Burgoyne and Sewell is really not a big ask. Hodge would find it difficult to improve on 2010 form.

Ruck department: Having two ruckmen that can win regular tapouts will be beneficial? A fit Bailey will also mean we have depth in the ruck. Remember 2008? Bob, Taylor and Renouf to pick from every week.

Development of youngsters will simply be icing on the cake if we can see improvement in the guys I've listed above.

The problem is trying to cover the small forward role - the key defender is not as big a problem as we tend to think. We've got a really strong 22 and last year most of us were struggling to fit some very good players in it.

Agree. Every year brings a different set of circumstances.

We have some good young talent. People forget that Shoe played this yr as a 19 yr old - still a teenager asked to grab hold of CHB. I expect solid improvement from the Shoe (have some faith people).

Shiels is developing very nicely. Has every chance to be a regular in 2011.

White X is gaining valuable experience and has developed physically. Is ready to take the next step imo.

Savage could surprise next yr.

Waiting in the wings are guys like Lisle, Bailey, Milne, Cheney, Bruest.

Add to that, this year's draft picks. A bit of luck and we may get one of these guys to take off like Stratton did.

Yes I agree the player development coaching staff have a query surrounding them. Let's hope they pull their finger out and we see some of these youngsters shine.

 

[twentythree]

I dare say you're almost correct but as long as Buddy and Roughy are around the window is between 1 to 3 years.

Whats roughy gonna do next year???

 

[Klem]

Whats roughy gonna do next year???

He only has to do one thing................kick straight.

Otherwise straight to chb and we find a new full forward.

Simple

 

[CaloHawka]

We have developed the young boys quite well at Box Hill. I agree the clarkson era Buddy,
roughy, lewis, murphy, young etc they got games when they got drafted so we should give the guys like Lisle, Savage, Shiels and Breust a couple of games
in the time and if they dont perforn send them back to box hill
with some experience if they do perform we can build our future.

 

[Ordovician]

We don't have one single biggest problem; the world footy is far too richly textured and complex for that to ever be the case.

Does the HFC have problems? of course it does! but these are numerous and diverse.

After winning an unanticpated flag the Hawks have had two totally crap seasons because, inter alia:

1. we lost a raft of players that were key to our structures we could not/did not replace eg Croad, Crawford, Campbell, Williams, Dew, Boyle

2. failed to take adequate ruck depth into 2010 then got caught by serious injuries to two of our three rucks

3. had very nasty two year premiership hangover with a lot of players not seeming to give a rat's (after all a lot of ordinary players now have premiership medallions that they probably never thought that they'd ever achieve in their careers so what is left to play for?)

4. many the high drafts picks from our 05/06 failed to make the grade and provide reasonable depth and competition for spots in the senior side

etc. we can all list other reasons and chains of consequences that have led us to this point but this is slighty OT.

Anyway after two poor seasons the club who should be entering the peak of its golden premiership window this season (but isn't largely because of points 1 and 4) now looks distinctly shabby.

Of course when this happens everything looks crap. Humans have an amazing capacity to aviod any form of rational analysis and immediately jump to illogical conclusions or invalid inferrences like:

the hawks are crap therefore our player development is stuffed

and then jump to equally irrational positions when the reserve situation occurrs.

For example the pies are premiers therefore: their recruiting must be great, their player development must be first rate, they have winning game plan and all other sorts of utter rubbish which is ascribed retrospectively.

Of course nobody would guarantee that the Pies would win the flag before the finals inspite of all of these obvious advantages that their team had, but once the result was in it was completely obvious why they won!

Collingwood won the flag because every year regardless of how good a team is one team is awarded the flag and if you are there at the end then you have good chance simply because someone has to win it.

It could have easily been St Kilda and then all of the media would be fawning over them talking about their team discipline, committment to structures game plan, structures, wank, wank, wank ect., and their brilliantly recruiting with picks 1, 1, 2, 2, 5 etc. back in 00-02, ad nausem.

The footy media pumps out this type of dross and footy fans accept it uncritically. In the same way that most people in this country are acually ignorant enough of basic economics to actually believe that the Labor government's brilliant management of the economy by pissing away tens of billions of dollars saved us from the GFC .

To return to the proposition that our players development is poor I defy anyone to be able to make a sensible and pragmatic distinction between poor drafting and poor players development.

That is: are the players who failed to develop eg Thorp, Dowler & Muston, just simply poor draft choices or did the club fail them in some way in their development?

All of these players had serious injury issues in their careers that certainly held each of them back.

The club certainly contributed the mess Thorp became by failing to pick up his foot injury from the outset and giving him two pointless (after the fact) hip re-alignment operations.

Muston was cruelled by a stuffed reconstruction and then a subsequent ACL in the same knee, so I suppose that is bad luck compounding poor drafting.

Dowler was the only one that was clearly stuffed around in his development by being prepared and trained to play different positions then being give the arse to the development squad.

But if the Hawk's player development is that poor then how can you explain the apparent sucess of Ellis, Birchall & Renouf, all of whom came out of the same drafts as the failures and managed to play in a premiership team and cement regular (if occasionally somewhat undeserved) slot in the senior team?

Whilst I have no doubt whatsoever that our drafting in 05/06 was unacceptably bad, it is still a statistical fact that not all players are going to make the grade and that includes top ten picks.

If you accept that there is: a fair element of randomness in outcomes from drafting players, a lot of recruiting is pure luck (eg Bailey), and the analytic skills of the recruiters is by and large a smoke and mirrors trick perpetrated by the recruiters to justify their salaries, then there is going to be large naturally occurring variations in the quality of outcomes.

Put simply, you are going to have years or runs of years like 05/06 where you have a lot of failures. Conversely you are going to get lucky and hit the Rioli jackpot occasionally as well.

Is our player development really that bad?

Sure Suckling and Morton have taken their time and not yet made the grade but that may simply be becasue they are not good enough. Whitecross is currently line ball but should make it as he is still only 20. As for the rest it is pretty hard to judge 19 year olds unless they are very special like Rioli and can step up immediately, but players like him are rare. Shiels and Schoey at times don't look that great at AFL level, but they are very young and it is not unreasonable to allow promising young players 4 or so years to develop.

Box Hill is a good quality VFL team who gets the most out of its players and over the last two seasons has performed very well in the finals.

If you look at the kids down there Shiels was playing very well at the end of the season. So was Savage and both of them were unlukly not to get a senior game late in the season. Lisle is coming along nicely I don't know whether he'll ever be quick enough for AFL footy but a is already a good quality VFL footballer. Lowden looks pretty good although a few years away from senior footy.

So if you look at development of our 08 recruits they are all coming along quite nicely (except for Schoey but that is a can of worms I don't want to open because he is being played out of position) and they are already competent to good VFL standard footballers. One has to remember that these are 19 yo kids and should have a few more years of improvement left in them (they'd beter! ) so in simple terms of skills and playing at this level they are doing well.

I think our main development problem is the young players adjusting to the jump between VFL and AFL footy. Perhaps we need to give them more game time but if you look at the younger players performances this years are gauged by the B&F voting they were all uniformly poor this year, so most of them did not justify their senior selection. Hence their limited opportunities in a side fighting to make the finals.

The tried and proven way followed by bottom teams to develop there young talent, is to throw them in to the seniors and leave them there. This will develop them faster and bottom clubs don't care about results in the team building stage particularly if their arepriority draft picks to be theived!. This is exactly what North and the Bunto Grammar finely breds are doing and it is exactly want we did with Buddy, Roughy, Lewis and Ellis. Unfortunately, we can't just throw our kids in and leave them there because now we are a far more competitive side and need a top four finish at this stage of of list management cycle.

However, as it looks like we'll have no depth next season then once we have a few injuries then the team will be forced to give blocks of games to the younger players so that should solve the opportunity issue. So it remains to be seen it the gap issue remains. If it is still there then I'm sure Cameron will have a swag of great idea to fix our issues.

 

[cuttlefish]

Take a breath, Ordo.

 

[TheFourPillars]

We don't have one single biggest problem; the world footy is far too richly textured and complex for that to ever be the case.

Does the HFC have problems? of course it does! but these are numerous and diverse.

After winning an unanticpated flag the Hawks have had two totally crap seasons because, inter alia:

1. we lost a raft of players that were key to our structures we could not/did not replace eg Croad, Crawford, Campbell, Williams, Dew, Boyle

2. failed to take adequate ruck depth into 2010 then got caught by serious injuries to two of our three rucks

3. had very nasty two year premiership hangover with a lot of players not seeming to give a rat's (afterall a lot of ordinary players now have premiership medallions that they probably never thought that they'd ever achieve in their careers so what is left to play for?)

4. many the high drafts picks from our 05/06 failed to make the grade and provide reasonable depth and competition for spots in the senior side

etc. we can all list other reasons and chains of consequences that have led us to this point but this is slighty OT.

Anyway after two poor seasons the club who should be entering the peak of its golden premiership window this season (but isn't largely because of points 1 and 4) now looks distinctly shabby.

Of course when this happens every thing looks crap. Humans have an amazing capacity to aviod any form of rational analysis and immediately jump to illogical conclusions or invalid inferrences like:

the hawks are crap therefore our player development is stuffed

and then jump to equally irrational positions when the reserve situation occurrs.

For example the pies are premiers therefore: their recruiting must be great, their player development must be first rate, they have winning game plan and all other sorts of utter rubbish which is ascribed retrospectively.

Of course nobody would guarantee that the Pies would win the flag before the finals inspite of all of these obvious advantages that their team had, but once the result was in it was completely obvious why they won!

Collingwood won the flag because every year regardless of how good a team is one team is awarded the flag and if you are there at the end then you have good chance simply becasue someone has to win it.

It could have easily been St Kilda and then all of the media would be fawning over them talking about their team discipline, committment to structures game plan, structures, wank, wank, wank ect., and their brilliantly recruiting with picks 1, 1, 2, 2, 5 etc. back in 00-02, ad nausem.

The footy media pumps out this type of dross and footy fans accept it uncritically. In the same way that most people in this country are acually ignorant enough of basic economics to actually believe that the Labor government's brilliant management of the economy by pissing away tens of billions of dollars saved us from the GFC .

To return to the proposition that our players development is poor I defy anyone to be able to make a sensible and pragmatic distinction between poor drafting and poor players development.

That is: are the players who failed to develop eg Thorp, Dowler & Muston, just simply poor draft choices or did the club fail them in some way in their development?

All of these players had serious injury issues in their careers that certainly held each of them back.

The club certainly contributed the mess Thorp became by failing to pick up his foot injury from the outset and giving him two pointless (after the fact) hip re-alignment operations.

Muston was cruelled by a stuffed reconstruction and then a subsequent ACL in the same knee, so I suppose that is bad luck compounding poor drafting.

Dowler was the only one that was clearly stuffed around in his development by being prepared and trained to play different positions then being give the arse to the development squad.

But if the Hawk's player development is that poor then how can you explain the apparent sucess of Ellis, Birchall & Renouf, all of whom came out of the same drafts as the failures and managed to play in a premiership team and cement regular (if occasionally somewhat undeserved) slot in the senior team?

Whilst I have no doubt whatsoever that our drafting in 05/06 was unacceptably bad, it is still a statistical fact that not all players are going to make the grade and that includes top ten picks.

If you accept that there is: a fair element of randomness in outcomes from drafting players, a lot of recruiting is pure luck (eg Bailey), and the analytic skills of the recruiters is by and large a smoke and mirrors trick perpetrated by the recruiters to justify their salaries, then there is going to be large naturally occurring variations in the quality of outcomes.

Put simply, you are going to have years or runs of years like 05/06 where you have a lot of failures. Conversely you are going to get lucky and hit the Rioli jackpot occasionally as well.

Is our player development really that bad?

Sure Suckling and Morton have taken their time and not yet made the grade but that may simply be becasue they are not good enough. Whitecross is currently line ball but should make it as he is still only 20. As for the rest it is pretty hard to judge 19 year olds unless they are very special like Rioli and can step up immediately, but players like him are rare. Shiels and Schoey at times don't look that great at AFL level, but they are very young and it is not unreasonable to allow promising young players 4 or so years to develop.

Box Hill is a good quality VFL team who gets the most out of its players and over the last two seasons has performed very well in the finals.

If you look at the kids down there Shiels was playing very well at the end of the season. So was Savage and both of them were unlukly not to get a senior game late in the season. Lisle is coming along nicely I don't know whether he'll ever be quick enough for AFL footy but a is already a good quality VFL footballer. Lowden looks pretty good although a few years away from senior footy.

So if you look at development of our 08 recruits they are all coming along quite nicely (except for Schoey but that is a can of worms I don't want to open because he is being played out of position) and they are already competent to good VFL standard footballers. One has to remember that these are 19 yo kids and should have a few more years of improvement left in them (they'd beter! ) so in simple terms of skills and playing at this level they are doing well.

I think our main development problem is the young players adjusting to the jump between VFL and AFL footy. Perhaps we need to give them more game time but if you look at the younger players performances this years are gauged by the B&F voting they were all uniformly poor this year, so most of them did not justify their senior selection. Hence their limited opportunities in a side fighting to make the finals.

The tried and proven way followed by bottom teams to develop there young talent, is to throw them in to the seniors and leave them there. This will develop them faster and bottom clubs don't care about results in the team building stage particularly if their arepriority draft picks to be theived!. This is exactly what North and the Bunto Grammar finely breds are doing and it is exactly want we did with Buddy, Roughy, Lewis and Ellis. Unfortunately, we can't just throw our kids in and leave them there because now we are a far more competitive side and need a top four finish at this stage of of list management cycle.

However, as it looks like we'll have no depth next season then once we have a few injuries then the team will be forced to give blocks of games to the younger players so that should solve the opportunity issue. So it remains to be seen it the gap issue remains. If it is still there then I'm sure Cameron will have a swag of great idea to fix our issues.

I agree with somethings that you have said and i disagree with others. The one statement that stands out for me is the one that i have highlighted. Whitex is borderline? This from a kid who is like you say only 20 who showed quite a bit in early 2009 before he got injured / lost form. Then didn't have a pre season this year through injury. Looked a class above whenever he played at Box hill. All that's stopping him right now is a great pre season, game time and confidence. This kid will be one of our shining lights next year fingers crossed.

 

[CaloHawka]

We need to develop the boys a bit quicker because look at Melbourne they have players like Scully that just come in and make an impact but we have got guys like Schoenmakers Shiels Savage that have been around for a while and have not made a big impact