West Coast Eagles 2/3rd Season Review Part 1
Let’s face it we’ve had one eye on next season and beyond for some time now, so let’s get down to the nitty gritty of reviewing the club’s season and where to from here.
As way of introduction here is an interesting article on how AFL teams develop, written by long time Geelong, Essendon and Collingwood Strength and Conditioning coach, Loris Bertolucci:
Time and time again we point at reviews or culture or other totally nebuluous and subejctive concepts. If the team has a core of hardened players that have an average of 6 pre seasons and some finals experience one has a chance. If they average 100 games of AFL footy the chance increases. If the club is well financed the chance increases. If there is some relative and current political stability then the chance increases. We have seen recent examples of clubs winning flags with supposedly poor cultures so I query that one.
If we take this view, there is little doubt we will need to rebuild our list starting now with a view to seeing us challenge when the current crop of rookies are just coming into their mid-20s. At a minimum, this could be 3 years away.
Given our current season and the small likelihood our mature players will improve over the next season or two, it is fair to say very, very few of the current crop of mature players will still be around when we are next challenging for a flag.
Whilst we do have a good crop of younger players < 22 years of age, we also have a fair number that formed the nucleus of our 2005/06 flag tilts who are now 25 years +. Given it will be likely at least 3 years until our younger crop are ready to challenge again the majority of these players will be on the decline. So over the next 3 years, we will need to selectively phase these players out of the side.
It’s harsh but not altogether unfair.
By next season 19 of our current list will be 25 years or older. Hard decisions will need to be made on this group of players. Who can contribute over the longer period? Who are dispensable now? With our sights set to rebuild over 3 seasons – 25 year olds will become 28 year olds, 27 year olds – 30, 28 year olds 31 etc.
There is nothing to say players at 28, 30, 31 etc can not make a contribution – of course they can and do. But you can’t have a team full of them.
Looking back to our 2006 flag we had 32 year old Banfield, 30 year old Chick and 28 year old Cousins and Braun. Only four of the 22 were over 28 years.
Looking forward we need to get younger before we get better. The two are not necessarily linked – but we do need to rebuild a list of quality players that will develop together over the next 3 plus years.
In my opinion I think we should immediately look to strip the list of “depth players” who are over 25 next season as they simply have no future with us. Beyond that we need to look at players who might be tradeable over the age of 25 – primarily for the sake of improvement over the long term as players by their mid-20s rarely improve.
In Part 2 I will start my own list review for 2009 and beyond.
Jul 7th 2008
Your showing some tough love, unfortunate but very necessary for every team these days
Jul 8th 2008
Yeah it’s definitely a business nowadays Tim - clubs that get too hooked up on sentiment tend to pay a price of some sort (McManus at Freo?).
I agree in part Bruce, but as per my comments after the Hawks game, I don’t think we should be trading unless there is a tangible benefit. Also I don’t feel that our 2006 flag side is the best model for age spread - just about every other side in recent history has had a bigger spread of more mature players. For sustained success I reckon you really need a spread with retiring older players replaced by yound draftees - if you get too many players around the same age it’s just inviting another big hole years down the track.
Looking forward to your list review.
Jul 9th 2008
I think confidence does play a big part, they looked ok in round 1 but round 2 when they were smashed by Adelaide and then they looked ok against Adelaide and then lost badley against Sydney. I do agree that the list needs to be looked at BIG time. their are too many pretenders and passengers but confidence does play a bit.
ALSO strong leadership decisions needs to be made. I would call on co-captains (Glass and Cox) as Glass is a good steady leader but he does not play enough around the ground. For the last few years Cousins and Judd would lift and carry the bad players but now Glass cannot do that down back when he is worried about limiting his own opponent.
looking forward to your list review.
Jul 9th 2008
Trading is tricky - more tricky than it was 12 years ago when Scott Watters and Tony Begovich would get you a #1 selection.
But if you have players worth something on your list that are 1) not essential to your on-going success (ie can be replaced) and 2) have market value greater than team value then trade them for picks.
We’ve done this pretty well I think with the likes of McDougall, Morton, Morrison and others we’ve given ourselves the best chance to top up with new talent. On other occasions I think we could’ve been a bit more aggressive (ie Fletcher circa 2004/5?)
I think this season given where we are in the scheme of things we could afford to be a bit more aggressive in who we shop because the reality is those in the 25-28 bracket are not all going to be going through the next 3+ seasons together. So let’s max. their value.
Jul 9th 2008
I actually thought we went soft with Morton, he was definitely worth a higher pick. BUT yes trading McDougall was a steal on the Eagles behalf, who did we get for him again?
Jul 9th 2008
For McDougall we got an upgrade - something like 40ish to 20ish?
One of the troubles I see with trading too aggressively is that players can feel that they’re not valued by the club - eg if we shopped Embley around but didn’t come up with a good enough deal I imagine he wouldn’t feel too enamoured with the club if he didn’t want to be traded in the first place. The “go home” factor has already hurt us, and I reckon it would get worse if players feel like the club will ditch them at the first sign of a highish draft pick.
Those who want to leave, trade hard and maximise their value for sure. Those who want to stay, challenge them to perform, give them guidelines to meet if they want to stay, but I reckon it’s important for the club to show some loyalty as well as the other way around.
Jul 10th 2008
Good point about the “ho home feeling” if they are not valued and shopped around.
However Johnson from Geelong was shopped around in 2005 and he has played his best football since.