17th Premiership wrote:
There are a lot more factors that become known afterwards plus we need to be able to get the best out of players - this is the area that is clearly within our control to improve.
Most other clubs would have picked similar layers to us in the same position in the draft and some of them picked other players who turned out to be duds ahead of the guns on the list.
I think we have done two things poorly:
1) we have too often picked players based on potential rather than performance/attitude
2) we do not appear to have the culture or development skills to bring out the best of those we do bring into the club
No, we've picked players based on reputation and we seem to make our mind up too early as if surety comforts us.
Most of the time, for every 'athlete first, footballer second' we have drafted (most of them early), we've picked at least as many 'blue collar' types who's games don't translate to AFL level. It's almost as if we think we've played it too fine so it's time to sober up a bit. It probably comes from having too few picks each year, it distorts our outlook.
Most of the time, we seem too scared to look too far beyond the national championships for players, that's why so many players 'slide' to us. So, if anything, it's the opposite of looking for 'potential'. We have picked AA juniors (or ones that almost made it) that other sides didn't seem to rate that highly. It seems the higher the draft pick, the more risks we are willing to take, which is odd; it should be the other way around.
To sum it up, we need to use our 'gut' instead of over rationalising every pick and we need to utilise the draft more.