Eye on the future
EIGHT teams remain in the premiership race, so that means the remaining 10 are flat out preparing to be better next year.
This is the time of year that the most important members of a football team rise or fall, depending on crucial decisions they make.
Predicting the future is their job. Nostradamus would be proud.
Some clubs get it right more often than not, and this is directly visible on the scoreboard. Better talent identification, better recruitment, better results.
It seems such an easy formula, but it is mighty tough to get sustained impact from these decisions.
At the moment the footy world is talking about the team around Nathan Buckley being replaced. Recruiting is an area that has let the club down.
Whoever decided to bring Chris Mayne to the club for four years on extraordinarily inflated wages must be waiting for the tap on the shoulder.
It will be interesting to see if fixing playing personnel in the off-season will improve the favourite son’s coaching record.
Meanwhile, at Adelaide, Hamish Ogilvie is at the top of his game.
The club has faced serious setbacks in the past six years yet the talent identification process has never struggled.
Hit with sanctions following the draft tampering to get Kurt Tippett to Sydney, Ogilvie had to work his magic.
The club lost first round national draft picks in 2012 and 2013. So who did they get?
In 2012 Rory Atkins was pick 81. Rory Laird was picked for the rookie list. He is now in the All-Australian squad for this year.
In 2013 Matt Crouch was pick 23. He is also in this year’s All-Australian squad, is third in the AFL for average possessions and laid 102 tackles this season. Handy selections. A few years earlier the club snaffled Taylor Walker at pick 75 in 2007, and Rory Sloane at 44 in 2008.
More recently Mitch McGovern, who has signed a new deal to stay a Crow, was selected at 43 in 2014, and Charlie Cameron was off the rookie list that same year.
Ogilvie is a master craftsman.
Even the loss of Patrick Dangerfield to Geelong was only viewed as a hiccup for the Crows.
He must be viewed as the No.1 recruiter in the competition. The big question this year is whether he can keep Jake Lever, but if he can’t, then just watch what deal gets done for him.
Lever will not go cheaply, and I feel a big name from another club, plus draft picks will be on the table for the talented 21-year-old defender.
Not every club is as varied in recruiting as Adelaide.
The running joke is that Carlton’s list manager, Stephen Silvagni, only picks kids from GWS where he used to work.
There were eight former Giants on Carlton’s list this year. Hopefully this year the Blues can diversify their recruiting palette.
This is the time for all 18 clubs to prove their strategies and talent identifiers are top notch.
Phones will be running hot, strategy meetings all the time, game reviews, talent breakdowns. It’ll be happening everywhere.
The proof of selection isn’t always seen immediately, and that is what makes this job the most vital. If you get the right player in the first place, then the development of that person should fall into place and the team will benefit forever.