(11-26-2015, 01:45 AM)TheSheik link Wrote:Over the past 10-years, far too many players have been "gifted" games when they (a) have not genuinely earnt selection & (b) are not physically ready to play senior footy.
Based on the premise that we have just embarked on a three-year rebuild and realistically are no chance to win a premiership for some time yet, I'm hoping that the club also implements a selection policy to achieve greater results in the long-term.
There is nothing at all to be gained by dropping Weitering, McKay, Curnow, Cunningham & Silvagni in the deep end from Round 1 and leaving them there.
Let's face the reality of the situation, the gulf between U/18 football and AFL seniors is just too wide a gap for most young players to bridge. Most of these young players do not have the physical armour to protect themselves against players with 4-5 years worth of intense gym-work on their side. There is obviously the risk of injury plus the young players normally struggle to adapt to the tempo of senior footy as well.
We have just traded in Sumner, Lamb, Plowman, Phillips, Gorringe & Kerridge who have been in the AFL system for 3-4 years and are far more developed & ready to play senior football. They are the players that must be persisted with in 2016 on top of others like Jaksch, Graham, Whiley, Buckley, Boekhorst, Dick etc. They all need to be given the opportunity to play senior footy consistently because they are going to be under additional scrutiny going forward.
For the new kids, if they warrant selection, then by all means, give them a game against Melbourne or GWS etc, but make them earn it first. I don't want to see another situation like when Gibbs was placed in the leadership group before he had even played a game at the club.
Nurture these new guys in the seconds for a couple of years (let then play around 50-games in the VFL first) plus we will be adding another 3-4 newbies next year to join them in the seconds too. We also have Smith & Foster in need of some long-term development in the seconds as well.
We are all very excited about the latest draftees, let's not burn them out unnecessarily. Long-term strategy for sustained success, there is no hurry right now.
Who cares if we finish bottom four next year anyway, it opens us up to better draft picks next year as a bonus.
In the frame of reference that you make this post it's valid, but in reality Weitering has already played against seasoned AFL players and soundly beaten them. For example it's reported he stitched up both Watson and Jones in a pre-season game against NBs last year, when Jones was apparently in "Beast Mode", and it's reported he also got the better of Daw and I think the other was Tarrant against Werribee. Jones is still on the list, Watson looks to have let an AFL career pass him by, but if they were both there still I'd have no problems with the club playing Weitering ahead of them.
PS; Correction, I'm told it was Tippett not Tarrant.
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