Wreck It Ralph: How clubs are beating the system to fast-track rise up the ladder
The rebuild has changed. Now it is all about finding a bargain. Has your club already got one? Jon Ralph names his top 10 left-field recruits.
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Hawthorn and Collingwood are about to find out if you can ever beat City Hall.
Two Victorian power clubs have decided that the full blown rebuild in AFL football is basically dead.
At the same time as North Melbourne’s David Noble attempts to withstand a review that could cost him his job, the pain of an 88-game rebuild is patently clear.
You commit to years of horrific on-field performances, you inevitably sack your senior coach while on the journey and it is not even certain if the pain eventually guarantees a shot at the title.
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Both Hawthorn and Collingwood have made clear that instead of signing up for that path they will just get better every single year and see where it gets them.
They just aren’t interested in the AFL’s socialist principles that promote a boom-bust sink to the bottom every decade or so.
Collingwood has no desire to bottom out despite last year’s 17th – placed finish and is in part instructed by Brendon Bolton’s tenure during Carlton’s never-ending rebuild.
As he said yesterday of not stripping back the list to reap years of elite picks: “I was involved at Carlton when you rebuild and you can hit a real tipping point or threshold. That’s what Fly (Craig Macrae), Leppa (Justin Leppitsch) and myself have discussed — how important the leaders are.
“(Steele) Sidebottom on a wing holds good balance, (Scott) Pendlebury can play half back and wing, Howey (Jeremy Howe) down back, Jamie Elliott up forward. They connect your group. In AFL we like to retire our players but having older guys hold the young guys up has been a real strong suit for our footy club.”
Hawthorn at least attempted to ship out a senior player last year for an extra early pick but were astonished to find none of Chad Wingard or Luke Breust wanted to leave.
So instead they have committed to playing youth at almost all costs and finding the talent for a premiership elsewhere.
As football boss Rob McCartney said on Friday as part of Fox Footy’s telecast, there will be no attempt to nudge out senior players for early picks this time around.
Through left-field recruiting methods including the mid-season draft, rookie draft, summer supplemental selection period and late draft picks they have found Changkuoth Jiath (Category B rookie), Ned Reeves (SSP), Mitch Lewis (pick 76), Jai Newcombe (SSP) and Dylan Moore (pick 67).
As McCarthy made clear, the senior players are important but not holding back the kids in a side that on Friday had 15 players 23 and under.
As McCarthy said: “We will get a reasonably early first-round pick. Free agency is definitely of interest but (free agency and the draft) would be the mechanisms more than trade mechanisms this year.”
So Hawthorn and Collingwood will ignore the full-blown rebuild, fully aware of its pitfalls.
One of the most convincing reasons is that there are so many other mechanisms to add elite players.
Once upon a time tanking — legally or otherwise — was the only way to get better as clubs plunged to the bottom to collect elite talent before eventually bouncing back up the ladder.
Now if you are only relying on elite early picks you are asleep at the wheel.
You can tank to get a top-five pick and watch while other clubs add restricted free agent Tyson Stengle as a star, Jai Newcombe becomes a mid-season revelation and rookie Cal Wilkie turns into of footy’s most miserly defenders.
Or you can still win 10 games and take two picks within 28, secure a mid-season revelation, back in a summer rookie, spend your hard-earned cap space on a free agent.
Your fans don’t openly revolt, you don’t have the heartburn of tipping out multiple club legends and you have still found five or six new players each season.
North Melbourne will spend a year winning one game to try to secure the early draft pick that secures a key defender that Sydney just found in delisted free agent Paddy McCartin.
The pain just isn’t worth it.
And yet for the course plotted by Hawthorn and Collingwood, the most recent evidence is that the best way to win premierships is still by the top-to-tail rebuild.
Melbourne just won the flag with a spectacular array of top-15 picks including Christian Petracca (pick 2), Luke Jackson (pick three), Clayton Oliver (pick 4), Angus Brayshaw (pick 3), Christian Salem (pick nine).
And Carlton has opened up a six to eight year window with Sam Walsh (pick 1), Weitering (pick 1), Harry McKay (pick 10), Charlie Curnow (pick 12), and Patrick Cripps (pick 12), let alone Lochie O’Brien (pick 10).
So we get the popcorn and wait to see if Hawthorn and Collingwood can circumvent the time-honoured rebuilding process.
At Richmond, the capacity to secure five picks in 30 last year — all of them who have shown early VFL or AFL promise — gives the Tigers so much freedom in this year’s national draft.
The combined value of their first pick (10) and the North Melbourne second-rounder in their keeping (pick 19) is 2343 draft points, the equivalent of the No.3 draft pick.
In other words, clearly enough to trade for a GWS midfielder like Tim Taranto.
The Tigers have always known they would need to restock their midfield as Trent Cotchin moves into retirement, and have believed a GWS midfielder would fall out given cap issues this year.
Cotchin’s injury and Prestia’s concussion against Geelong was a glimpse to the future and yet Liam Baker’s exquisite second half led to the game of the year.
But with Prestia 30 in October, Richmond surely is in the perfect position to hand over early picks for a player like Taranto.
He is in the right age bracket (24), he can play inside mid and resting forward, he is a brilliant young kid and he will fit in perfectly with the emerging youngsters in Shai Bolton, Noah Balta, Josh Gibcus, Maurice Rioli and Hugo Ralphsmith.
If not him, which other established mid will the Tigers consider?
So a team which has won three flags since 2017 could add a player of that calibre and further gap the Roos, a team deserving of a priority pick but no certainty to get one.
For all but a few the full-blown rebuild is dead… and yet if Carlton wins the flag every club going for the quick fix will consider whether it is again a trend worth following.
BEST 10 LEFT-FIELD RECRUITS IN THE PAST FIVE YEARS
1.Cal Wilkie (St Kilda)
A pick 3 in the 2018 rookie draft who hasn’t missed a game since his round 1 debut, adding 77 games as a lock-down defender. Astonishingly smart recruiting.
2. Jai Newcombe (Hawthorn)
In the old days the Hawks would have hidden him away but instead he put the price tag of a four-year deal on his head and now looks a complete midfielder instead of the dour tackling machine he was when he arrived this time last year.
3. Tyson Stengle (Geelong)
Geelong used his good mate Eddie Betts and former teammates Josh Jenkins and Paddy Dangerfield as recruiting tools to secure a delisted free agent who at 23 should play 150 games in the blue and white hoops.
4. Paddy McCartin (Sydney)
A delisted free agent who at 26 has years ahead of him if he can dodge concussion issues.
Only St Kilda gets beaten by the No.1 pick they drafted all those years ago and gave away for free.
5. Ben Keays (Adelaide)
The pick 7 in the 2019 rookie draft has already added 51 games for the Crows as a hard-running relentless ball winner after being delisted by the Lions.
6.Will Snelling (Essendon)
The SANFL graduate has played 42 games for the Dons since being taken at pick seven in the 2019 mid-season draft, finishing third in the best-and-fairest last year with another ninth-placed finish as well.
7. Ned Reeves (Hawthorn)
This might be a bit about his upside but the Hawks believe they have found a long-term ruck prospect in Reeves, a 2018 summer rookie. Clubs give up the world for elite rucks, so what a bargain basement find this might be.
8. Brad Close (Geelong)
The No.14 pick in the 2019 rookie draft has added 43 games and 30 goals and while he flies under the radar Geelong fans can’t get enough of the 23-year-old’s forward prowess.
9. John Noble (Collingwood)
The No. 14 pick in the 2019 mid-season draft has added 57 games and just over 1000 disposals and with dash and purpose from the Collingwood back six.
10. Jack Ginnivan (Collingwood)
Pick 13 in the 2021 rookie draft, Ginnivan already looks a two-goal-per-game forward who could play 200 games with the Pies as a value selection.
Originally published as Wreck It Ralph: How clubs are beating the system to fast-track rise up the ladder
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