Our draft record under Derek Hine et al

[Bob Sugar]

No Dave.
But I would if Wright wanted to join us.

Makes it even more sader that a Collingwood great is a major piece of the Hawks jigsaw.

Graham Wright: one of the most underrated footballers in the history of the game.

[Bob Sugar]

1 That Hine has not given us a proven A grader since Beams in 2008.
Which no one has put up any evidence to the contrary.

I'll assume you're talking about the draft, rather than trades, since he pulled in Ball and Jolly (2 A graders) in 2009 via trades for our first and second round, and in 2010 he traded in Krakouer and Tarrant.

Unless you're expecting A graders to be drafted in the late 3rd round, which is incredibly rare, let's start in 2011. Our first round pick was used as a trade, but let's class it as a draft pick since it was used to secure a pre-listed GWS player in Elliott, with Marty Clarke as steak knives, in a compromised draft.

Now you say Elliott is not A grade. Fair enough. There are many that would disagree with you, many who think he is on the cusp. Since we are using Beams as the yardstick here though, let's take in to account that Beams didn't become regarded as A grade until mid-late 2012 after many consistent performances in his breakout season. By that measure, Elliott should be given at least until mid-late this season for that judgement to be made on him.

If you look at Sidebottom's form late last year and in the Brisbane game, it could be argued that he's on the verge of becoming A grade. It's taken him nearly 7 years to reach that point.

The point being, every player develops differently, and it's way too early to make the call that no A graders have been recruited since 2008. You say nobody has provided any evidence to the contrary, yet at the same time, you have no evidence that Elliott, Grundy, Broomhead, Langdon, Scharenberg, Freeman, DeGoey or Moore will not reach those lofty heights.

The most that can be accurately said is that no A graders were drafted in 2009/10, due to only having late picks available. Anything beyond that is speculative bullshit, both from those who say we've recruited no A graders, and those who say we've recruited several. We won't know how any A graders have been recruited over the past few years for several years.

This has been made clear to you in several threads yet you just seem to ignore it. Just as I suspect you'll do again now. I don't know why I even bothered writing this tbh...

Even Swan took a long time to come on, iirc he hadn't cemented his spot in the team until after his 3rd year, and even then no one would've predicted what he was going to become.

[Stupied]

Swan was dangerously close to being delisted after his first few years. The only reason he became who he is now is because of Ben Johnson.

He played 30 games in four years, and it took him 6 years to break out as a genuinely good player, and 8 years to become A grade. His story is the exact reason it's stupid to assume no A graders have been recruited since 08. It's impossible to make that call at this stage.

As for wanting Wright? Meh. If we could have him in charge of trading, and only trading, I'd do it in a heartbeat. As it is though, Wells, Hine and Rendell all have him covered in terms of drafting youth.

[doriswilgus]

Just wondering,why was a thread i started almost six years ago suddenly revived today?

[AN_Inkling]

No Dave.
But I would if Wright wanted to join us.

Why though? How many A-graders have the Hawks drafted since '08? And you do realise that during '09-12 we were in flag winning mode? We didn't use a lot of picks in those years.

If you want a serious discussion about this you'd need to do some research. On the face of it it's clear to see that Hine has done a good job. Not average or decent, but good. You don't build a list that wins a flag and makes as many finals as we did without good recruiting.

Has he done better than Hawthorn or Geelong over a certain period? Harder to say. You'd need to evaluate the number of picks available to each set of recruiters (Hawks had plenty at one stage after trading a number of older players) and compare the hits and misses. I doubt there's as much difference between the clubs as you think (Hawks have certainly had some early pick clunkers: Ellis, Thorp, Dowler). And even if you can make a case for us being behind Hawthorn and Geelong (you should be able to as these are historically good teams - though the Cats are helped by F&S of Ablett, Scarlett, Hawkins...), you'd find it much more difficult to make a case for any other team over that period.

[Pies2016]

There is certainly a fair slice of luck involved in recruiting.
If only terry wallace had listened to greg miller and picked franklin ahead of tambling, things might be so much different. Actually, thinking it through, probably not.
Tigers would still be crap and hawks would still be great.
Some clubs just cant get it right no matter who they recruit.

[Bob Sugar]

No Dave.
But I would if Wright wanted to join us.

Why though? How many A-graders have the Hawks drafted since '08? And you do realise that during '09-12 we were in flag winning mode? We didn't use a lot of picks in those years.

If you want a serious discussion about this you'd need to do some research. On the face of it it's clear to see that Hine has done a good job. Not average or decent, but good. You don't build a list that wins a flag and makes as many finals as we did without good recruiting.

Has he done better than Hawthorn or Geelong over a certain period? Harder to say. You'd need to evaluate the number of picks available to each set of recruiters (Hawks had plenty at one stage after trading a number of older players) and compare the hits and misses. I doubt there's as much difference between the clubs as you think (Hawks have certainly had some early pick clunkers: Ellis, Thorp, Dowler). And even if you can make a case for us being behind Hawthorn and Geelong (you should be able to as these are historically good teams - though the Cats are helped by F&S of Ablett, Scarlett, Hawkins...), you'd find it much more difficult to make a case for any other team over that period.

My take on recruiting rather than drafting is this (when we compare ourselves to Whorethorn), the Hawks recruit for need, and they almost always get their man, we recruit any decent player who decides to come to us, and more often than not we overpay these players.

Sad but true.

[AN_Inkling]

Jolly, Ball

[Flashman]

So that leaves at best 5 of 22 premiership players that were recruited to the club by Judkins ( Dane Swan, Heath Shaw, Nick Maxwell, Ben Johnson, Alan Didak) and leon Davis.
.

That is 6 A graders there Flashman!
And you forgot to add in Trav Cloke and Harry as you keep insisting that Judkin was responsible for the 2004 draft.
That is 8 A graders no wonder we won a flag.
Wow, he was better than I thought.

No you reckon Hine was responsible for 2004 because of Chris Egan don't you? Get your story straight.

You'd best give us your definition of an "A Grader" while your at it.

Swan-A grader no disputing that.

Shaw- No B&F's, or AA so he ain't A grade.

Maxwell/Johnson-Great servants and good players but elite (which is what I define A grade as) get the fukk out of here.

Didak- At his best an A grader no doubt though at the lower end of the scale. Maybe more an A- Grader.

Davis- A good, solid player whose highlights package probably exaggerated his actual worth. A solid B grade player.

And you ignored my post sunshine. The catalysts of the 2010 flag were clearly Hine selections. Pendles the Norm Smith in the replay, Thomas probably the most consistent through both matches and Sidebottom breathing down Daisy's neck. By any measure these three were awesome picks by Dekker. That's without mentioning Brown, Reid and Dawes. All integral players that year as well.

[thompsoc]

Wow Flashman.
Fancy being negative on some of our heroes!
Maxwell our greatest captain in decades.
Shaw was never an A grader ha ha ha
Davis the GF years where he never missed a kick out! Outstanding son!
The only one that I may agree with is Johnno but he had a couple of outstanding years.
You told me in one of your rants that I stubbornly refused to concede that Judkins was in charge of the 2004 draft.
So what is it Flashman - who according to you was in charge of drafting?
Maybe you should look at the start of this thread to get a clue.

[Pies2016]

Flashman, thompsoc - whether hine came to the club in 2003 / 04/ 05 doesnt really matter. Hine and judkins, for the first couple years ,would have combined their accumulated intel and made collaborative decisions. To what extent the agreed to disagree behind closed doors, we will never know. I believe hine came in as the senior person of the two but more so because of judkins health limitations.

Flashman - Without wanting to sound like a judkins apoloigist, showing the clubs ladder positions to reflect his performsnces is way to simplistic. At the end of 1999, the pies sacked their coach, not their recruiting officer. I would suggest the clubs review showed the ladder finishes were more a consequence of the coachs performance rather than the recruiting person. It didnt take mick long to Improve the ladder position with the list he was handed.

[Flashman]

Wow Flashman.
Fancy being negative on some of our heroes!
Maxwell our greatest captain in decades.
Shaw was never an A grader ha ha ha
Davis the GF years where he never missed a kick out! Outstanding son!
The only one that I may agree with is Johnno but he had a couple of outstanding years.
You told me in one of your rants that I stubbornly refused to concede that Judkins was in charge of the 2004 draft.
So what is it Flashman - who according to you was in charge of drafting?
Maybe you should look at the start of this thread to get a clue.

Shaw was a very good player but elite? No way known unless weekly brain snaps that cost the side and consistently booting the ball out on the full after playing on from kickouts makes you an A grader (you don't really see Gary Ablett for example pulling gems like that do you?) Sidebottom is more A grade than Shaw and Langdon will be in a year or two if he keeps up his current form.

Maxwell was a great captain and an underrated player imo but he was never elite and you wouldn't find anyone who'd say he was. And saying he was our best captain in decades is drawing a long bow as well. Was he a better skipper than Buckley? Sure he got the flag but Buckley put forth some herculean displays in some pretty ordinary sides that allowed our side to punch well above it's weight in years like 2002-03 for example. He was a great on field leader. And Tony Shaw was one of the best and most inspirational skippers I've seen from any club, Maxwell wasn't a better captain than him.

Davis took the kick ins in 2011 only. He was always a lovely kick and we do miss someone who could thread a needle like that from kick outs (as we saw when Heath took the bulk of the kick ins in 2012-13 and sprayed them all over the place). But Davis got dropped for the 2010 replay remember and got towelled up by Varcoe in the 2011 GF and the less said about his 2002-3 GF's the better. A grade footballers produce in big games something that Leon never did.

I don't call it being negative on our heroes but realistic. You yourself have accused others of overrating Hine because he's at Collingwood yet your doing the same to some of these good but not "A grade" players just because they played for us. Hypocritical much?

As for when Hine took over I'm not really fussed. Mike Sheahan says 2005, you say 2004 either way we've had plenty of quality players picked in the ensuing years to prove Hine's worth as a recruiter several times over as our long period of sustained strength (8 straight years of finals) attests to.

Your continued banging on about Hine not producing an A grader since Beams is quite disingenuous anyway. It takes time to develop into an A grade player anyway. Guys like Chris Judd who are stars from day one are very rare and it took the likes of Swan, Beams, Reid and Thomas years to become genuine stars. Look at Steele. He's always been good but he's just now starting to enter into elite territory (which is why his injury will hurt us) and he's been in the system for as long as Beams.

It takes time but I've seen enough of several of our picks in the last few years to think Hine has recruited some quality that will serve us very well going forward on top of the keys he's already recruited earlier.

[thompsoc]

Well Flashman I have really enjoyed our little duel.
It has been entertaining over the last day or two.
Looking forward to more clashes in the future.
Please say hello to all the happy sacks out there!
P.S.
You do write well and I appreciate your effort.
Thommo

[thompsoc]

The reason I am talking about Hine is that I have made 2 statements
in the past year.
1 That Hine has not given us a proven A grader since Beams in 2008.
Which no one has put up any evidence to the contrary.
2. That he is over rated up until this time in his career.
With statements such as " Hine is a genius" and " In Hine we trust"
Nearly every Nick poster parrots these slogans.
I think he is reasonable but that is it.
I believed he first got these accolades when he picked Pendles and Daisy in 2005.
Both were not rated in the top 5 but were generally rated in the top dozen or so.
It was believed Pendles, in particular, had tremendous upside given his background.
It was a definite win for Hine.
So the media runs with this line - Hine is a genius etc..etc... and the Nick posters run with this line but I don't!
Hine had a big core of players left over from Judkin's reign which helped him get into 2 GF's .
We basically have a Hine player list now.
And to me, we look light years away from the PA's, Crow's, Hawks and the Cats , let alone the up and comers like GWS.
We may have great potential or we may not so please don't give me ...the Berg..the De Goey ..etc..etc..are certain A graders!
People keep knocking Judkin but he gave us Swan at pick 58!
What a Genius! Our best draft pick ever!!!
Where is the equivalent from Hine???
So parrots keep me honest and reply!

So Hine Should be Sacked then?

As the leader of the recruitment brigade on Nicks I would love to get your opinion on the Hine/Judkin debate and also the current overall assessment of our list.
And I promise I won't comment on your views.

[Albert Parker]

Wow, much of this discussion has been pretty unproductive.

I'd say the fact that we had the longest run in finals of any club until we missed last season is a positive reflection of Hine's job as recruiter. It is hard to sustain success in a competition with draft advantages given to lower performing clubs and concessions to start up clubs in GC and GWS.

Wright was appointed as recruiting and list manager at Hawthorn in June 2011

I'd rank Stephen Wells ahead of Hine, but few others including Graham Wright. Much of the star talent that formed the base of Hawthon's premierships has been selected by others like Chris Pelchen, who pre-dated Wright (Hodge (@1), Franklin (@5), Roughead (@2), Mitchell (@36 after overlooked in 2000 by everyone), Lewis (@7) etc). Most came from high draft picks too after a year where they bottomed out ~2004.

Hawks drafting has been disappointing for mine in recent years (2011 - Brad Hill, Jordan Kelly, Alex Woodward 2012 Tim O'Brien, Michael Osborne 2013 Billy Hartung, Dayle Garlett, James Sicily, Will Langford (Rookie FS)).

Their mature age recruiting has been more successful than ours though. Think Shaun Burgoyne, David Hale, Josh Gibson, Jack Gunston, Ben McEvoy and Brian Lake but these were lured on the back of what was already a successful team. (Some of these like Burgoyne and McEvoy were top 10 picks in their respective drafts too) Less kudos in that for mine than selecting talent via the draft, albeit you need both to win premierships.

That bunch of draft talent is fairly modest for mine and Hine's record tracks favourably. I would not be necessarily dropping Hine for Wright. I also think that Wright's record is assisted by the quality of coaching and I think Clarkson stacks up well relative to what Collingwood have had in charge. Hine is a Collingwood man and I do not think you dump guys like that, with some demonstrated capability, without hurting the fabric of a football club.

I think Hine's selections at the top 10 end of the draft have been pretty successful (Pendles, Thomas, Steele, Reid, Brown). He has picked some good value picks (Beams, Langdon) and I am optimistic that in time players like (DeGoey, Scharanberg, Freeman, Moore) who are also top-end picks will be generally winners. The club has done well to get access to so many high-end picks given our generally strong ladder position. A feat in itself. Lets wait and see what the haul of a couple of years ago brings (Grundy, Kennedy, Broomhead) but i would say the signs are good given the 6-8 year timeframe that most take to make it to elite.

What's clear is that Hine has not done a poor job. You can see what clubs like Melbourne and Carlton's recruiters have managed off the back of lots of premium draft picks - very little.