Mr Fuller wrote:Yeh Hentchel and Godden have zero confidence now since choosing Eddy over Cachia a couple of years back! That's not one you get over especially when it cost the club very good $ for 0.0 return!!
These guys know the local league and are in the comfort zone in SA plus really how are they going to package up playing in this state with a decent job? All too hard especially when the Candy Crows drop their discards each year ie. Thompson, Petrenko and McKernan.
Lazy? Yes Sir! But priority No. 1 is plenty of recruits from anywhere because the Eagles have more issues then the state treasurer!
I get where the club is coming from in terms of not spending big $$ to bring someone from interstate here. However it’s a terrible attitude for a few reasons:
1. Many players, particularly those in age bracket 20-22 who we should be targeting are at university. They aren’t necessarily looking for full-time jobs and as such, it costs them nothing to transfer here. Do we even talk to these types? Maybe they are keen to come here and play in the second best competition with the aim of playing AFL. If they have intentions of getting back to the AFL it means they will put in 100% (unlike an Eddy) so you know what you are getting. Further, you know in advance they may only be here for 2-3 years so you can budget for this. You don’t dismiss these players out of hand purely because they are from interstate.
2. If the club worries about cost of interstate recruits then this means we need to poach established SANFL players from other clubs if we want to be competitive. And to get them to our club we need to pay way above market value.
3. Investing in mature SANFL footy players (or ex-SANFL players returning to the league from, say AFL) does not necessarily guarantee a good return. Consider players like Tiller, Kirk or Dabrowski who were only with the club for a few seasons, some even less. We had to pay top dollar for these types only to have them move on.
4. It restricts the club’s ability to address deficiencies – the eagles currently need a decent ruckman and a midfielder. If the answer to our problem lies in country Victoria, or Queensland, do we ignore this option because of where they live and instead only look within SA and perhaps only attract a substandard player?
The eagles’ mentality must change and fast. Given our small supporter base, we cannot afford to have multiple poor seasons. Godden and Hentschell are keeping this club down in order to ‘give juniors a go’ which is a noble gesture but ultimately will result in a poor outcome for the club.[/quote]
I think Dobba gave us 4 years and was a premiership player as was Tiller, however the latter did cost a lot but we went top!
Kirk was a lazy bust for little $ and with Eddy is why we have had no better season then average in the last 3!
Make no mistake Mr Fuller, Micky and Trent don't sleep that well nowdays knowing the club is on a disturbing run of 4 finals losses in a row that all have similar traits ie. getting over run literally, no one standing up from a leadership point of view and no significant change of gamestyle to get the game back going our way etc.etc.
