TOPIC:

30plusyeardrought wrote:

Mr AFL wrote: Can you blame any big name recruits for not wanting to come to the club. A quick google search shows that not a lot has happened over the last 37 years.

I dont think we have ever had a problem getting big name players or interstate players worthy of the high points to this club(im not going to name them all but there are plenty),i think the problem is we sit on our hands to long pondering what to do.
Look at Subi they win the premiership and within a month of it sign a player and there signings are not household names.
There are other clubs,look at South financially up to shit but that hasnt stopped them signing players.

We are the club of "excuses".

I do think this is true but we have spent high points on the wrong type of players as you aluded to at the start of the year with signing Cale Morton.

Hopefully we can get something of a tall forward in 2015, even if he is more of a presence and marking target than actually goal kicker. Was thinking the other day I wonder who will kick the goals in 2015. If Stack is fit and firing he is a 50 goal a year forward. He looked pretty switched on at the couple of training sessions I have watched. Can Cal Collard continue to improve and kick 40 or more goals this season. Is Mitch Morton going to be fit enough because for me he wasn't in 2014. If Earl decides to play him predominately forward with bursts in the middle he is the type of player who should be getting his 20 plus possessions a game 6-7 marks and kicking 2 sometimes 3 goals.

Anyway just something to think about.

How many goals we kick will be determined by how we play. One way of kicking goals is by having a key forward who kicks them. But not all key forwards kick lots of goals, which doesn't mean they don't contribute to making them. We can kick enough goals to win games if we set up right and if we play play well. I think between Leyendekkers, Morton, Stack, Collard, and one or two others we have the potential to kicks goals. Before the bottom fell out of our season last year we kicked 19 goals against Claremont, 19 goals against South, and 13 against West Perth at Joondalup (a ground, even in 1997, where we didn't score a lot of goals). I think that's 51 goals in our first three games. We played well in all 3, even though we lost one. Play well, you kick goals, no matter who does it.

There's a constant theme on here about how Perth haven't been able to attract quality recruits. Here's a team of recruits who played for Perth in my recent memory (stress my memory is not great, so might have missed one or two):

B. Leslie - Risol - Hardingham

HB. Harding - Ferguson - J. Morton

C. K-Thompson- Webb - Pang

HF. M.Morton - Rudd - Bevan

FF. Merritt - Maguire - Moody

Rucks Caryle - McCorkell - Young

Inter: Gaspar, Kreuger, McFarland, Sketcher

Not too bad for a so-called hopeless recruiting club (didn't go back much beyond 2000, didn't focus much on players we got from WAFL clubs). Our lack of success over the last 37 years doesn't have to do with our inability to attract recruits. It goes deeper than that. People here seem to want easy answers.

I agree PD that it goes a lot deeper than just recruiting. Have said before that I honestly think administrators, staff and players come here with the best intentions but for some reason or another it never works out. Its almost like we are cursed.

That side isn't to bad ut it would be interesting to see how many of them actually played together at the same time.

One answer is our zone. Look everybody knows East Perth would never have won a flag without the alignment. They would be in the same boat as us, less one year without becoming the West Coast Royal Reserves. The most successful clubs since we won our last flag have been Subiaco and Claremont, and one reason for that is that they get there young guys from the elite private schools. Easts, Souths, Swans, and West Perth have had intermittent success since 78. Swans is slightly skewed because they had that awesome team from the early 80s. After that I think they won in 1990 and then with Dawson (am I forgetting a year). We have the lowest socio-economic zone of any club. That's one reason for the lack of our success. Others are more contingent, less structural. Bad decisions on coaches, for example - Glascott being the worst, followed by a few others. With the exception of Blackwell and maybe Armstrong, not sure we've got it right too often since 78. Which is not to say that there's always been a better option available. Might have got Monaghan. Might have got Harding. Can't really fault Magro or Jarman as decisions. Eastaugh was worth a punt. Stan held on one year too long, but the club stood by him and I'm kinda glad we did. The 80s were terrible, even if we had Brown's year. 90's, early on, were worse, at least after Armstrong.
Since 1997 the problem has been continuity. At playing level, but also coaching level (in terms of consistency). Ever since Eastaugh we have made player retention a number one goal. I remember a meeting where it was said, if you don't want to be with us in 2 years then leave now. Of course, no one did, and despite the club's best efforts, some did. We need another player retention strategy. But built alongside coaches. Let's see how other clubs do it, for a start, not just here, but in SA and Vic.

Subi have private schools? Not us mate.

Haven't had any of the PSA colleges for years. It all changed in 1982/83. Very rare we have many private school kids come through apart from country boarders.

I would say Carine, Sorrento and Marmion are the well to do suburbs we have.

But our zone also consists of Mirrabooka, Balga, Nollamara, Girrawheen, Koondoola, Madeley, Darch, Landsdale, Marangaroo in the East.

Stirling, Balcatta, Gwelup, Warwick and Karrinyup in the old market gardens.

Then to the West we have Greenwood, Kingsley and Duncraig.

Bit of a diverse mix actually. Not large (2nd smallest) but interesting in terms of cultural and racial mixes.

WP, SU, EP are always competing for the smallest zone.

The way I see it, South's zone is about the best right now along with Claremont for different reasons.

The real problem in terms of Perth's zone is that they lost Armadale, Kelmscott, Roleystone and Mundijong to South when Peel came in. South lost a chunk of their zone to Peel of course. Those areas have been gold for South.

La Hincha wrote: Subi have private schools? Not us mate.

I thought you were Subi LH?.....

Freezin wrote:

La Hincha wrote: Subi have private schools? Not us mate.

I thought you were Subi LH?.....

Eh? Still Subi.. ..perfectly placed question mark mate.

I still remember the sorry day in 1982 when a Claremont rep visited us at U/16 training at Scarborough JFC to tell us we now belonged to the Monts.

Is that when you started surfing then LH? ......

Freezin wrote: Is that when you started surfing then LH? ......

Haha! nah...pinball. Those arcades were the best until Bondy demolished them.

Good point LH. You're right about Subi not having the elite schools. With Subi you had a growing demographic. The suburbs you mention were "young" suburbs. Lots of young families who had kids who reached football playing age between 1985 and 95. But really Subi had the money because of the deal with the insurance company and then because of the Eagles. I thought Mirrabooka, Nollamara and Balga were East Perth (when did it change?) I think you could call Karryinup well-to-do. How many other suburbs have a private golf club? I quibble. But socio-economically and demographically Subi's zone is far superior to Perth's.