West vs Centrals

Some thoughts of mine

Recruiting -- tend to agree with lees comment above also need to remeber that the stupid sanfl salary lowering directly lead to a quality player leaving the club

Think recruiting focus needs to change -- i am aware that for several recent years we have has 2-3 players all lined up but they got drafted -- feel we need to look one level down eg not likely to be drafted also need to look at players from other sanfl clubs especially port and the crows

Looking at recent couple years i do not see any massive need for changes to recruiting committee but believe club has done full footy review which recruiting was part of so will be interesting to see

Fitness is a catch all that covers a variety of fields all which can effect the ability to run out games -- eg actual running endurance  (bigger tanks), weights program especially looking at numbers of juniors playing --- i probably am wrong but based on looking at body size of power and crows young players with ours of the same age i feel that the weights progam in the u/18 and reserves need hard review ----I genuinely believe the last quarter drop outs relate to the league team not being physically big enough for that robust level --- if you look at our keague and reserves squad now compaired with 2 years ago we have had an est 80-90% turn over in players with most of those who have left being the strong big body inside types which we have not replaced

Comments on football manager bit 50/50 to me as i see his role being more with liasion with country leagues, recruitment and retention of young players, player life issues,  ensuring provision of appropriate supplies etc and big picture football issues -- at league/reserves levels most potential duties are undertaken by the senior coach and his staff so whilst this positions is obviously part of any team performance review i question how large an issue in the overall this is or are the questions being based on personality clashes

Imo our recruiting priorities have been well listed by lacklan which i would add the need for two shane tuck types especially with the loss of the skipper and care bear

Anyway, my honest thought and other may (probably) disagree but that life

Hi All, I've been reading this forum for a while now and I thought it was time to join up and post my thoughts.
It appears to me the club is focusing more on bringing up young talent rather than topping up with new recruits. Understandable with limited funds and salary cap. Most of the league team are young and inexperienced and the reserves are full of kids.
Unfortunately this means we are going to have a lot of pain in the short term, especially if we don’t have our best team playing.
It hasn't been a great couple of years but I can see some positives.
We have only won 4 games this year but we got very close against South (1st time), Glenelg, Centrals (1st time), Sturt and North (1st time). We also had a good lead half time against the crows in the 1st game against them.  If we had won a couple of those games we would be competing for finals now.
This makes me think these kids have the talent but not the experience and fitness to run out the games yet. If we can keep these kids together, I think we will do very well in the near future. As they get more games and build up their fitness levels and hopefully improve their skills they should be able to keep up their work rate longer and finish off these games.
I think we do need to find at least another strong forward however – I don’t see any potential youngsters coming through and Mason M (who needs to spend much more time practising goal kicking!) can’t be the only big target.  If Daniel Webb comes back he should be made a permanent forward – I don’t think his body is up for ruck anymore.

Welcome cuban, and a very thoughtful first post too.

We certainly do have a number of promising players and we'll be going all out to surround them with several quality recruits.

Thanks Lee.
That is very good to hear.
My son has been playing U13s in the HFL this year and I've noticed a few familiar names playing for Blackwood. Ryan Djiksman, Nick Homburg, Ryan Anderson, Phil Hopton, Scott Bricknell, Rhys Sporn, Kurt Thompson and probably a few more. I am surprised Ryan Djiksman and Nick Homburg still aren't at Westies - they seemed to have a lot of potential.

We very much wanted to keep Nick in the squad, but his work meant he couldn't commit the time at SANFL level. We are keeping in touch with him to see if things change.

I think Ryan was in a similar situation with commitment. It's a big time commitment for not much reward, especially at Reserves level.

Welcome cuban and some very thoughtfull valid comments.

Nick homburg is a sanfl league quality footballer but is one of many similar players from all clubs who must balance the huge impact of league requirement with other life issues (work, family and study) for very limited rewards as lee indicated -- i wished there was an answer but none obvious to me.

I am aware of what several former league or reserves players are paid at lower levels and it is highly comparitable to league match payments (only super stars get big dollars) with a greatly reduced time and training footprint.

Unfortunately I don't see an answer either.
There just isn't enough money to pay players as an incentive to play SANFL anymore so work has to come 1st.
At least younger players have a possibility of being drafted by an AFL club which is some incentive - until they have to find full time work.