What's their secret?

[Griggsy]

Successful because of <injunction>


But in seriousness it's what Con said.
Might as well lump the demons in with the expansion teams, they also soaked up a lot of talent by being at the bottom so long effecting the cycle of talent.

[saintspremiers]

Now if we discuss the Hawks then we should discuss the Box Hill Hawks also.

That is their breeding ground and training paddock.

They literally roll out around 4 new players per year from their academy (which the the Box Hill Hawks) that are AFL ready.

Every year. Regardless of draft picks. No pissweak excuses needed as to why this player or that needs more time. Doesn't matter. They get the time.

We only started to get real control over our ressies when Richo started.

Lyon didn't know we had a ressies team and Twatters didn't know his head from his arse.

[The OtherThommo]

The responses point to most of what I've been trying to organise in my head, bar a couple.

First, Dunstall. But for him, it seems doubtful Clarkson would have got the job. The years he held the footy reins set them up for the 4 flags since '08, I reckon. He got them organised, kept the impatient at bay and used his clout to make sure those up top stayed on song.....and spent money wisely.

Mention has been made of the Dork's corporate and political m.o., and I agree. But, Dunstall doesn't fit that mould. I don't believe he got the gig because he had an MBA, nor do I recall him being sent to Harvard to get a quicky MBA, or some such. He hadn't wandered the corridors at AFL House (does that still exist?) networking his arse off to get into AWFUL ordained paths to glory. Yet, he was the ultimate power broker, the bloke in control, the bloke who would tell Kennett et al to stay in the board room, and out of the way. Given he went from player to club owner/media buffoon to chief architect/power broker, I reckon he just has genuine footy smarts, mixed with genuine acumen in various requirements, without the frills, and knows what is required - no matter what the era - and how to explain it, and get it done. He's actually the antithesis of the corporate types you see throughout the ranks of the AWFUL - he's even a plain speaker!

The second is salary cap management. I recall figures produced after our battle with Girlong in '09. While our top 10 (I think it was 10) consumed mid to high 50's % of our salary cap, Girlong's top 10 consumed around mid 40's % of their salary cap. Part of that problem was a hangover from Thomas's contract management, whereby one off awards with a financial component (e.g. B & F finishes) were contractually built in to subsequent years' 'ordinary' payments to players.

Hawthorn have been willing to shed relatively high paid players (Franklin being the best example) so they can keep regenerating. That, at least in part, has allowed them to exploit the free agency rules (and, let's face it, they outsmarted the AWFUL, because free agency was never thought to be structured in such a way as to facilitate high end talent going to the already successful). But, to be able to exploit it, they had to manage their cap, and they have, obviously, because no club has done better from free agency than they have.

The patience thing is also vital. While they do regenerate by shedding players, they do it differently to, say, us. Again, while I was watching Sicily on Sundee, I couldn't help but compare their development of him, with how we treated Tom Lynch. I'm not claiming I saw shades of football genius in Lynch in his time with us, but I am claiming we did not provide the development path, and time, for Lynch, that the Dorks have for someone like Sicily. They seem to get the concept of relative value better than most. I reckon Suckling is an example. They took him from lower end talent, developed and integrated him into a premiership side and, when his price exceeded their perception of his value, let him go elsewhere, and used that space to further regenerate.

Lots of moving parts make success. Most of them important to the Dork's success are in this thread e.g. going into the compromised draft era with a great core of talent at around the right age, using their excess cash to innovate development of individual and unit, how they use the Box Hill Dorks. But, to me, that suggests understanding more than good fortune.

Next step is to introduce coherence to the complexity apparent in success.

[The OtherThommo]

P.S. And, left footers, lots and lots of left footers.

[bigcarl]

Simplistically, nothing succeeds like success.

But to look at a bit deeper ...

They've managed to keep adding talent into a very strong core group.
They are excellently coached and led on field.
They don't recruit or play guys whose disposal is an issue.
They are strong financially.

But footy is cyclical. Nothing stays up or down forever, so their time will come as will ours.

The good news is that we are probably not as bad as we appeared last week. The Dogs are a very good side and may give it a shake this year. The bad news is that we have a way to go. We are a couple of A-grade midfielders short and the goal-to-goal line lacks a good chb and full back for the future.

[magnifisaint]

It's the special sauce

[Waltzing St Kilda]

Might want to look at what the Saints themselves did right earlier in the century. Because the likes of
Roo, Dal Santo, Ball, X. Clarke and co. were more exciting than the youngsters we have now. The poached
stars (Gerhrig, Hammill) were better than the one we've got languishing on the sidelines. And the top-up
players (Guerra, Powell, etc) offered more than most of our top-up players today (Delaney, Lee).

Plus GT, like him or loathe him, introduced a powerful culture including leadership rotation.

[ctqs]

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/t ... 2n47o.html

May 26, 2013

While Nicky Winmar's pointed role in transforming football culture has been the promotional vehicle for the AFL's indigenous round, Hawthorn will quietly acknowledge its own journey from prejudice when Chance Bateman visits the club rooms and is a guest of honour at the president's lunch today.

Bateman, who has returned west to play for Perth in the WAFL this year, holds a historic place at Hawthorn. Before the Hawks took their Chance at pick 48 in the 1999 draft, no Aboriginal footballer had worn the jumper at senior level since Percy Cummings – the club's second indigenous player – eked out five games in late 1964-65. Willie Rioli, the diminutive uncle of Cyril junior, was drafted in 1990, but didn't play a single senior game.

As officials from that "old school" time have attested, the Hawks were almost intentionally lilywhite throughout the 1980s and for most of the 1990s, despite the success that the likes of Essendon enjoyed by mining the new frontier of indigenous talent.

If it is slightly unfair to single out the Hawks, whose reluctance reflected the football zeitgeist of that era, the record shows they did cling to their prejudices for longer than other clubs.

This columnist certainly recalls rival clubs' recruiters talking about the Hawks' "white sheets" in the 1990s, when the question was posed of whether Hawthorn would entertain certain players.

The club, highly successful in the '80s, had stagnated and declined from the early '90s. One lesson that ought not be forgotten in this sorry history is that this aversion to indigenous players hurt the club financially and on the field – consider the subsequent impact of Lance Franklin and Cyril Rioli at the box office; they rank as the top two players for popularity in the entire competition.

But Bateman's arrival changed the unreconstructed Hawks. Mark Williams joined him from WA a year later, and that trickle of indigenous talent turned into a torrent. Bateman would be the first indigenous Hawk to 50, 100 and then 150 games.

Winmar's gesture changed the broader culture, Bateman's presence at Hawthorn transformed an institution. "If it wasn't for 'Changa', it probably wouldn't have opened our eyes to how good the indigenous players are and we've probably got the best list of indigenous players in the AFL," Hawks skipper Luke Hodge said in a Bateman tribute at last year's best and fairest.

Today, the Hawks have seven players with Aboriginal heritage on their list, the equal most in the competition (with Gold Coast). Further, they have two of the absolute elite in Franklin and Rioli, one of the game's most influential indigenous leaders in Shaun Burgoyne and, most tellingly, they have taken on Amos Frank, a tribal kid from remote central Australia for whom English is a second or third language. Franklin, Burgoyne and Brad Hill will represent the club today, with Jed Anderson, a Territory kid, among the emergencies.

In recruiting Frank, the Hawks made a serious commitment to a remote-region indigenous player at the precise moment when many clubs have become more risk-averse and reluctant to punt on players of that ilk. Bateman would be their Jackie Robinson, the first black baseballer to break the colour barrier in the major leagues in 1947.

"The club has made tremendous strides in less than 15 years and it's to their absolute credit – and they've reaped the rewards," said John Turnbull, the ex-recruiter manager who, with then coach Peter Schwab, was behind the crucial drafting of Bateman, who considered returning to Perth early in his career when his sister was killed in a horrific railway-crossing accident. The Hawks offered to trade him home to the Eagles or Dockers, but the resilient Bateman stayed and became a 2008 premiership player.

Bateman's role-model stature has been cited as important to the club's long march towards tolerance. "He was conscious of the history of the club with respect to indigenous players," was Turnbull's understated comment on how Changa handled his position. "He paved the way." Bateman won respect by training hard and playing his footy with the hard edge that Alastair Clarkson so encouraged.

The Hawthorn story of transformation does contain one troubling subtext, however: that the Hawks, as a well-resourced club with welfare officers and infrastructure, can afford to take the risk of drafting Amos Frank. Their welfare manager Jason Burt, who is assisted by indigenous ex-policeman Leon Egan, has been crucial to helping Frank assimilate into the club. Could a club with scant resources be so bold?

Privately, the AFL has made a connection between indigenous recruiting and equalisation. There's an emerging view from headquarters that all clubs, regardless of finances, ought to be in a position to take on Amos Frank, or the next Liam Jurrah, whose exit from the game might have been due to tribal factors beyond Melbourne's control.

Melbourne did its damndest to make Jurrah a long-term player, only to lose him in circumstances that are difficult for white Australians – media included – to comprehend. That said, we will never know how Jurrah would have fared at say Hawthorn, Collingwood or Essendon, just as we don't know how Jack Watts, a Brighton Grammar boy, would have fared at those clubs.

The question of "how far football has travelled" in reforming racist attitudes has been asked again following the vilification of Adam Goodes by a 13-year-old Magpie fan on Friday.

Mostly, discussion has centred on the attitudes of fans, rather than club policies. Bateman's breakthrough is a reminder that the progress had to be made within the walls – without which there wouldn't be indigenous players – as well as in the terraces.

[iwantmeseats]

Professional management with foresight.

[Con Gorozidis]

Professional management with foresight.

care to elaborate? i see words but i dont see any meaning.

[SaintWodonga]

in 1971's GF both clubs were going for their 2nd flag... We are still stuck on 1, while they have a truckload. Talk about a tale of 2 fortunes.

I look at our team and think how many players would get a game with the Hawks? How many players who can not kick would get a game there? I know Geary has heart, but he would have been delisted by them years ago. We really need to look at their kicking model, even it means Gilbo, geary etc no longer play. Let's get games into the kids who can kick the ball. If you think I'm wrong, then you think the Hawthorn model is wrong...