Don't Forget John Beverage

[Winmar7Fan]

We all seem to continuosly comment and back slap our Coaches and Players on how good they are and have been but i just thought i would spare a mention for our huge unsung hero in John Beveridge .

How responsible is HE for all of the success and wealth of talent this great club has had for a long time? Having the ability to see something in young kids who grew into great players and champions that others weren't able to continuosly for us to be very competitive through times when we couldn't afford to take the easy way out and pay big money for ready made players like the spoilt wealthy clubs .

Im sure if there is anything other Clubs do and should envy us for over the years it would be for this great recruiting genius.

[fonz_#15]

my name is daniel and i like a drink so does that mean you will call me daniel beverage?

in all seriousness though, if you are going to praise somebody, at least work out the spelling of their name

[plugger66]

We all seem to continuosly comment and back slap our Coaches and Players on how good they are and have been but i just thought i would spare a mention for our huge unsung hero is John Beverage .

How responsible is HE for all of the success and wealth of talent this great club has had for a long time? Having the ability to see something in young kids who grew into great players and champions that others weren't able to continuosly for us to be very competitive through times when we couldn't afford to take the easy way out and pay big money for ready made players like the spoilt wealthy clubs .

Im sure if there is anything other Clubs do and should envy us for over the years it would be for this great recruiting genius.

Of course that post is sarcastic.

[Winmar7Fan]

my name is daniel and i like a drink so does that mean you will call me daniel beverage?

in all seriousness though, if you are going to praise somebody, at least work out the spelling of their name

Bevridge , Beverrige, Bevrige , Bevarage who really gives two flying f---s
everyone miss spells and gets punctuation wrong on this forum ( not sure if i spelt PUCTUATION right but im not getting the f------ dictionary out to check). We're not writing a column in the Herald Sun we're just quickly trying to make our point as easy as possible ( especially at midnight) .

Its unnessesary crap like that that turns good fellow supporters off this forum.

By the way you didn't start your sentences with a capital letter and capital letters on your name Daniel Beverage. CHEERS

[stinger]

Its unnessesary crap like that that turns good fellow supporters off this forum.

like your post maybe.....

[Winmar7Fan]

Its unnessesary crap like that that turns good fellow supporters off this forum.

like your post maybe.....

Are you for real??? First i get a shallow spelling lecture response to a post then i get some one else who decides to lay a boot in just for the hell of it whos been around for a long time and obviously shows he hasn't got the sense, maturity and respect for the forum to lead by example. I'm intrigued by your unprovoked senseless action . What made you just decide to get involved with that little jab ?

[vacuous space]

Any reason why you needed all caps in the header? Is there something here that requires urgent attention? All caps hurts my brain.

Edit: That's better. Now somebody go make me a sandwich. And don't be stingy with the mayo.

[Otiman]

Any reason why you needed all caps in the header? Is there something here that requires urgent attention? All caps hurts my brain.

It's true, people write all caps to stand out, but in fact it is much more difficult to read.

[Winmar7Fan]

Any reason why you needed all caps in the header? Is there something here that requires urgent attention? All caps hurts my brain.

There . Am i to take that as constructive critsism or am i starting to recieve the backlash of a defensive click?

[Mr Magic]

Any reason why you needed all caps in the header? Is there something here that requires urgent attention? All caps hurts my brain.

There . Am i to take that as constructive critsism or am i starting to recieve the backlash of a defensive click?

Are you sure you have Beverage/Beveridge spelled correctly now?

[BAM! (shhhh)]

Any reason why you needed all caps in the header? Is there something here that requires urgent attention? All caps hurts my brain.

There . Am i to take that as constructive critsism or am i starting to recieve the backlash of a defensive click?

You're safe from my mouse (and collection of click-pens for that matter), but my clique is out to get you. Also my posse, entourage, gang, and the collective will of saintsational.

For the record, I don't care about the spelling, but picking on you seems to be the order of the day.

Not picking on you when everyone else is would hurt my brain.

I'm sure you're reduced to a quivering wreck of a man now, in awe of the grammatical skill of this board, so I apologise. I disagreed with the sentiment of the OP too, but that appears to be irrelivant to where this thread has actually gone. Best reason to use good grammar and manners (non caps) on the internet? So that people address what you actually say, not how you say it.

[BigMart]

For every good decision he has made, he made a poor one.....

some of his recruiting of midsize tweeners from 98-2006 was mind boggling....

some of his selections were no-brainers.....and a couple of them were questionable....

Ball & Clarke taken at 2 & 5 in the hottest draft ever....

JB is a good spotter of afl talent - but not guaranteed succes, were his choices...

[Mr Magic]

[quote="BigMart"]
Ball & Clarke taken at 2 & 5 in the hottest draft ever....

[quote]

We're not going to do this again are we?

That same draft saw us get Dal, Goose and Joey.

Bally has captained or CLub and would still be consideded right up there if not for OP.

Contiual soft-tissue injury problems have cruelled X's ability to play consistantly

I would have thought that this particular draft is not the example you would raise to question JB's abilities?

[WinnersOnly]

JB has beeen undermanned and under resourced for years but when selecting 2nd, 3rd and latter round picks he has a less than average hit rate. Having said that I think some less than astute coaches have over ruled him or unfairly influenced him at times. I think he has tried to hard to select outside the norm and missed a lot of TAC and NAB bloody good proven talent!

[BigMart]

Why not?????

Ball - simple fact is he is not in the same league as Judd (injuries or not) agreed......Judd was well known before the draft - he was not a smokey......he was a risk, but it was a risk NOT to take him

Clarke - skilfull player predicted to go fom 10-15 in the 01 draft.....surprisingly picked at #5....in front of blu chip midfielders J.Bartel (8)/B.Reilly (12)/N.Dal Santo (13)......JB went for X-Factor (pardon the pun) over insurance....B.Reilly was my hope in 01 if we did not get Judd/Hodge

Dal - not a surprising pick.....was predicted around #15.....has been a gem....4 times in the top 5 of the B&F...AA....

Goose - The most overrated player on St.K's list.....has played one good game since 2005 (injuries have curtailed him, but he has never been a world beater) about 10 very good games in total (where he made the best players list) in 7 years. once he finished top ten in the B&F (8th in 2005)

Joey - Took a long while, but has paid dividends....

Josh Houlihan - annual skinny kid who never makes it...Raymond, Howard, Eljay...

Point is......with 6 picks in the top 50 of the SUPERDRAFT.....wasn't difficult...have a look at how the hawks went, cats went, eagles went...

For every good selection - I can find a bad one.....same at every club.....there are NO geniuses...

[saintsRrising]

What I have been told by someone that used to be at the club was that JB was/is a very good spotter of raw football talent.

However balancing that he was not good at assessing and/or discovering a players character and was not always that aware of past injury records.

They believe that JB's selections were very worthwhile, but needed strong perusing and vetting.....and if this was not done...beware.


Quality footskills would also have seem to not have been a strong decision factor.....

It is the whole package that has been important.


Now think back over our selections...do you see any pattern of players that had good talent.....but lacked workrate, commitment and/or who had too many off field issues?????

Workrate and application are not just important in a match....but are telling in a player being willing to knuckle down, develop and improve.

[saintsRrising]

..there are NO geniuses...

No..no one is perfect.

Though Scott Clayton is pretty good....and while he had ample resources at the Lions...he has not had them at the Dogs.

[bobmurray]

JB is alright but not as good as we'd like to believe.................

If he was the recruiting messiah there wouldn't be a need for these constant poor recruiting threads and we'd be higher up the ladder and we wouldn't have as many structural weaknesses in the team.......

He had a job to do and he did it as best he could with whatever resources he had but there was nothing "genius"about it......

[BAM! (shhhh)]

I will never be able to prove this, but I believe that Beveridge has been a fantastic spotter of talent pre-draft, and that shoddy development process has let down a lot of his picks after the fact.

So many of them it's easy to see what he was looking at when he drafted them, but given that they needed to improve to get to AFL, they've stagnated. Injuries have also curtailed the development of a large number of possible good/great selections.

Given a good development process and free reign to use the rookie list (and take more smokies as a result), I believe his record would be far better than debatable.

As a recruiter of mature talent however, his record is poor, as you'd expect that decisions on Brooks and Watts at least should have leaned heavily on Beveridge, more than Ackland's etc. who were plugging holes at the top level.

[saintly]

As a recruiter of mature talent however, his record is poor, as you'd expect that decisions on Brooks and Watts at least should have leaned heavily on Beveridge, more than Ackland's etc. who were plugging holes at the top level.

i aint sure that beverage picked the the mature guys.

guys like of mcgough, brooks, ackland, guerra, watts

[saintsRrising]

I will never be able to prove this, but I believe that Beveridge has been a fantastic spotter of talent pre-draft, and that shoddy development process has let down a lot of his picks after the fact.

.

I agree with the essence of this......and that our player development of new recuits was pretty dismal. Sink or swim is not really a sound development approach!!!!

However part of being a good spotter is also being able to "spot" a player character and commiitment to be dedicated enough to become a full time professional athlete at the highest level.

Banger is Banger not just due to his natural aerobic capacity, or ability to "jink"...but also largely due to his fierce competitive drive.


I think JB has stayed on asa consultant...and if so we will get great value out of him as he has an excellent eye for raw "football" ability.

[BAM! (shhhh)]

I will never be able to prove this, but I believe that Beveridge has been a fantastic spotter of talent pre-draft, and that shoddy development process has let down a lot of his picks after the fact.

.

I agree with the essence of this......and that our player development of new recuits was pretty dismal. Sink or swim is not really a sound development approach!!!!

However part of being a good spotter is also being able to "spot" a player character and commiitment to be dedicated enough to become a full time professional athlete at the highest level.

I understand what you're saying, and it is part of the recruitment process to assess this... but one of the difficulties is you're interviewing immature kids, who knows when they'll grow up? Part of genuinely good development is being able to harness those players and get them on track. There are certainly headcases in the league... Brown needed anger management classes, Fev got to his last chance before contemplating giving up the Sauce, Whitnall looked like he was there for a season and then regressed. Aussie Jones struggled to motivate himself to do the fitness work.

I wouldn't even hazard a guess as to whether St Kilda was unable to address this, or whether they were too gunshy to trust the rest of the group to deal with recalcitrant players (i.e. could we have played some of the headcases a bit more to give them a wakeup call?)... or whether the players were genuinely too troubled to ever make it.

While I certainly don't suggest we show the disregard for attitude that recent events have meant is the perceived modus operandi of West Coast, I don't think it's co-incidence that their development program has not only thrown up a good number of players from places like the rookie list, but allowed more players of questionable character to find their way to AFL stardom.

[saintsRrising]

... but one of the difficulties is you're interviewing immature kids, who knows when they'll grow up?



Indeed...but that is also why some are better at than others..
no one is perfect and cannot always be right.

I wasas told however that you needed to really go through this after JB's 'spots"..and if you didn't....watch out...

Part of genuinely good development is being able to harness those players and get them on track. There are certainly headcases in the league... Brown needed anger management classes, Fev got to his last chance before contemplating giving up the Sauce, Whitnall looked like he was there for a season and then regressed. Aussie Jones struggled to motivate himself to do the fitness work.

I wouldn't even hazard a guess as to whether St Kilda was unable to address this, or whether they were too gunshy to trust the rest of the group to deal with recalcitrant players (i.e. could we have played some of the headcases a bit more to give them a wakeup call?)... or whether the players were genuinely too troubled to ever make it.

While I certainly don't suggest we show the disregard for attitude that recent events have meant is the perceived modus operandi of West Coast, I don't think it's co-incidence that their development program has not only thrown up a good number of players from places like the rookie list, but allowed more players of questionable character to find their way to AFL stardom.

What you say is true....but in AFL even with rookies you only get a very finite number of selections..

You cannot afford to waste too many selections on players that either not dedicated enough...or are too easily distracted.

Part of the process may also be that player may have extra talent...and so you as a club decide to put extra development into him.....or to just take the risk.

The Hawks for example new in advance that Buddy had "issues".

The Lions with Pike also took him knowing he had "issues".

However the Saints have taken too may players with issues....and then did not develop then properly. However if you take too many players with "issues' that will also strech your development resources, reducing what you can achieve with all your players.

It is pleasing to see that this now seems to be being addressed.

[fonz_#15]

my name is daniel and i like a drink so does that mean you will call me daniel beverage?

in all seriousness though, if you are going to praise somebody, at least work out the spelling of their name

Bevridge , Beverrige, Bevrige , Bevarage who really gives two flying f---s
everyone miss spells and gets punctuation wrong on this forum ( not sure if i spelt PUCTUATION right but im not getting the f------ dictionary out to check). We're not writing a column in the Herald Sun we're just quickly trying to make our point as easy as possible ( especially at midnight) .

Its unnessesary crap like that that turns good fellow supporters off this forum.

By the way you didn't start your sentences with a capital letter and capital letters on your name Daniel Beverage. CHEERS

It is a pet hate of mine. Why should we read what you post, if you can't have the courtesy to check your spelling.

Also the word you refer to in your above post is punctuation, which presents to me further evidence that you are either: A) A primary school student or B) Educationally challenged.

[BAM! (shhhh)]

Part of genuinely good development is being able to harness those players and get them on track. There are certainly headcases in the league... Brown needed anger management classes, Fev got to his last chance before contemplating giving up the Sauce, Whitnall looked like he was there for a season and then regressed. Aussie Jones struggled to motivate himself to do the fitness work.

I wouldn't even hazard a guess as to whether St Kilda was unable to address this, or whether they were too gunshy to trust the rest of the group to deal with recalcitrant players (i.e. could we have played some of the headcases a bit more to give them a wakeup call?)... or whether the players were genuinely too troubled to ever make it.

While I certainly don't suggest we show the disregard for attitude that recent events have meant is the perceived modus operandi of West Coast, I don't think it's co-incidence that their development program has not only thrown up a good number of players from places like the rookie list, but allowed more players of questionable character to find their way to AFL stardom.

What you say is true....but in AFL even with rookies you only get a very finite number of selections..

You cannot afford to waste too many selections on players that either not dedicated enough...or are too easily distracted.

Part of the process may also be that player may have extra talent...and so you as a club decide to put extra development into him.....or to just take the risk.

The Hawks for example new in advance that Buddy had "issues".

The Lions with Pike also took him knowing he had "issues".

However the Saints have taken too may players with issues....and then did not develop then properly. However if you take too many players with "issues' that will also strech your development resources, reducing what you can achieve with all your players.

It is pleasing to see that this now seems to be being addressed.

One of the reasons I'm pretty confidant Beveridge would have done better given better dev. and rookie list resources is the record at the National Draft.

Given the ubiquity of discussions of our record involving discussion of our list and recruitment on saintsational, I'm in the process of trying to educate myself better on the impact of one or two off years on performance via a record of games played vs. list position. I'm doing this via excel and the data available on footywire (?)... the site you pointed me to in a thread some weeks back. It's progressing horrendously slowly as I haven't got the blocks of time necessary to actually get the dat into spreadsheets, let alone analyse it...

HOWEVER,

I have gotten as far as crunching the games played numbers for '04-'05 draftees (a thread of yours gave me the idea) to see how we actually fared, since there seem to be as many opinions as posters on the subject) for National, Rookie and Preseason Drafts.

We are middle of the table in the National Draft for the 2 year period. Obviously we're bottom in Rookies, and bottom in PSD as we ignored these completely... with the effect of dropping us to 13th (Freo, Sydney, Melbourne behind)...

While that anecdotal sample isn't enough to draw the larger conclusion I'm looking for, it is enough to suggest that Beveridge was under resourced from a pure number of picks perspective... and that's with the questionable development practices of the time, though propped up by mature age draftees who were already developed.