Earlier this season, ""Planning for success"", an article on what Dodoro’s job involves was run in the Bomber Magazine. Dodoro is in the spotlight at the moment with trade period starting next week and then the AFL National Draft on Saturday, November 20th. However, Dodoro has been busy all year while everyone else’s attention has been firmly focussed on the 2004 season.
""Planning for success"" gives you an insight into what is involved in being a recruiting manager at an AFL club.
PLANNING FOR SUCCESS – part one
The Essendon coaches and players have tunnel-vision at the moment. They have just one goal in mind, and that is to win the 2004 Grand Final. However, there is one person in the Bombers’ football department who is working on another project – a succession plan for 2005, 2006, and beyond to ensure the on-field success of the Essendon Football Club.
So in terms of our current playing list the bulk of recruiting and welfare manager Adrian Dodoro’s work is done for 2004. His major concern is building a talent pool for future years. It is a high pressure job and one that Dodoro enjoys immensely.
""You are on the edge here but you don’t mind being on the edge because it is something you love doing,"" Dodoro said. ""You can’t win the Premiership every year. If you are unrealistic in this game, you are not going to survive. The strength of a football club is its ability to plan for success, and understand there will be some troughs through that period. Always plan for success, but it won’t happen every year.""
Planning for success is Dodoro’s major aim. He is primarily responsible for bringing new talent to the club and it is not just a matter of always picking the best players. For a start, you don’t always have the luxury of high draft picks, and it is all about team balance and what sort of player the club needs heading into the future.
Dodoro claims good recruiting is all about strategy. ""If you want to walk out of the National Draft with a mix, like a ruckman and a midfielder, you have to weigh up when you can get the ruckman and the midfielder. In the last two years we have taken the ruckman first because we have known that there is no way they will be there at our next pick,"" he said. ""If you always pick the best player you might end up with the best midfield but in years to come you might not have any talls and have no structure.""
Ten months of extensive research and planning goes into the National Draft. While everyone at the club is focused on the Bombers’ current senior list, Dodoro is busy watching the junior ranks, trying to discover the next Essendon champion. It is not unusual for Dodoro to see six games of football in one weekend. When he is not interstate he and his nine-year-old son Jonathan often set off on a Saturday and Sunday morning with a homemade lunch courtesy of Adrian’s wife, Sharon, and spend the day watching football together and taking notes.
Dodoro’s research goes further than just watching players to find out who has the most talent. He talks to coaches, regional managers and school teachers to find out things that his spotters don’t see – their background, what sports they have played, their injury history and basically getting a deeper understanding of the person. ""I want my spotters to tell me who they like as a footballer and the reasons why; then the decisions on the character are up to us. It is a fine line between the player you take.""
By the time the National Draft comes around in late November, Dodoro knows everything about the players that are available and along with his recruiting team, he is able to rank the club’s top 80 player preferences. ""The later the draft goes, the choice you are looking at becomes even more obvious. The earlier choices are a little bit harder. You may have pick six or seven, and there are two or three players you could choose. Everyone knows about them and you are often not sure which one to take.
""A classic case is David Hille. We had David ranked top 10 and we got to pick 40 in the 1999 draft and he was still there. The decision to take him didn’t even have to be made – the decision made itself. All our research indicated that he was going to be a very good player and we had pick 40 and he shouldn’t have been there so we just took him.
""Ricky Dyson is another classic case. When we got to pick 44, it is like, ‘what is he still doing here?’ – you just take the best player available. When you get to a National Draft you eliminate all the guess work and stick to what you know. If you stick to that basic philosophy, you can still go wrong, but you eliminate the mistakes,"" Dodoro said.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of ""Planning for Success"" in the Engine Room on Monday.
