That's just a stupid comment.

We have a heap of babies and not many big bodied men on our list. Why would it be a stupid idea to have a look at shifting say 3 of the babies on (along with a couple of picks) for a chance to trade for some harder, bigger footballers?

Common sense I would have thought.

We moved on Miller because he is a spud.

Junior I dissagreed with.

Bruce sucked up money and was a turnover merchant.

Doesn't mean that we shouldn't look to top up a little in the mid-older aged hard bodied players. I'm not talking about half the list here, just maybe 2 or 3.

I just think we have gone down a certain path...that is build through youth and draft picks and get rid of dead wood, that there is no point changing paths after poor early season form.

Hold tight Clay. A few older harder bods aint going to help us if we have stuffed up our overall direction. If we get closer to top four with the core of youngsters we have once they mature then maybe we bolster our list. If we don't have the core out of our younger group now ie under 22s we are farked for a long, long time....

Our immature playing list are being paid not much different to the best in the comp. The road the powers that be have chose to travel has been mapped out. But I'd kill if we could have a gun experienced midfielder to add to what we have now. Can we afford one?

If you're going to embark on a trading strategy, then the best types to target are the 21-23 year olds who feel they aren't getting the opportunities they want and hoping you get something of quality. Then at least, rather than getting a Macdonald or Warnock, you might get a Heath Scotland or a Shaun Grigg. Still hardly sounds worth the effort to me though. I think at this point the better option is to just back in the talent we have.

It worked for Sydney with McGlynn, Kennedy.

At the same time they drafted the likes of Jetta & Rohan.

I understand the comparitive lists of Sydney & Melbourne are different in some ways, but McGlynn & Kennedy are very handy pick-ups. Essentially I think you're right about 21-23 years olds re: opportunities. But you'd want to do your homework regarding targetting and giving up a player(s), pick(s) in return.

It is pretty clear that we have a big hole in our list in terms of older players. We have moved on Miller, Bruce and Junior. I am of the opinion that with a whole swag of good kids (and Viney coming soon) we can afford to move a few on for some bigger bodied players.

Yep. We need some grunt and some severe agro players to put the fear of Lucifer into the opposition. What's the chances of us trading a few skinny C graders for the hulk, The Thing and Abomination you reckon?

B)

No, we should not. Why?

- Of the group, we only have 8 players 25 or older. These are (oldest to youngest) Green, Davey, Jamar, Moloney, Warnock, JMac, Rivers and Sylvia.

- Notably, of this group, 1 (JMac) has not played yet this season, another (Warnock) is set to play his first game Sunday.

- By the time Green retires, Davey and Russian should be 30 at least, and Moloney & Warnock 29. Any other players will be slotting into this gap.

- This gap is 2013. Well ahead of any chance we have at a flag.

Beyond this group, the oldest is Martin (the only '86 on the books) then Dunn and Bate at '87. From there, we have 8(!) guys who are 1988 (23 this year), 2 who are 1989 and a further 7 who are 1990. Furthermore, Watts, Scully, Trengove, Blease, Fitzpatrick and Bull are all '91 and Cook, Davis and Tom McDonald are '92.

This suggests to me that even come next year, the bulk of the lower order - those guys getting thrown around by bigger bods such as Scull, Trengove et al - will be far more backed up by the '88 crew, and thus making trading for any older players redundant.

If you're going to embark on a trading strategy, then the best types to target are the 21-23 year olds who feel they aren't getting the opportunities they want and hoping you get something of quality. Then at least, rather than getting a Macdonald or Warnock, you might get a Heath Scotland or a Shaun Grigg. Still hardly sounds worth the effort to me though. I think at this point the better option is to just back in the talent we have.

I think this is just one of the issues that sets the MFC apart (as well as other long term struggling clubs) from the top clubs. We seem to struggle developing promising recruits past a C/B grade for some reason. Might be a systemic development issue that needs to be assessed from outside and addressed by the board/FD if it hasn't already. Could also be the quality of the recruiting and the recruiting dept's methods/peeps etc. Maybe both!

Were we able to take more of our younger/promising recruits beyond C/B graders, we obviously wouldn't be so concerned with the state of the team right now and we more than likely wouldn't be seeing the poor results we saw on Thurs eve as player list/talent/skills would be developing along the expected time line/development program, and the output/effort would be showing ever improving outcomes both at the player level and team performances.

I'm certainly not saying we wouldn't have our occasional downs along the way regardless. Just not to the depths we saw on Thurs, nor the 2nd half disappearing act against the Dawks. For some, including within the club, a 3 year regression to 2008 performance levels! B)

Hell no to the OP. We've sacrificed a lot to go down this path. If the last five years haven't been wasted then we have the beginnings of a legendary team. All we need is the fortitude to see it through.

This.

Edit: not just the bold bit - I just particularly liked that sentence

Ha!