Can you do it again, but choosing rubbish players? (and no, don't post the Melbourne teamsheet)

Allright. Maybe this will cheer you up!! (somewhat..)

B Andrew Moore (Port) Patrick McCarthy (Carl) Anthony Long (Ess)

HB Jamie Bennell (Melb) Tony Notte (WCE) Brad Sheppard (WCE)

C Tom Swift (WCE) Jesse Crichton (Freo) Christian Howard (Wbull)

HF Lewis Johnstone (Syd) Liam Jones (WBull) Addam Maric (Melb)

F Rohan Kerr (Carl) Paul Cahill (St.K) Michael Walters (Freo)

FO James Mulligan (WBull) Patrick Veszpremi (Syd) Jed Lamb (Syd)

IN Eljay Connors (St.K) - Supersub

I have too much time on my hands....

I realised we're 3 short on the bench, but having James Mulligan out there is like playing with 3 extra anyway...

  On 22/08/2012 at 03:47, Weedster said:

Interesting read .. hard to disagree with most assessments..let's hope the ones we've got develop

Well, the MFC recruiters made excellent choices with two that this recruiter didn't want: Howe ('Never seen play') and McDonald ('I am so-so on Tom'). This is not to bag that recruiter, but simply to say that drafting is a difficult process.

If we had picked Howe and McDonald with our first two picks, then we would be saying what a brilliant draft this was for the Dees.

If we had picked Cook with the pick used on McDonald, we would be treating him as he is: a young KPF, who will take years to develop but worth the option.

Drafting is one thing, development quite another.

  On 22/08/2012 at 03:50, Weedster said:

Appalling choices, albeit with the benefit of hindsight. Big Brad was the only one who fired a shot for us, moreover, the draft was full of players who have become solid ten-year contributors. A shocking effort from our recruiters.

A bit unfair on Steven Armstrong I would have thought. He was developing very nicely and looked to have a long career with us. I enjoyed watching him play, he was reliable, was fitting in nicely and could kick a goal. Then as we know was injured in the bombing and struggled after that. I'm sure otherwise he'd have been terrific for us, no way I'll put him in the dud or fail pile.

At the game today, what stood out as much as anything else was the size difference of Melbourne players to Adelaide's. They are grown men, with big, mature bodies. And they don't have a list of players who are either big, but slow, or fast, but soft. Dangerfield is bigger than any Melbourne midfielder and is just as fast.

This reinforces for me even more the idea that our development of our players is the primary and dominants reason for our crappiness. We aren't able to build these kids into men. Our players are just boys in comparison. Jack Grimes looked tiny compared to Adelaide's players, and he's been in the AFL system just as long as Dangerfield has.

  On 26/08/2012 at 10:37, titan_uranus said:

At the game today, what stood out as much as anything else was the size difference of Melbourne players to Adelaide's. They are grown men, with big, mature bodies. And they don't have a list of players who are either big, but slow, or fast, but soft. Dangerfield is bigger than any Melbourne midfielder and is just as fast.

This reinforces for me even more the idea that our development of our players is the primary and dominants reason for our crappiness. We aren't able to build these kids into men. Our players are just boys in comparison. Jack Grimes looked tiny compared to Adelaide's players, and he's been in the AFL system just as long as Dangerfield has.

Maybe we should reunite Craig wit Rendell?

  On 26/08/2012 at 10:37, titan_uranus said:

At the game today, what stood out as much as anything else was the size difference of Melbourne players to Adelaide's. They are grown men, with big, mature bodies. And they don't have a list of players who are either big, but slow, or fast, but soft. Dangerfield is bigger than any Melbourne midfielder and is just as fast.

This reinforces for me even more the idea that our development of our players is the primary and dominants reason for our crappiness. We aren't able to build these kids into men. Our players are just boys in comparison. Jack Grimes looked tiny compared to Adelaide's players, and he's been in the AFL system just as long as Dangerfield has.

The Adelaide list is also vastly more experienced. Virtually their whole team has played more than 50 games. Dees are a couple of years behind but our list has some serious work to do over the next year.

With Lucas Cook now on the scrap heap it would seem, I've asked myself to look at our drafting since BP was at the Demons. I remember doing a similar exercise for CAC a few years ago, and didn't seem to think he'd done all that badly apart from 2001, with many of the drafts we had good picks in just turning out to be terrible overall, with the Dees making the best of a bad lot.

Anyways, this is about BP, and here's his record. I've bolded the picks that you can argue are a clear win. I don't think it's fair to compare who we could've had at these picks, there's no way to get recruiting 100% correct. But you can look back and if there were a number of options better than the one you took, then clearly you could've done better.

2008:

National Draft

1. J. Watts

17. S. Blease

19. J. Strauss

35. J. Bennell

51. N. Jetta

64. R. Bail

Pre-Season Draft:

1. L. Jurrah

Rookie Draft:

1. J. McKenzie

17. R. Healy

33. D. Hughes

2009:

National Draft

1. T. Scully

2. J. Trengove

11. J. Gysberts

18. L. Tapscott

34. M. Gawn

50. J. Fitzpatrick

Pre-Season Draft:

1. J. Macdonald

Rookie Draft:

Nil

2010:

National Draft:

12. L. Cook

33. J. Howe

50. T. Davis

53. T. McDonald

Rookie Draft:

14. D. Nicholson

31. M. Evans

48. K. Lawrence

63. C. Johnston

75. R. Campbell

2011:

National Draft:

36. R. Taggert

52. J. Tynan

54. J. Sellar

Rookie Draft:

6. J. Sheahan

24. T. Couch

42. J. Magner

59. L. Williams

What is clear is that BP did will with his later round draft selections, but struggled to hit the ball out of the park on the big selections. Of his 7 picks in the top 20 none would be considered to be a clear win.

Even Blease who has shown some potential this year, players selected between him and our next pick (Bennell) included Luke Shuey, Hayden Ballantyne, Jackson Trengove, David Zaharakis, Dayne Beams and Daniel Hannebery.

Watts will be a good player, but we all know who we could've had instead. Trengove has had a quiet year, and will improve, but there are some great players who went ahead of him. And Scully, well maybe it is a win given he's given someone else two chances to do what he couldn't do in seven. We will have to wait and see, but based on his form for us and GWS, this was another fail from BP.

The standout selection from BP is Jeremy Howe, who will be a very good player for us. Players of value were picked up late, including Jordie McKenzie, Rohan Bail, Dan Nicholson and Jimmy Magner. All great to add depth to the list, but unfortunately he didn't nail those first round picks to give us the class we required. Add this to the Cale Morton / Grimes / A. Maric draft that CAC finished up on, and we're really lacking some class unfortunately.

Think it's time to look forward guys...

All this shoulda/coulda/woulda will just go around in circles and is counterproductive.

Every team has better players they could have drafted, but drafting is an educated guess, nothing is 100%, and hindsight will slap you like a b!tch.

I'm more concerned with this years drafting, especially seeing we have someone who's not a known recruiter and is in his first year in the job coming in to arguably our most important post-season ever.

  On 26/08/2012 at 03:09, King Cuthbertson said:

For a bit of fun, I picked a 22 full of players we 'overlooked' at each pick during the Dean Bailey drafts (2007-2010).

B Cameron Pedersen (Nth) Harry Taylor (Geel) Alex Johnson (Syd)

HB Scott Selwood (WCE) Daniel Talia (Adel) Lewis Jetta (Syd)

C Patrick Dangerfield (Adel) Dustin Martin (Rich) Tom Rockliff (Bris)

HF Dayne Beams (Coll) Nat Fyfe (Freo) Mitch Robinson (Carl)

F Jack Darling (WCE) Sam Reid (Syd) Jeff Garlett (Carl)

FO Nick Naitanui (WCE) Michael Barlow (Freo) Luke Shuey (WCE)

IN Sam Jacobs (Adel) Jarryd Blair (Coll) Stewart Crameri (Ess)

Luke Dalhaus (WBull)

I like to call them, 'The Couldabeen Champions'.....

Not much fun to be had there unforutnately.....

But honestly all clubs can put together these kind of lists, of the road not taken.

  On 22/08/2012 at 06:24, jnrmac said:

Gee but Steven Armstrong was a premiership player.....

  On 22/08/2012 at 12:09, Pennant St Dee said:

While we'd all give up a limb to be able to call ourselves a Premiership player it's really the most overated saying in Football, Bob Skilton, Doug Hawkins, Robert Harvey, Neiter, Jimmy, Robbie Flower and many others will be remembered a lot longer than many Premiership players.

Pretty sure it was Cam Mooney who had 0 touches in Norths 1999 Premiership Side. Although Army had a good game for Meth Coast in 06 and kicked a vital final quarter goal

  On 26/08/2012 at 02:54, jnrmac said:

Always amazes me how the tag 'premiership player' seems to elevate some seriously ordinary (and lucky) players beyond mortal status....

I suspect that jnrmac was being tongue in cheek !

The clean out has begun and is exposing many of our poor selections. But yes as others say, lets look forward and hope to hell we get most of it right from now on.

  On 04/09/2012 at 21:57, Redleg said:

The clean out has begun and is exposing many of our poor selections. But yes as others say, lets look forward and hope to hell we get most of it right from now on.

Theres no pointn putting it off. And no sense doing it ny halves. Some will be surprised by the magnitude of the purge, others ( myself included ) will be disappointed if it isnt as near to thorough as possible.

I dont think we could possibly get it any more wrong than we have lol

Wow. Lucas Cook really hurts. At least Luke Molan at pick 9 was cruelled by injury. I know Cook has had some injuries but to see Cook languishing in the Casey 2's is a real indictment.

Boy it makes Darling look like a howler (and yes I know EVERY club overlooked him).

  On 04/09/2012 at 23:07, jnrmac said:

Wow. Lucas Cook really hurts. At least Luke Molan at pick 9 was cruelled by injury. I know Cook has had some injuries but to see Cook languishing in the Casey 2's is a real indictment.

Boy it makes Darling look like a howler (and yes I know EVERY club overlooked him).

I reckon that is a poor excuse Jnr, it is wheeled out to defend a poor decision.

A bit like " we failed to develop him " that is used to excuse every poor draft selection.

Why can't we just admit we made a poor decision.

Drafting is not a exact science.

An. Unmitigated. Frigging. Disaster.

  On 04/09/2012 at 23:49, Ben-Hur said:

An. Unmitigated. Frigging. Disaster.

The thing with Cook is he was always fragile. I seem to remember he was in tears at a training session. I recall my son alerting me to the fact at a Casey game that he had pulled out of the contest a few times. I then concentrated on this aspect and yes he would see the opponent coming and forget about the ball. It happened often. Neeld would have hated it. Lovett obviously didn't like it. He was also very skinny and never changed.

I don't want to hear any more about poor development. He was a bad selection, end of story.

Unfortunately for Prendergast and us, he made a lot of them.

  On 04/09/2012 at 16:07, stuie said:

Think it's time to look forward guys...

All this shoulda/coulda/woulda will just go around in circles and is counterproductive.

Every team has better players they could have drafted, but drafting is an educated guess, nothing is 100%, and hindsight will slap you like a b!tch.

I'm more concerned with this years drafting, especially seeing we have someone who's not a known recruiter and is in his first year in the job coming in to arguably our most important post-season ever.

... and I'm still concerned that, unless our development has improved vastly under the new regime, history will repeat itself, no matter how our drafting looks at the time of the draft.

Unless we can pick up some of those rare birds who can become stars with minimal outside input, of which Viney may well be one.

Most of those who we drafted have hardly improved at all since they were playing U18, while many of those drafted by other clubs have vastly improved their game over the same period.

  On 05/09/2012 at 01:42, Akum said:

... and I'm still concerned that, unless our development has improved vastly under the new regime, history will repeat itself, no matter how our drafting looks at the time of the draft.

Unless we can pick up some of those rare birds who can become stars with minimal outside input, of which Viney may well be one.

Most of those who we drafted have hardly improved at all since they were playing U18, while many of those drafted by other clubs have vastly improved their game over the same period.

Agree with this. Big worry. People are pointing their fingers at either the drafting OR the development, but in reality, it's probably been both that have failed.

I'm less worried about the development now given our massive additions to the coaching staff etc, but it will take a couple of years to get a good culture going, then another few years AFTER that for the young guys to benefit from it, geez we're a while off aren't we?!

This year's draft and how it pans out for us with factors both in and out of our control is really our last stand, at least for a few years.

  On 04/09/2012 at 23:15, old dee said:

I reckon that is a poor excuse Jnr, it is wheeled out to defend a poor decision.

A bit like " we failed to develop him " that is used to excuse every poor draft selection.

Why can't we just admit we made a poor decision.

Drafting is not a exact science.

Err I did. An 'indictment' - an expression of strong disapproval.

Thrilled that Barry Prendergast knew more than every Demonlander, who predicted we would take Talia with the pick 11 we got from Carlton for Brock. WJ and I nearly fainted when we went to a function on draft night and Chris Connolly told us we would not take Talia, but instead would take Gysberts. Talia has won the rising star and looks an AA and star for 10 years. Gysberts is being spoken of as being traded.

How much was he paid for being our head recruiter?

I know it is easy to have hindsight but most of us had foresight on this occasion. Now we hear about Gysberts deficiencies as the reason he may go.

I won't mention Cook/Darling as other have.

Why were other clubs shocked at some of our selections?

It just makes you sick, thinking about it.

I keep expecting Barry Prendergast and Ashton Kutcher to appear on television informing MFC supporters that we've been punk'd.

  On 05/09/2012 at 05:31, Redleg said:

Thrilled that Barry Prendergast knew more than every Demonlander, who predicted we would take Talia with the pick 11 we got from Carlton for Brock. WJ and I nearly fainted when we went to a function on draft night and Chris Connolly told us we would not take Talia, but instead would take Gysberts. Talia has won the rising star and looks an AA and star for 10 years. Gysberts is being spoken of as being traded.

How much was he paid for being our head recruiter?

I know it is easy to have hindsight but most of us had foresight on this occasion. Now we hear about Gysberts deficiencies as the reason he may go.

I won't mention Cook/Darling as other have.

Why were other clubs shocked at some of our selections?

It just makes you sick, thinking about it.

But, the real but unanswerable question is this. If Talia had been picked instead of Gysberts would he have had his talent, strength and fitness developed as well at Melbourne as has happened at Adelaide?

  On 04/09/2012 at 23:07, jnrmac said:

Wow. Lucas Cook really hurts. At least Luke Molan at pick 9 was cruelled by injury. I know Cook has had some injuries but to see Cook languishing in the Casey 2's is a real indictment.

Boy it makes Darling look like a howler (and yes I know EVERY club overlooked him).

Nothing new here but I still think that Darling 'Tanked' his draft combine. He had 2-3 incidents that made him look unappealing to other clubs leading up to the draft, probably sold himself as a high risk to head home if he left WA in his interviews etc, and I reckon it was all arranged beautifully between him, his management and the WCE who knew they would have no chance of hiding Darling as a talent given his 2010? national carnival so the only way to fashion things to suit them was to make him look unappealing .... and remember all the guff about him being undersized as a forward option, where did that come from... Probably RR (I jest here!!!)

Meh, all done and dusted now, but in hindsight I think WCE managed to sublimely fool a lot of clubs with his help. After all how many players would be actively trying to undersell themselves in front of other clubs..... You would imagine every kid at the draft combine doing their utmost to be seen in the best light possible.

  On 05/09/2012 at 02:13, jnrmac said:

Err I did. An 'indictment' - an expression of strong disapproval.

I was agreeing with you Jnr.