Does that seem fair to you? If he was totally against Molan but was ordered to take him, do you think it is fair that he is blamed for it?

"It was a stellar draft and we blew it. We have been hanged for it publicly and that's fair enough. It was, however, 1 selection." Craig Cameron.

I don't know why Craig is constantly absolved over the Molan selection. He admits himself it was a mistake. Daniher may have said "get me the toughest player from the draft", but it was Craig's decision who he chose and in his own words he blew it.

Let's not try and re-write history.

How many senior games did Luke Molan play for the MFC?

Can somebody remind me please?

How many senior games did Luke Molan play for the MFC?

Can somebody remind me please?

NIL

If I remember right.....Luke Molan was a very highly ranked junior player.....Had horrific injuries which did not allow him to have a career at AFL level.....Would people say the same about the Hawks if Buddy had same injuries and not played a game....Would it have been a wasted pick????....This is all very good in hindsight......Do we all just need someone to blame?????

If I remember right.....Luke Molan was a very highly ranked junior player.....Had horrific injuries which did not allow him to have a career at AFL level.....Would people say the same about the Hawks if Buddy had same injuries and not played a game....Would it have been a wasted pick????....This is all very good in hindsight......Do we all just need someone to blame?????

Bossdog I cannot follow your analogy

If Buddy had not played a game it would have been a waste.

One simple reason

No one would have known how good he is.

He would have been the Luke Molan of Hawthorn.

If I remember right.....Luke Molan was a very highly ranked junior player.....Had horrific injuries which did not allow him to have a career at AFL level.....Would people say the same about the Hawks if Buddy had same injuries and not played a game....Would it have been a wasted pick????....This is all very good in hindsight......Do we all just need someone to blame?????

Molan was a surprise top 10 selection at the time. He wasn't rated top 10 by the industry.

Bossdog I cannot follow your analogy

If Buddy had not played a game it would have been a waste.

One simple reason

No one would have known how good he is.

He would have been the Luke Molan of Hawthorn.

Thats what I was getting at.......Would Hawks supporters be saying "What a wasted pick we had with this Franklin bloke....Never played a game and we could have picked Mark Le Cras"

NIL

thanks OD. Considering the calibre of that draft to have a top 10 player who fails to play a game when many of his contemporaries are still winning flags is a complete and utter FAIL

Only equalled by Decca Records declining to sign The Beatles because "They are just a fad, it won't last".

It was Craig Cameron's job to get players. At least he admitted his failure.

I think that Craig was a very good identifier of talent at mid to late picks. Names such as Whelan, Bruce, Bartram, Garland, Brown and Rigoni were all excellent gets at lower end picks. He also picked some gems in the rookie draft, including Walsh, Ward, Jolly, Robertson and Junior (I'm not 100% if Craig selected the last two but I think he did).

He probably let himself down a bit at the top end of the draft, which unfortunately are the picks you really need to get right. Lamb, Bell, Smith, Bate, Dunn, Morton and Maric were all top 21 picks. His big gets in the top 20 were Thompson, Frawley, Jones and Grimes.

Any recruiter over a period of time is going to have their hits and misses, but on the whole I would say he performed well later in the draft but probably could have done better with some of the early picks.

What cannot be measured though is the impact of development and I think it would be fair to say that our development wasn't at the level of the top clubs in the AFL. A recruiter is always going to look a lot better with a strong development system.

"It was a stellar draft and we blew it. We have been hanged for it publicly and that's fair enough. It was, however, 1 selection." Craig Cameron.

I don't know why Craig is constantly absolved over the Molan selection. He admits himself it was a mistake. Daniher may have said "get me the toughest player from the draft", but it was Craig's decision who he chose and in his own words he blew it.

Let's not try and re-write history.

CAC had his hits - Thompson, Jones, Frawley and misses Molan, Morton etc - we've been through this a billion times before - he's not Stephen Wells.

FWIW I actually think time will be kinder to BBBP than it has been so far ...

2004 Draft

1 Deledio

2 Roughead

3 Griffen

4Tambling

5 Franklin

6Tom Williams

7 Lewis

8 Meesen

9 Russell

10 Egan

A few hits and a few misses there....

2004 Draft

1 Deledio

2 Roughead

3 Griffen

4Tambling

5 Franklin

6Tom Williams

7 Lewis

8 Meesen

9 Russell

10 Egan

A few hits and a few misses there....

as Molan was number 9 who was drafted 11-25 out of interest?

2004 Draft

1 Deledio

2 Roughead

3 Griffen

4Tambling

5 Franklin

6Tom Williams

7 Lewis

8 Meesen

9 Russell

10 Egan

A few hits and a few misses there....

Always is Bossdog

The problem for the MFC is we seem to have a poorer strike rate than most.

How come we seem to pick the Tamblings and never the Franklins

Edited February 11, 201312 yr by old dee

as Molan was number 9 who was drafted 11-25 out of interest?

Which year wyl The Frankin draft or the Molan draft???

Edited February 11, 201312 yr by Bossdog

2001

9 L Molan

Opps start again

9 Molan

10 s.Power

11 R Cole

12 B Reily

13 N Dal Santo

14 A Watson

15 B Brooks

16 R Ladson

17J Kelley

18 S Harvey

19 J Gram

20 D Elstone

21 M Mcquire

22 M Seeby

23 C Gadiner

24 S. johnson

25 S Armstrong.

Dal Santo, Kelly or Johnson would have made a serious difference, as may have Gram.

The rest I'm not fussed over.

Reckon Dal Santo would've been a lair playing for us.

Later in the draft were better players - Mitchell, Lake, Swan, etc.

"It was a stellar draft and we blew it. We have been hanged for it publicly and that's fair enough. It was, however, 1 selection." Craig Cameron.

I don't know why Craig is constantly absolved over the Molan selection. He admits himself it was a mistake. Daniher may have said "get me the toughest player from the draft", but it was Craig's decision who he chose and in his own words he blew it.

Let's not try and re-write history.

I am not rewriting history. I don't know who you are, so can't be sure if you were standing next to me when I heard it from the horse's mouth, but I would imagine given your post that you weren't.

Let me spell it out for you, Molan was not Craig's choice at that pick but was his choice when asked to draft a specific type of player. If he was chosen with our 4th or 5th pick we wouldn't be discussing him.

Craig was not the sort of bloke to blame someone else so he used the collective "we" as a Club blew it. The individual who blew it was the Coach.

Lastly, the bloke sustained crippling injuries which never really allowed him to have an AFL career.

Edited February 11, 201312 yr by Redleg

If I remember right.....Luke Molan was a very highly ranked junior player.....Had horrific injuries which did not allow him to have a career at AFL level.....Would people say the same about the Hawks if Buddy had same injuries and not played a game....Would it have been a wasted pick????....This is all very good in hindsight......Do we all just need someone to blame?????

Good post.

Opps start again

9 Molan

10 s.Power

11 R Cole

12 B Reily

13 N Dal Santo

14 A Watson

15 B Brooks

16 R Ladson

17J Kelley

18 S Harvey

19 J Gram

20 D Elstone

21 M Mcquire

22 M Seeby

23 C Gadiner

24 S. johnson

25 S Armstrong.

i had forgotten S Johnson went at 24. Now i really am in a dark place.

Was such a patchy list though i will admit, but zero games i cannot ever accept. It is the risk of the job.

I rank Luke Moylan as different kind of fail.

He may have been taken earlier than the scribes predicted but compare that to Morton who was taken exactly as predicted, with many games to prove his worth and failed.

Moylan was cruelled by injuries wihout proving whether he could or couldnt play so therefore in the black and white world of recruiting, he was a fail. If you are looking for shades - Morton and to a lesser extent Cook and Gysberts were worse. Those three got on the park and couldnt prove themselves.

Edited February 11, 201312 yr by nutbean

I am not rewriting history. I don't know who you are, so can't be sure if you were standing next to me when I heard it from the horse's mouth, but I would imagine given your post that you weren't.

Let me spell it out for you, Molan was not Craig's choice at that pick but was his choice when asked to draft a specific type of player. If he was chosen with our 4th or 5th pick we wouldn't be discussing him.

Craig was not the sort of bloke to blame someone else so he used the collective "we" as a Club blew it. The individual who blew it was the Coach.

Lastly, the bloke sustained crippling injuries which never really allowed him to have an AFL career.

Any idea who he would have chosen, given the chance?

Any idea who he would have chosen, given the chance?

I hate to say this, but my recollection was the Saints mid with the Spanish sounding name. If I see him at the next horse sales in early March I will ask him.

Edited February 11, 201312 yr by Redleg

I had that feeling too.

And I reckon he would have been developed into a poor man's TJ at our club.

The Luke Molan pick can't be a bad pick (in theory) because injuries intervened before he had a chance to establish himself. Luke might have only been rated as a pick in the 20's but what if he had gone at say pick no.26 and didn't have those awful injuries? He might have had a reasonably good career if injuries hadn't of intervened. We might all be quite happy with that outcome. We will never know.

Adam Goodes went at pick 43. Simon Black at 31. Paul Chapman at 31. There are many examples like this. I've read the threads about Lucas Cook on this site and 'At the time' most people were reasonably happy with our choice. Much the same with Gysberts. Whitfield could do an ACL in his first game for GWS and then re-do it on his return and never have much impact at AFL level. If that happened would he end up being a poor choice?

Incompetence can't always be used as a reason if there is a huge luck factor (re the Draft). It's a bit like the Lotto numbers. We all get it wrong but not because we're incompetent. (hope that comment doesn't attract the probability types )

I'm not sticking up for Cameron nor condemning him. The Luke Molan example is a poor one for a few reasons. Not the least reason being that the Draft is a glorified lucky dip and always will be (unless they raise the draft age quite substantially) In most cases, we have to wait until a player is in the system for at least 3-5 years before we can properly evaluate that player. If injuries stop a player from playing at all then how can a proper evaluation be made of that player or his Draft choice? The truth is it's impossible to make a proper evaluation in Luke's case.

At the moment most of us are very happy with Hogan, Toumpas and Viney. I hope we are all ecstatically happy with these 3 choices down the track.

Edited February 11, 201312 yr by Macca