But if you're going to use that hindsight approach then it's also worth highlighting who he missed out with his selections as well. Blease ahead of Shuey, Strauss ahead of Hannebery, Zaharakis etc You could go on and on about selections made that also bring his judgement into question.

I'm not saying he was good and every comment regarding a recruiter's performance has to be judged in a somewhat hindsight-driven fashion, otherwise the majority that were in raptures at Blease and Tapscott's drafting and after Cook's NAB cup outing ought bite their tongues. But constantly on here there is editorial bemoaning the selection of Cook (who incidentally will be playing for North Ballarat next year) for example, yet very little praise attributed to the fact that in that draft a 1st round talent in Howe was drafted and what many believe on here to be a foundation piece defender in Tom McDonald was acquired as well. To me, that's a pretty decent return from that draft, yet constantly Cook is being brought up with Prendergast as if that pick has been the greatest disgrace in the club's history. I don't think the other drafts are shambolic either to the extent that the vitriol on here makes out. And as Baghdad Bob instructs, it's too early to be casting concrete judgments in many cases. Aaron Black from North hadn't played a game in his first four seasons and if he was in this year's draft pool would be a top 10 pick for sure. He was given a great deal of time and patience.

I think you can endlessly argue about actual player selections without real resolution. Every club has busts and successes. More of ours seem to have been early picks and hence greater wastage, but they are not always of our (or BP's) own making (e.g. GWS buying off Scully with megamillions).

Until someone does a proper comparison of drafting success, gauged by playing stats and games played at each pick level, then we really just fall back onto anecdotal evidence when comparing ourselves with other clubs. (Then again, Morton playing 73 games from pick #4 might not actually measure up too badly. )

However, the type of player drafted during the 'Prendergast years' (and maybe be the 'CC years' earlier) is also an issue for discussion, and that type of player wouldn't have only been BP's decision. Did we misread the progress and future of the game with a 'spine emphasis', or an 'outside running' emphasis, over the last decade?

We seem to have spent a lot of draft picks on talls and 'outside' players and neglected the 'engine room', which is now the crucial driver of getting the ball. If we'd had the current midfield emphasis (i.e. 2012 and 2013) five or six years ago, maybe we wouldn't have found ourselves in such a mess.

Juggling the order serves the purpose of asking the question how can people lament the 2010 draft when if it went 12 Howe 33 McDonald 50 Cook etc they'd be lauding it. The fact is he missed an opportunity at pick 12 to have a genius draft instead of a solid one which has netted two presumptive 200 gamers. If Gawn was pick 11 and Gysberts 34 the same, there wouldn't even be an issue with that draft and that makes no sense versus the malicious comments. The same people would battle to make picks in 2011 at our spots even with the benefit of hindsight. The other years whilst not great are not atrocities either and he gets slammed for picking Scully who was rated by the market as the best player in football at the end of his second season. Not necessarily giving him the thumbs up but the pasting he cops is unfair in my opinion.

That's all god but we needed Mids not Ruckmen, the failures left us with the worst midfield in the competition and that's why we are the worst side in the competition.

Howe and McDonald may turn out to be good players but at the moment there are question marks; there are none about Cook however. The suggestion that we should have taken Gawn at pick 11 is laughable, we should have taken a top quality mid.

If there's one area of our team that we have some genuine hope in, it's our forward line, with Hogan, Clark and Dawes. And yet we manage to spend our time complaining about Cook v Darling.

Standard Demonland.

I hate this argument. "Developed him properly". The guy was a spud. How is that our fault (apart, from Prendergast picking him in the first place, of course)?

Most of the consensus is that Cook was a second round pick. Something like pick 25-40.

Imagine we took him at 25. Or 30. Or 35. If we'd taken him where he was supposed to go, we still managed to turn pick 25/30/35/40 into a 0-game delisted player.

He wasn't worth pick 12. But, given what we're all conceding now, he should have been more than a 0-gamer. That means some of the issue is with what happens to the talent when it walks through our doors.

Further I think it's still too early to judge him. Strauss, Tapscott and Blease are misses at the moment but still on the list and there is a chance they will progress. Bennell has been promoted so he too is still a chance.

The reality is people need a simple target to aim at. Prendergast is the target but as I've said often he was asked to target a type of player with early picks and then the club changed direction and that player was ill suited to the next coaches game plan.

Interestingly he bats well above average with his later picks when the targeting of types diminishes and he was just looking for footballers who could play.

He was also playing with a limited budget compared to many other clubs. Like you 'oil, I don't think he was great but he wasn't as bad as is being made out.

Yeah he was. Look at how many of his first round selections have turned out to be poor and how many early picks he has had that have done nothing, zilch.

Even $cully is just an ordinary payer and Trenners has done little to show he was worthy of pick 1 (after our priority pick). If you look back at $cully and his highlight reel all it showed was a player who was super fit with very little football talent; his handball was insipid and his kicking was just average. It seems as if Bazza went along with the crowd and just assumed that he was the chosen one.

I cannot believe that anyone can still justify his time with us.

That's all god but we needed Mids not Ruckmen, the failures left us with the worst midfield in the competition and that's why we are the worst side in the competition.

Howe and McDonald may turn out to be good players but at the moment there are question marks; there are none about Cook however. The suggestion that we should have taken Gawn at pick 11 is laughable, we should have taken a top quality mid.

Exactly - Howe and McDonald have shown they have the potential to be very good players but so far Howe is a one-dimensional half-forward with questionable goal-kicking accuracy and limited defensive pressure and McDonald is a lock-down KPD with limited ability to create defensive-based attacks and who is prone to turning the ball over. They're not busts but to laud those two as evidence that we made out like bandits that draft despite completely stuffing up our first round selection is ridiculously biased or naive.

Reshuffling the 2008 draft to suit your agenda also doesn't improve things. I have no qualms about taking Watts at 1 but the rest... and then you have Gysberts at 11 in 2009 and Tapscott at 18. Tapscott you could potentially excuse but Gysberts was a shockingly terrible decision especially considering Talia was still on the board.

If there's one area of our team that we have some genuine hope in, it's our forward line, with Hogan, Clark and Dawes. And yet we manage to spend our time complaining about Cook v Darling.

Standard Demonland.

Most of the consensus is that Cook was a second round pick. Something like pick 25-40.

Imagine we took him at 25. Or 30. Or 35. If we'd taken him where he was supposed to go, we still managed to turn pick 25/30/35/40 into a 0-game delisted player.

He wasn't worth pick 12. But, given what we're all conceding now, he should have been more than a 0-gamer. That means some of the issue is with what happens to the talent when it walks through our doors.

I would take Darling over Dawes any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Clark has also proven to be injury prone and even when fit would serve our team best playing as a mobile ruck where he can actually impact the game once the ball hits the deck and around the ground (similar to the way Jimmy used to play) instead of the one dimensional "donuts" ruckman we have become accustomed to.

The rest of your post is irrelevant rubbish. Imagine we used pick 12 on Darling, Isaac Smith, Smedts or Guthrie or a competent midfielder instead like Atley.

I'm not saying he was good and every comment regarding a recruiter's performance has to be judged in a somewhat hindsight-driven fashion, otherwise the majority that were in raptures at Blease and Tapscott's drafting and after Cook's NAB cup outing ought bite their tongues. But constantly on here there is editorial bemoaning the selection of Cook (who incidentally will be playing for North Ballarat next year) for example, yet very little praise attributed to the fact that in that draft a 1st round talent in Howe was drafted and what many believe on here to be a foundation piece defender in Tom McDonald was acquired as well. To me, that's a pretty decent return from that draft, yet constantly Cook is being brought up with Prendergast as if that pick has been the greatest disgrace in the club's history. I don't think the other drafts are shambolic either to the extent that the vitriol on here makes out. And as Baghdad Bob instructs, it's too early to be casting concrete judgments in many cases. Aaron Black from North hadn't played a game in his first four seasons and if he was in this year's draft pool would be a top 10 pick for sure. He was given a great deal of time and patience.

Fair go. Picks 11 & 12 in successive years are now not on any AFL list.

Bloody disasterous recruiting in my eyes!!!!

Yeah he was. Look at how many of his first round selections have turned out to be poor and how many early picks he has had that have done nothing, zilch.

Even $cully is just an ordinary payer and Trenners has done little to show he was worthy of pick 1 (after our priority pick). If you look back at $cully and his highlight reel all it showed was a player who was super fit with very little football talent; his handball was insipid and his kicking was just average. It seems as if Bazza went along with the crowd and just assumed that he was the chosen one.

I cannot believe that anyone can still justify his time with us.

You have more than enough evidence with which to win this argument. Resorting to crap like this is unnecessary.

Why is it that when the evidence clearly suggests a certain course of action, and BP takes it, he is wrong (e.g. Scully, in your view), yet, when the evidence clearly suggests a certain course of action, and he doesn't 'just go along with the crowd', he's also wrong (e.g. Cook)?

Scully was a completely valid number 1 pick. If looking at the film was as clear-cut as you're making it sound, we wouldn't have had reviews of him like this one from Emma Quayle.

Clearly, Blease, Strauss, Gysberts, Tapscott, Cook were all poor picks, so as I said, I don't dispute your view on BP overall, but at least be fair to him on the picks that were completely fair to make.

I would take Darling over Dawes any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Clark has also proven to be injury prone and even when fit would serve our team best playing as a mobile ruck where he can actually impact the game once the ball hits the deck and around the ground (similar to the way Jimmy used to play) instead of the one dimensional "donuts" ruckman we have become accustomed to.

The rest of your post is irrelevant rubbish. Imagine we used pick 12 on Darling, Isaac Smith, Smedts or Guthrie or a competent midfielder instead like Atley.

We can have the debate about Clark, but that doesn't change the fact that the Cook-Darling decision hasn't destroyed our club like some want to say.

As for the second bit, in fact it's you who is spouting the 'irrelevant rubbish'. Clearly you couldn't be bothered thinking for a moment about what I was saying. I was not defending picking Cook at 12, and obviously we could have taken one of those kids instead. In fact, that feeds into my discussion a bit. But I'll go back to what I said originally - if Cook was worthy of a second round pick, like people are saying in this thread, then Melbourne still failed in taking a second-round pick and getting 0 games from him.

Now, let's think about if we'd taken Smith/Darling/Smedts/Guthrie/Atley. Do you think that if we'd taken them, in their time at Melbourne they'd have necessarily reached the heights they've reached at their clubs? I'd say they'd be good (and clearly millions of times better than Cook, so don't try to mince my words), but they wouldn't be at the level they're at now, primarily due to Melbourne's development being a joke in comparison.

You have more than enough evidence with which to win this argument. Resorting to crap like this is unnecessary.

Why is it that when the evidence clearly suggests a certain course of action, and BP takes it, he is wrong (e.g. Scully, in your view), yet, when the evidence clearly suggests a certain course of action, and he doesn't 'just go along with the crowd', he's also wrong (e.g. Cook)?

Scully was a completely valid number 1 pick. If looking at the film was as clear-cut as you're making it sound, we wouldn't have had reviews of him like this one from Emma Quayle.

Clearly, Blease, Strauss, Gysberts, Tapscott, Cook were all poor picks, so as I said, I don't dispute your view on BP overall, but at least be fair to him on the picks that were completely fair to make.

Fair call TU but i would question the attitudes of $cully who clearly did not want to be at the MFC from very early on, whilst Gysberts & Cook both clearly did not have the heart for hard work at AFL Level. I am not a recruiter but if i am looking at doing business with anyone their attitudes is my first priority.

BP & The MFC completely failed in this regard.

You have more than enough evidence with which to win this argument. Resorting to crap like this is unnecessary.

Why is it that when the evidence clearly suggests a certain course of action, and BP takes it, he is wrong (e.g. Scully, in your view), yet, when the evidence clearly suggests a certain course of action, and he doesn't 'just go along with the crowd', he's also wrong (e.g. Cook)?

Scully was a completely valid number 1 pick. If looking at the film was as clear-cut as you're making it sound, we wouldn't have had reviews of him like this one from Emma Quayle.

Clearly, Blease, Strauss, Gysberts, Tapscott, Cook were all poor picks, so as I said, I don't dispute your view on BP overall, but at least be fair to him on the picks that were completely fair to make.

Maybe Bazza read Emma's review and that's what convinced him.

There is a difference between, not going along with the crowd, and not doing your job properly; he chose a very ordinary player and if he ever spoke to him beforehand the surely he would have had doubts.

I love the fact that Roos chooses who he wants not who the Phantom Drafters think he should take.

We can have the debate about Clark, but that doesn't change the fact that the Cook-Darling decision hasn't destroyed our club like some want to say.

As for the second bit, in fact it's you who is spouting the 'irrelevant rubbish'. Clearly you couldn't be bothered thinking for a moment about what I was saying. I was not defending picking Cook at 12, and obviously we could have taken one of those kids instead. In fact, that feeds into my discussion a bit. But I'll go back to what I said originally - if Cook was worthy of a second round pick, like people are saying in this thread, then Melbourne still failed in taking a second-round pick and getting 0 games from him.

Now, let's think about if we'd taken Smith/Darling/Smedts/Guthrie/Atley. Do you think that if we'd taken them, in their time at Melbourne they'd have necessarily reached the heights they've reached at their clubs? I'd say they'd be good (and clearly millions of times better than Cook, so don't try to mince my words), but they wouldn't be at the level they're at now, primarily due to Melbourne's development being a joke in comparison.

They may not have achieved the same heights, but I bet you they would have still been with the club and we would have had a chance to get something out of them with Roos as the new coach.

I still hold hope for Strauss and Tapscott, I also think that Roos will get lot's more out of Trenners but there are some that are no longer there that no one would have been able to do anything with.

Maybe Bazza read Emma's review and that's what convinced him.

There is a difference between, not going along with the crowd, and not doing your job properly; he chose a very ordinary player and if he ever spoke to him beforehand the surely he would have had doubts.

I love the fact that Roos chooses who he wants not who the Phantom Drafters think he should take.

To call Scully a 'very ordinary player' is to reason with hindsight. The evidence and all the reviews prior to the draft were that Scully was a number 1 pick. If you think you knew otherwise, then good on you, but you were in a small minority at the time. Picking Scully was not something we should be complaining about.

They may not have achieved the same heights, but I bet you they would have still been with the club and we would have had a chance to get something out of them with Roos as the new coach.

I still hold hope for Strauss and Tapscott, I also think that Roos will get lot's more out of Trenners but there are some that are no longer there that no one would have been able to do anything with.

I don't disagree that we'd have been better off with those players, that wasn't my real point. I just wanted to make sure we don't just assume, in these drafting hindsight debates, that swapping Cook for Atley means the Atley currently running around at North.

I've lost all faith in Tapscott, I just don't see what he brings. I'm with you on Trengove though, I feel he could be a real beneficiary of Roos (that starts with taking the captaincy off him though).

Tom Scully evolved in to Jesse Hogan. I'm *really* not going to complain about that.

In the end it doesn't matter how much time one gives to decide whether BP was wrong or right. Someone else else has the job now.

In any event, it's a fairly subjective matter and on the evidence before me, it's a thumbs down to him based on the evidence at the present time. That's my view - others are prepared to wait until the fullness of time or perhaps the 12th of never to decide. If I'm wrong, I'll happily come back and apologise to Prendergast but don't hold your breath waiting.

As someone said elsewhere, it was vital for the club to nail the 2008 and 2009 drafts and we didn't.

Hawthorn did nail it in 2004 and then picked up more handy players after that to land a premiership in 2008 and again in 2013.

Collingwood did nail it in 2005 and then picked up more handy players after that to land a premiership in 2010.

We got bubkas in the same time frame when our time came and that's my opinion of the worth of the person in charge of recruiting.

Our failure to recruit at anywhere near an acceptable level in that decade assisted in the downfall of at least two administrations and two (edit: three)coaches and left us supporters to carry the burden of the pain and embarassment that followed.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if people could only give the same latitude in terms of time for the others who took the blame for that pain to do their jobs properly that is being advocated for Prendergast?

As someone said elsewhere, it was vital for the club to nail the 2008 and 2009 drafts and we didn't.

this is the crux Jack. Schwabs blueprint had to nail both these drafts 100%

We didn't get close. It makes (Gysberts & Cook look even worse)and there was clearly no plan B even considered!!

I am yet to even be sold on Trengove & to a lesser extent Grimes.

Paul Roos will be the key here, with his old pal Dave Misson.

We can have the debate about Clark, but that doesn't change the fact that the Cook-Darling decision hasn't destroyed our club like some want to say.

As for the second bit, in fact it's you who is spouting the 'irrelevant rubbish'. Clearly you couldn't be bothered thinking for a moment about what I was saying. I was not defending picking Cook at 12, and obviously we could have taken one of those kids instead. In fact, that feeds into my discussion a bit. But I'll go back to what I said originally - if Cook was worthy of a second round pick, like people are saying in this thread, then Melbourne still failed in taking a second-round pick and getting 0 games from him.

Now, let's think about if we'd taken Smith/Darling/Smedts/Guthrie/Atley. Do you think that if we'd taken them, in their time at Melbourne they'd have necessarily reached the heights they've reached at their clubs? I'd say they'd be good (and clearly millions of times better than Cook, so don't try to mince my words), but they wouldn't be at the level they're at now, primarily due to Melbourne's development being a joke in comparison.

One decision on it's own obvious hasn't destroyed the club but that is only one decision amongst a multitude. It all fits together, having a list which comprises Shuey, Darling, Talia, Zaharakis et al instead of Blease, Cook, Gysberts, Strauss et al would definitely improve our side - we may not be winning premierships but we wouldn't be losing by 25 or 31 goals either.

Of course those players would not be exact replicas if transplanted to the MFC from their current environments but they would still be the same player with the same inherent abilities. Getting a group of them transplanted in instead of the players we had may have affected the environment of the place anyway so you can't just throw it away saying our development is/was rubbish therefore anyone we drafted would have been crud.

Nailing top 20 picks was crucial, ask the Saints who just did everything under the Sun to secure them, and in this regard Prendergast was a withering disaster.

Roosy is pretty happy with the drafting looking at the website Video.

But if you're going to use that hindsight approach then it's also worth highlighting who he missed out with his selections as well. Blease ahead of Shuey, Strauss ahead of Hannebery, Zaharakis etc You could go on and on about selections made that also bring his judgement into question.

etc etc etc..........and just remind us all how many times each and very team overlooked James Hird (70+) and Chris Grant (100+) for example????

Hell...just maybe recruiting isn't an exact science after all.

Edited November 4, 201311 yr by monoccular

One decision on it's own obvious hasn't destroyed the club but that is only one decision amongst a multitude. It all fits together, having a list which comprises Shuey, Darling, Talia, Zaharakis et al instead of Blease, Cook, Gysberts, Strauss et al would definitely improve our side - we may not be winning premierships but we wouldn't be losing by 25 or 31 goals either.

Of course those players would not be exact replicas if transplanted to the MFC from their current environments but they would still be the same player with the same inherent abilities. Getting a group of them transplanted in instead of the players we had may have affected the environment of the place anyway so you can't just throw it away saying our development is/was rubbish therefore anyone we drafted would have been crud.

I'm not throwing it away altogether. I'm merely noting that there absolutely is an element of our currently awful list that is down to development and culture and what we do with talent once it comes in the door. To put everything down to simply drafting is to assume that we were able to turn the talent we see at other clubs into what it is now, and that is something that I fundamentally cannot accept. I also do not accept that every pick we've made since 2007 has been an error, which some people seem to think (not necessarily you).

There is undoubtedly a need to nail first round draft picks, I don't think anyone would suggest otherwise, but I don't subscribe to the view that we failed on every single pick, nor do I subscribe to the view that our drafting mistakes are the sole reason we're where we're at (or even the wholly dominant reason). For mine, there have been clear mistakes (Cook and Gysberts probably leading the charge there), but we just cannot know how a lot of the highly-rated and fairly drafted kids would have gone if they'd been drafted to other clubs.

None of this has anything to do with my initial point which you cast aside as 'irrelevant rubbish', which is to say that, accepting Cook to be worthy of something more like pick 40 instead of 12, we still took a player objectively worth pick 40 and got 0 games from him. Take the erroneous use of pick 12 out of the debate, and you end up with Melbourne taking a second-round pick and getting nothing from him.

Tom Scully evolved in to Jesse Hogan. I'm *really* not going to complain about that.

I really don't think that too many MFC supporters would take issue with the selection of Scully in the first place. He was everyone's pick for #1 and Trengove was close behind him.

I really don't think that too many MFC supporters would have a problem with the fact that we managed to snare Jesse Hogan as part of the "compensation" we got for Scully.

I'm not complaining at all really but let's not delude ourselves that what we got was really compensation for losing a first pick after we put two year's work into him and then had to wait another two to see the fruits of that so-called "compensation".

What we really should have received was like for like at the time we lost Scully which was at least the first pick in the 2011 national draft.

Getting Hogan might be considered getting justice and I think it will be sweet justice in the long run but it also is justice delayed and justice denied in a way.

But it was simply a case of the AFL riding roughshod over one of the weaker clubs.

Let's hope that we get strong under Roos and never have to put up with that sort of BS again.

There is undoubtedly a need to nail first round draft picks, I don't think anyone would suggest otherwise, but I don't subscribe to the view that we failed on every single pick...

Blease, Strauss, Tapscott - all top 20 mistakes.

I don't care whether they're still on the list they were all clear mistakes. Not a frigging midfielder among them even though we were crying out for midfielders. It's easy to portion all the blame to Neeld and that Prendergast was asked to recruit a certain type, but I'm more than comfortable blaming the bloke who was paid to analyse junior talent.

Blease, Strauss, Tapscott - all top 20 mistakes.

I don't care whether they're still on the list they were all clear mistakes. Not a frigging midfielder among them even though we were crying out for midfielders. It's easy to portion all the blame to Neeld and that Prendergast was asked to recruit a certain type, but I'm more than comfortable blaming the bloke who was paid to analyse junior talent.

That's the thing - I'm not trying to 'portion all the blame' (I'd have gone with Bailey over Neeld if I was going to do that anyway, if we're talking about Blease and Strauss). Never have. In fact, I'd argue it's a lot easier to blame Prendergast for everything than the coaches.

When it all comes down to it, we had a poor recruiting team, but we also had two poor coaching teams. Neither the recruiters nor the coaches were very good at their jobs. So, we made some bad picks, but even when we made good picks, we didn't get the return we should have. It's not as simple as 'BP picked the wrong players'.