Cook was a disaster but he was no orphan we have had plenty, I remember getting howled down when I suggested that he wouldn't make it half way through his first season.

Our recruiting sucks and it seems as if we haven't learnt a thing by recruiting has-beens from other clubs and expecting them to all of a sudden come good.

Mitch Clark and Jack Viney would have been complimented by Olie Wines and Jack Darling.

After watching Melbourne for the past couple of decades, I'd of thought Darling and Wines were exactly what we need, toughness.

Same here Macca. We could win tonight but I'm not coming around until I see consistent effort. And that doesn't mean wins per se. On my end, I just want to see the boys have a dip every game. While I just want to see consistent effort, the club needs to view every game as a potential win. As you said, and I have said elsewhere, the club needs to be about winning games of football rather than BS gimmicks and rhetoric.

Yep CBF, people can go on about "It's only one game" but .... if we only get 5 wins or less this season then references will be made back to the 1st game of the year. Much like last years season was defined by our dismal effort against Brisbane in the 1st game.

I know this thread is about Cook but it's about so much more than Lucas. He is representative of how our club drafts and develops our players.

Take Viney for instance. He comes into the club after looking like he's spent his entire life devoting himself to be a good footballer. He's obviously worked hard in the gym and is a self made player. I would be stunned if he doesn't make it. There might be more than a few at the club 'claiming credit' but considering our history in development how can they? Viney is an aberration unfortunately. Maybe a few on the list will look at him and Jones and see how it's done. Hope so.

Most of our blokes not only don't approach footy the same way as Viney but the club doesn't demand it of them. The bar has been set far too low. The easy 'out' is to just blame our drafting but this may not even be the issue in a number of cases.

We develop poorly and have done for a number of years. Half our blokes can't even kick the ball well to position. The standards should be set exceptionally high at our club. They talk about it but we don't see the evidence of it.

The proof is in the pudding - fundamentals aren't there.

I agree, the club doesn't talk about winning. If they're not talking about it then they're not thinking about it.

They talk about 'bi-products', structures, processes, systems etc etc. It's all bs, rhetoric and it's all said to 'deflect'. And a fair percentage of supporters lap it up.

You were right Wyl, we needed a clean out after '186'.

We could somehow win tonight, but the club isn't getting any real praise from me until we put in a sustained effort for a number of games. It's all about winning. Those who believe otherwise are making excuses in advance. The real world punishes losers and always will.

Agree with you both on the winning thing, stuff the processes. The only KPI that really matters is the scoreboard, after Sydney lost most of the stats in last years GF they have tried to make more stats to prove out why they did win. Theory is often just an explanation of of what happened anyway.

Tonight, yep agree with you on that one to...but going on the record of the last few years when the chips have been down I'm not sure they have it in them to turn things around anyway.

Yep CBF, people can go on about "It's only one game" but .... if we only get 5 wins or less this season then references will be made back to the 1st game of the year. Much like last years season was defined by our dismal effort against Brisbane in the 1st game.

I know this thread is about Cook but it's about so much more than Lucas. He is representative of how our club drafts and develops our players.

Take Viney for instance. He comes into the club after looking like he's spent his entire life devoting himself to be a good footballer. He's obviously worked hard in the gym and is a self made player. I would be stunned if he doesn't make it. There might be more than a few at the club 'claiming credit' but considering our history in development how can they? Viney is an aberration unfortunately. Maybe a few on the list will look at him and Jones and see how it's done. Hope so.

Most of our blokes not only don't approach footy the same way as Viney but the club doesn't demand it of them. The bar has been set far too low. The easy 'out' is to just blame our drafting but this may not even be the issue in a number of cases.

We develop poorly and have done for a number of years. Half our blokes can't even kick the ball well to position. The standards should be set exceptionally high at our club. They talk about it but we don't see the evidence of it.

The proof is in the pudding - fundamentals aren't there.

Macca, skills can be taught. Handballing can be taught. Blocking can be taught.

What can't be taught is COMBATIVE spirit, HUNGER for the contest, INFINITE belief in your teammate.

None of the draftees pre Neeld have shown any of the above qualities.

Macca, skills can be taught. Handballing can be taught. Blocking can be taught.

What can't be taught is COMBATIVE spirit, HUNGER for the contest, INFINITE belief in your teammate.

None of the draftees pre Neeld have shown any of the above qualities.

Makes you wonder why they were drafted.

Makes you wonder why they were drafted.

I have no idea who was watching our draftees and reporting on them.

I have no idea who was watching our draftees and reporting on them.

Its good and well to be a nice kick, but if you dont put your head over the pill it means nothing, Watts, Strauss, Cook, Morton, Gysberts, it pisses me off thats some fool could recruit such players.

I have no idea who was watching our draftees and reporting on them.

Opposition recruiters.

I reckon we've been sucked in, it seems as if we've just picked ours off the BigFooty, Phantom Drafts, how otherwise did they select the players they did. I understand we lacked recruiting staff and facilities but it seems bizarre when even the uneducated on here could see they we were wrong.

Macca, skills can be taught. Handballing can be taught. Blocking can be taught.

What can't be taught is COMBATIVE spirit, HUNGER for the contest, INFINITE belief in your teammate.

None of the draftees pre Neeld have shown any of the above qualities.

If you've got copies of Heartbeat from previous years, check out our arm sizes and the shoulders on our blokes. We look puny. And that is just one aspect.

No, it's not just about the drafting and never will be. Do we have a kicking coach down at the club? If so, who is he and how does he still have a job. We are woeful with our kicking skills and the club has had ample time to improve their kicking skills.

Too much emphasis on processes, structures, systems and not enough on the basic skills of the game.

In any sport, a player has to have good basic skills before he and all the others can progress to parts 4, 5 and 6 of a game plan.

If you can't get the ball enough and then do something with it with good disposal, how on Earth can you execute any sort of game plan?

We can blame BP until the cows come home but we can't change it back. But we can do something right now about our development.

If you've got copies of Heartbeat from previous years, check out our arm sizes and the shoulders on our blokes. We look puny. And that is just one aspect.

No, it's not just about the drafting and never will be. Do we have a kicking coach down at the club? If so, who is he and how does he still have a job. We are woeful with our kicking skills and the club has had ample time to improve their kicking skills.

Too much emphasis on processes, structures, systems and not enough on the basic skills of the game.

In any sport, a player has to have good basic skills before he and all the others can progress to parts 4, 5 and 6 of a game plan.

If you can't get the ball enough and then do something with it with good disposal, how on Earth can you execute any sort of game plan?

We can blame BP until the cows come home but we can't change it back. But we can do something right now about our development.

Macca you can generally tell if someone has the capacity to bulk up or not, I'm sure that we have paid enough attention to the player's size and physical structure before recruiting them.

Opposition recruiters.

I reckon we've been sucked in, it seems as if we've just picked ours off the BigFooty, Phantom Drafts, how otherwise did they select the players they did. I understand we lacked recruiting staff and facilities but it seems bizarre when even the uneducated on here could see they we were wrong.

Might have been better if we did.

Clearly, other issues play a part. There's a certain concensus about most of these picks. It's a pretty easy game picking holes in the recruiting of a team when they aren't going well. I believe that, if another club had made the selections that MFC have made over the past decade, they'd be in a very different place.

As evidenced by the way they went on to carve out stellar careers after leaving the MFC...

Macca you can generally tell if someone has the capacity to bulk up or not, I'm sure that we have paid enough attention to the player's size and physical structure before recruiting them.

Yeah, but in Viney's case, what would he look like if he'd never seen the inside of a gym? Remembering that he started looking like he does when he was 16 or 17. His old man would have had a lot to do with it, but Jack is a self starter.

Not necessarily disagreeing with you RF, but it has to be a bit of both (recruiting and development). Not neither/nor. A lot of our blokes seem to just be happy to be part of the system and our club allows them to continually think this way.

We are too soft as a club and our standards have been set too low. They might be training a lot harder but our players are poor at the fundamentals of the game. It's staring us right in the face.

Everyone at the club needs to examine what they bring to the table. They all need to get a lot better. Everyone.

Our KPF recruits from 2001 to 2011:

Luke Molan - Pick 9

Aaron Rogers - Pick 26

Brad Miller - Pick 55

Nick Smith - Pick 15

Matthew Bate - Pick 14

Lynden Dunn - Pick 16

Michael Newton - Pick 43

*Ben Holland - Pick 21

Colin Garland - Pick 46

*Paul Johnson - Pick 29

Jack Watts - Pick 1

Lucas Cook - Pick 12

It seems they either became defenders or got delisted... Let's hope young Hogan can buck the trend!

Its not unusual for gun juniors to have no defensive skills. Most gun kids play up fwd or in the midfield. They never need to develop defensive skills at junior level as they are so good.

Once they get to the AFL they are found out defensively. Hence the need to develop that side of their game.

That said, ours have never been able to develop generally and the desire and hardness can't be taught. Sadly BP didn't recruit for that.

And yet David King keeps bringing up his name when talking about our mature recruiting instead of playing him.....

The extent of David King's stupidity never ceases to amaze me. How one man can consistently talk so much nonsense is amazing.

He was actually criticising using high draft picks to bring in Clark (yes..Mitch Clark), and Dawes. Said that there should have been a view to the future. So essentially stockpile high draft picks hey Kingy? Kinda like how we did under Bailey? That worked out pretty well.

Then criticised the "moneyball" approach. Fair enough to question the selections but a total failure to acknowledge the need to fill the mature player void.

Put up a list of new players and asked the question "is that how you build a club?". The list had names like Viney, Toumpas, Kent, Terlich and M Jones. Players who are all but completely untested as to what they can bring with the exception of Viney. Notable absence on the list was Hogan which helped his "argument".

Once again talked up Blease as being the only real standout, an opinion he has based on the one, single intra-club match he watched where Blease did well.

Melbourne is the easiest of targets to criticise right now and yet King still manages to talk crap when applying the blowtorch.

The only thing he can take solace in is that he talks more sense than McClure - the undisputed king of making judgements based on zero actual knowledge.

Peters one of three early new signings for North Ballarat Roosters

"... Lucas Cook is the Roosters’ other early key loss. Cook is going back to play in his hometown of Hopetoun after one season at Eureka Stadium."

A little over a year ago, he was on an AFL list while today, he's left the VFL scene for an even more obscure and out of the way place. At least it's home and I hope he enjoys his footy.

Peters one of three early new signings for North Ballarat Roosters

"... Lucas Cook is the Roosters’ other early key loss. Cook is going back to play in his hometown of Hopetoun after one season at Eureka Stadium."

A little over a year ago, he was on an AFL list while today, he's left the VFL scene for an even more obscure and out of the way place. At least it's home and I hope he enjoys his footy.

Who would have thought Lucas Cook a "key loss" for any club?

Wow. Nice bump...

Is Lucas Cook the biggest of the MFC's recent recruiting blunders?

Is Lucas Cook the biggest of the MFC's recent recruiting blunders?

Is Lucas Cook the biggest of the MFC's recent recruiting blunders?

Just as worse as Luke Molan. At least he was injured majority of the time.

Cook just didnt even give a yalp.. btw was it him that was crying at a pre season training day??

Is Lucas Cook the biggest of the MFC's recent recruiting blunders?

YES.

Just as worse as Luke Molan. At least he was injured majority of the time.

Cook just didnt even give a yalp.. btw was it him that was crying at a pre season training day??

I seem to remember hearing this but can't remember the details.

Weren't there some arguing on here that he should have been retained prior to his delisting ?

Thanks Bazz for your "gutsy" selections in Cook and Gysberts.

Damn, I can't get a game at North Ballarat either!

If only I nominated for the AFL Draft I could have been drafted by the MFC as well.