It's not as simple as 'BP picked the wrong players'.

Neeld was a bigger disaster than Prendergasts' dud selections.

Combine Schwab and a Board that was out of its depth from a football perspective and you have the cocktail for a disaster.

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.

Port were able to turn it round because they had recruited well and had all the ingredients of a good team, if you recruit poorly it makes that a lot harder to do.

We have lost a lot of top picks because they were poor selections and that will make it harder for Roos to get this club up and running. Good footballers don't lose the ability to play good football, they may not play well in a team badly coached and played out of position, but once the correct coaching is put in place they should be able to flourish.

We can't accept that it didn't mater if we recruited crap, because they wouldn't have played well anyway.

Port were able to turn it round because they had recruited well and had all the ingredients of a good team, if you recruit poorly it makes that a lot harder to do.

We have lost a lot of top picks because they were poor selections and that will make it harder for Roos to get this club up and running. Good footballers don't lose the ability to play good football, they may not play well in a team badly coached and played out of position, but once the correct coaching is put in place they should be able to flourish.

We can't accept that it didn't mater if we recruited crap, because they wouldn't have played well anyway.

I never once said that.

None of what you're saying is wrong of course, but the flip side is that we can't accept that it'd all be better if we'd simply picked different players.

I never once said that.

None of what you're saying is wrong of course, but the flip side is that we can't accept that it'd all be better if we'd simply picked different players.

I know you didn't, I was taking licence there, but I can't se how if we had selected better that it wouldn't be better now.

I'm sure that Roos would love to have a ready made midfield to work with, instead of having to build one.

I never once said that.

None of what you're saying is wrong of course, but the flip side is that we can't accept that it'd all be better if we'd simply picked different players.

It wouldn't all be better. But it would be a hell of a lot better than what it actually is!!

7 years have been wasted because of bad decisions including our money.

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.

That was 20 years ago recruiting and drafting was light years behind then where it is now.

It wouldn't all be better.

Maybe not. Neeld might have got us 6 wins and he might still be with us now.

So Prendergast was really a tactical genius tanking the draft to get us a better coach.

Unreal.