I agree with almost everything you say here, DF28, except the point about Williams and player development. Craig is essentially in this role already and cannot be held accountable for our history of failed player development. I think you're spot on about midfield coaches though. We need someone from a successful culture, who knows what it means to be successful. I don't rate Royal, but he's never been apart of an ultimately successful coaching team. Get someone in who has.

You have a good point about Craig, so perhaps a different role, my preference would be to have Williams as coach, but that's just me

I think brett kirk would bring that brotherhood, if that would be the correct word, from sydney and really give the players a midfield mentor who commands the respect of the people around him,

I have been fortunate enough to meet Brett and i can't speak highly enough of him.

The players need someone to inspire them, Mark Neeld is a big fan of the reality bus and that's great but you never hear guy mckenna or Kevin Sheedy saying we can't win because we are younger, to me that's totally the wrong message and the players and coaches should believe they can win every game they play

We have to fix endemic off-field problems associated with poor player development processes. To my mind, of the first choice players only Sylvia and N Jones (and maybe Howe and Bail) have AFL-ready bodies. Everyone else appears to be too thin/light (eg, Watts, Frawley) or insufficiently fit (eg, Blease, Strauss) or both for the roles they are expected to play.

I suspect Rodan, Sellar, Pedersen and Gillies were introduced to bring the bigger, fitter bodies into the club while the under-developed talent is made fitter and stronger. Unfortunately, I don't think Rodan or Sellar are good enough (I haven't seen enough of Pedersen and have seen none of Gillies, to form a view about their capabilities).

So, I'm of the view we should focus more on the development and worry less about the specific talent on the list. And to this end, I'm pleased we have Misson and Craig.

i would be trading our first pick , which will definitely be top 3, for a gun young midfielder thats got 40- 50 odd games under his belt already

Andrew Gaff from West Coast would be my target

i would be trading our first pick , which will definitely be top 3, for a gun young midfielder thats got 40- 50 odd games under his belt already

Andrew Gaff from West Coast would be my target

Gaff isn't A grade. I wouldn't be giving up a top three pick unless it was on an A grader.

i would be trading our first pick , which will definitely be top 3, for a gun young midfielder thats got 40- 50 odd games under his belt already

Andrew Gaff from West Coast would be my target

Lets say we get pick 2, IF we were going to entertain trading it, they would have to offer someone like a Nat fyfe or rory sloan for me, which they won't,

Gaff would be a great get, but if he wants to come to Melbourne, west coast could be pushed down to a second round pick rather than get nothing for him,

I think Free agency will see alot more compromise in the trading scene

When it turns it will turn quickly.

Spoken to any Port fans lately? They're not talking about 2012. They're loving this game.

Sydney got flogged by us and rebounded to win a premiership less than 50 games later.

When Geelong found belief their rise was sudden.

Even Melbourne in 2000 showed that a rapid rise is possible.

The demographic of this team means that in 2 - 3 years we'll have the experience to be a contender. Whether we have the quality in the midfield is another matter.

It's easy to spread the doom and the gloom. Finding light at the end of the tunnel takes far more vision.

My vision involves us securing a topline midfielder like Thomas and drafting a ready made star like Selwood. Put Thomas and Selwood into our midfield and add another 2 - 3 seasons of experience to Viney and Toumpas as well as the addition of Jones plus Trengove, Grimes, Sylvia and Howe rotating through and we've got to be getting closer to having a top 4 midfield. As the Swans have shown, a competitive, disciplined, hard working midfield that follows September-driven structures with a couple of game changing forwards can win a flag. In Clark and Hogan I think we have the game turners to be a serious football side.

My vision might be fanciful but I prefer it a hell of alot to the Fitzroy-esque devastation that most here seem to take joy in spewing forth. At the end of the day, I follow a footy team and following footy should be fun. I don't know how most of you guys continue to get to games and log in here when you're so devoid of hope. I don't have much hope left either but I'm hanging on to the romantic view that one day we might just get there and in the meantime I try to enjoy the journey and visualise how this crap that we're currently enduring may one day be remembered as the start of something special. Why else would you bother?

If I were a mod, I'd take this post, start a new thread with this as the OP, then lock it and stick it to the top of the Board.

Could not agree more. Especially the final paragraph.

Great post, rpfc, as usual. It tells me more than ever that we need to trade in experienced mids, otherwise our new talent (the Viney's, Toumpas's, Jones's etc) will have to bear the brunt of pressure early on, which could be detrimental to their development. You could argue this has already been the case with Trengove and Grimes. Would you consider trading our first or second pick in the 2014 draft for an A grade mid from another club? Perhaps even trading our top two picks for two A graders? The latter is probably a little bit fanciful.

Agree AF, rpfc's post was spot on.

I found it interesting people comparing our side's experience (average games and age) to Port and Essendon when we played them - surprisingly for some there wasn't such a difference.

Would be worth comparing the onball brigade of each team (games and age) and I think it would give us a much better indication of where our midfield is at.

Our clearance work is our number one priority. We need contested ball winners that can help develop players like toumpass. I think blease is a forward. He kicked 5 against the saints last year and I think he is wasted down back. He could be our new crumbling forward. We have the tall talent in Clarke hogan Dawes and gawn with backups in spencer and Fitzpatrick. Some teams have no quality talls so it's mids all the way in the draft. Howe could be a lead up forward with his mark and kicking skills he could deliver the ball well into our forward line. Mckenzie was a quality tagger and was doing that well under bailey. Forget winning your own ball jordie just shut down your opponent.

Getting 3 or 4 new players is not going to be enough, if the other 18 players out there are still playing dumb football. we need a better strategy than playing a loose man in defense and zoning. We need to play hard man on man football and have everyone accountable for their man. we have 8 lions players with over 20 possessions and 3 with 30+ possessions, which tells me we had quite a few players that were not manning up and were not accountable for their man. If we start to play accountable football then we will win games now, until then it wont matter if you bring in gary ablett we will still loose using our existing game plan and approach. if we can do this then lets see what sort of players we need, because at the moment we are not seeing how competitive and good our players are because they are protected patches or grass or chasing their man.