In fact, it's probably lucky for a good few club champions that they came before the advent of the draft, so they never had to play out their entire career suffering the ignominy of being compared to a better player the club could have selected first.

God knows how we'd look back at Brett Lovett if supporters always knew they could have had Peter Matera at the same pick, or Steven Stretch if we could've had Paul Couch...

(I know the eras are a bit off, but the point stands)

In fact, it's probably lucky for a good few club champions that they came before the advent of the draft, so they never had to play out their entire career suffering the ignominy of being compared to a better player the club could have selected first.

God knows how we'd look back at Brett Lovett if supporters always knew they could have had Peter Matera at the same pick, or Steven Stretch if we could've had Paul Couch...

(I know the eras are a bit off, but the point stands)

what were they ever but good decent players ?

The way i see it is... The problem isnt who we drafted... It was the whole drafting strategy....

We delisted all of our experience and drafted kids...then we expected them to develop with nobody showing them the way?

Players like James McDonald, Russell Robertson, Cameron Bruce, Brad Green, Aaron Davey, Jarod Rivers and Jeff White were all removed, with the idea to replace them with high draft picks... These players are the guys we needed to teach and lead our youth through... Instead they were pushed out by an administration, that was fantasising about recreating Norm Smiths early 50's rebuild...

Its embarrassing really... We all fell for the stories and the dreams, we all wanted draft picks via tanking and we all back our club when they pushed our experience out the door... Now we're all paying for it...

Rivers left on his own terms tatu.

Happy to put some cash on it mate.

The recruiting of this club has been f'n deplorable and this one is top of the pile.

Are you back using drugs Top of the pile

Jurrah over Rockliff - Flash and able to turn one out of every 10 games with no sense of the application required to play at the highest level against a kid who has shown he can do the hard yards and is nowBrisbanes Best player

Bennell over Sloane - Left field selection over hard working mid who came regarded as having solid work ethic is now probably Adelaides best midfielder

Cook over Darling - I understand why he was overlooked but he would have been great for us and every recruiter must have thought WTF when his name (Cook) was called, he may have been u/18 AA but size issues with step up for a KPP if not Darling then best available, Atley with great speed was available, Parker as a hard running mid was also there. Lazy recruiting again

Maaric over S.Selwood - apparently an elite kick. over a player who comes from great pedigree and will be Meth Coasts next captain

Blease over Shuey - Explosive pace but no tank and how hard would it have been to pick up on his inability to realise when to stop running with the ball

Strauss over Zaharakhis/Beams/Hanneberry - elite kick again what makes this worse is plenty were talking about Hanneberry and he was right under our nose

Morton over Dangerfield/Rioli/Harry Taylor/Ward/Brad Ebert - lazy recruiting Larke medallist "oh he must be good" when we could have had a game breaker with outside speed, a key defender, absolute battering ram hard nut mid, another good pedigree hard running mid

FMD get some perspective, Toumpas can play Viney is not on the park and we went for an outsider having already picked up the inside mid in Viney it's the [censored] ups before the 2012 draft that we are paying for

Edited March 31, 201411 yr by Pennant St Dee

Are you back using drugs Top of the pile

Jurrah over Rockliff - Flash and able to turn one out of every 10 games with no sense of the application required to play at the highest level against a kid who has shown he can do the hard yards and is nowBrisbanes Best player

Bennell over Sloane - Left field selection over hard working mid who came regarded as having solid work ethic is now probably Adelaides best midfielder

Cook over Darling - I understand why he was overlooked but he would have been great for us and every recruiter must have thought WTF when his name (Cook) was called, he may have been u/18 AA but size issues with step up for a KPP if not Darling then best available, Atley with great speed was available, Parker as a hard running mid was also there. Lazy recruiting again

Maaric over S.Selwood - apparently an elite kick. over a player who comes from great pedigree and will be Meth Coasts next captain

Blease over Shuey - Explosive pace but no tank and how hard would it have been to pick up on his inability to realise when to stop running with the ball

Strauss over Zaharakhis/Beams/Hanneberry - elite kick again what makes this worse is plenty were talking about Hanneberry and he was right under our nose

Morton over Dangerfield/Rioli/Harry Taylor/Ward/Brad Ebert - lazy recruiting Larke medallist "oh he must be good" when we could have had a game breaker with outside speed, a key defender, absolute battering ram hard nut mid, another good pedigree hard running mid

FMD get some perspective, Toumpas can play Viney is not on the park and we went for an outsider having already picked up the inside mid in Viney it's the [censored] ups before the 2012 draft that we are paying for

Thanks for emphasing my point.

Saved me a lot of work.

An outsider with little pace is what we chose.

Thanks for emphasing my point.

Saved me a lot of work.

An outsider with little pace is what we chose.

Don't half quote me Wyl, I have been around the block a bit in my job I am subject to political BS and act under instruction from gobshites with pieces of paper and no nous every day. I wont fall for that one of trying to use a snippet of several paragraphs

In 2012 we used our first 3 picks on

an inside mongrel - Viney

we used our another to secure Hogan a generational forward

we took Toumpas who despite what you say does not have bad hips, he had a hip injury (does Tyson have dodgy knees) he is a great user of the ball who unlike Strauss and Maaric has more than that, he runs to the right spots, he had no preseason last year so I'll cut him some slack and there have been far worse than him in our first two games he has been okay.

We don't have Wines but we have Viney and they are the two you should compare, we hedged our bets and we will see where Toumpas ends up, how in the name of god did the Hawks overlook Judd when Hodge spent the first couple of years struggling with injury.

Sometimes both sides can win

Don't half quote me Wyl, I have been around the block a bit in my job I am subject to political BS and act under instruction from gobshites with pieces of paper and no nous every day. I wont fall for that one of trying to use a snippet of several paragraphs

In 2012 we used our first 3 picks on

an inside mongrel - Viney

we used our another to secure Hogan a generational forward

we took Toumpas who despite what you say does not have bad hips, he had a hip injury (does Tyson have dodgy knees) he is a great user of the ball who unlike Strauss and Maaric has more than that, he runs to the right spots, he had no preseason last year so I'll cut him some slack and there have been far worse than him in our first two games he has been okay.

We don't have Wines but we have Viney and they are the two you should compare, we hedged our bets and we will see where Toumpas ends up, how in the name of god did the Hawks overlook Judd when Hodge spent the first couple of years struggling with injury.

Sometimes both sides can win

Glad your happy PSD.

Twin grunt in the middle is what i wanted. It didn't happen.

Simple as that. My heart sunk again on that draft night.

Glad your happy PSD.

Twin grunt in the middle is what i wanted. It didn't happen.

Simple as that. My heart sunk again on that draft night.

Wyl who said I was happy, I have just pointed out the draft choices we made which were far worse than the one you claim was top of the pile.

You keep telling me you set high standards, take that ethos into your posting

Wyl who said I was happy, I have just pointed out the draft choices we made which were far worse than the one you claim was top of the pile.

You keep telling me you set high standards, take that ethos into your posting

yes i am saying Wines is the biggest fish we passed over.

Neelds lasting legacy

I've spoken about Toumpas enough in other threads, I think he's making baby steps but still progressing fairly well.

But honestly reading some of the comments here, you'd think Ollie Wines was a combination of Gary Ablett Jnr, Leigh Matthews and Haydn Bunton. I see one guy's claims he's "bordering on AA". Complete hyperbole, we've played 2 rounds! I guess using this logic, Jack Watts was "bordering on AA" as recently as yesterday morning.

There's no doubt Wines is a gun and I'd give him at least a 60% chance of topping Toumpas' career, but for whatever reason our own fans are blowing his efforts to date way out of whack and at the same time will completely undersell Toump to suit their argument. I'd bet my bottom dollar these same people probably voted for Toumpas on the eve of the draft and would probably have started a thread on Wines' dodgy kicking technique by now if he played for us.

all this talk on prior drafting mistakes is annoying, the topic pops up after every big loss. the number of times that I've read who we missed out on when we seleced morton, gysberts, watts and now trenners and toump are dragged in to that boat. give it a rest, toumpas and trenners aren't losses, neither is watts for that matter. the whole team is in a shambles. forget it, it happened, there are new people at the club now that recognise that this happened, hopefully they can rectify it.

yes i am saying Wines is the biggest fish we passed over.

Neelds lasting legacy

I'd say there are far worse..

Dangerfield, Sloane, Martin, Rockliff, RIoli, Taylor, Brodie Grundy is a far better asset than Ollie Wines and we passed him

Toumpas reminds me of a far slower Scott Camporeale - he will look good in a good side but poor in a bad side as he has some nice skills when out in space, but looks ineffectual in close. He's an outside mid, but his severe lack of pace will find him always a b-grader, at best. The only way I can see him getting to a higher grade would be if he completely changes his game to be an inside mid, as his hands are good in close - but that will require a complete re-education of his game style. Massive task.

Ollie Wines is Joel Selwood mk II - in a couple of years he could well be considered the best midfielder in the competition. He has pace, strength and for all the brickbats around his disposal I think he is a just about perfect mid as he can play inside-outside.

Toumpas reminds me of a far slower Scott Camporeale - he will look good in a good side but poor in a bad side as he has some nice skills when out in space, but looks ineffectual in close. He's an outside mid, but his severe lack of pace will find him always a b-grader, at best. The only way I can see him getting to a higher grade would be if he completely changes his game to be an inside mid, as his hands are good in close - but that will require a complete re-education of his game style. Massive task.

Ollie Wines is Joel Selwood mk II - in a couple of years he could well be considered the best midfielder in the competition. He has pace, strength and for all the brickbats around his disposal I think he is a just about perfect mid as he can play inside-outside.

He's played 16 games, and wasn't slow in juniors so clearly something has caused that since then, Wines has had one good year, plenty of players have done that and gone missing

far too early to tell on either count.

He's played 16 games, and wasn't slow in juniors so clearly something has caused that since then, Wines has had one good year, plenty of players have done that and gone missing

far too early to tell on either count.

Doesn't look like going missing in his 2nd year.

Back Toumpas but don't denigrate Wines it doesn't back up your points at all. Wines is and will continue to be a very good player.

Rivers left on his own terms tatu.

You blame him!

Our culture & development has not only ruined kids careers but also pushed out any decent players!

Take aim at the past admistrators in particular CS & CC !

Wyl who said I was happy, I have just pointed out the draft choices we made which were far worse than the one you claim was top of the pile.

You keep telling me you set high standards, take that ethos into your posting

It's futile, PSD. Do yourself a favour and don't engage. I make the same mistake far too often.

Doesn't look like going missing in his 2nd year.

Back Toumpas but don't denigrate Wines it doesn't back up your points at all. Wines is and will continue to be a very good player.

the entire arguement has been exactly the opposite, i have not said anything bad about Wines just that 16 games is far too little time to know if Toumpas will be a good player in his own right or not

you're guessing he will be average at best based on him having no pace...

you have no idea if Toumpas will be tearing teams apart with his pin point kicks in the future

we are only guessing here, Wines is better by a long way, for now, toumpas deserves the chance to prove everyone wrong.

no-one is saying toumpas should be de-listed or not given a chance

nor are they saying he can't improve

many are just giving their opinion on his abilities at afl level as they see them. that's what forums do

I like young Toumpas, he'll be OK.

He's not the quickest kid on the park I admit but a good running coach can work wonders!

Remember Kevin Dyson? Worked for him! Became a very good player with a bit more leg speed!

And Dom's got more upside than Kev had!

This post is going around in circles. Wines has had a great start but with a good start in a much better team. Toumpas is improving and still overcoming hip surgery last year. A lot more water needs to go under the bridge before conclusions can be drawn. in the meantime lets get off his back and support him as much as possible.

no-one is saying toumpas should be de-listed or not given a chance

nor are they saying he can't improve

many are just giving their opinion on his abilities at afl level as they see them. that's what forums do

So far i have heard we should, " trade him for a 4th rounder" " greatest recruiting blunder we have ever made" " never going to be more than an average b- player "

so yeah people are totally writing him off, might be worth reading over the thread before commenting.

So far i have heard we should, " trade him for a 4th rounder" " greatest recruiting blunder we have ever made" " never going to be more than an average b- player "

so yeah people are totally writing him off, might be worth reading over the thread before commenting.

you claimed people said he should be delisted.......i can't find one who did

you claimed people said he shouldn't be given a chance ......i didn't get that impression

as for recruiting blunders, b-grader, comparisons to wines........these are just opinions.....get over it

you claimed people said he should be delisted.......i can't find one who did

you claimed people said he shouldn't be given a chance ......i didn't get that impression

as for recruiting blunders, b-grader, comparisons to wines........these are just opinions.....get over it

So it's fine for them to debate their opinion, but not for me to debate mine, keeping in mind i'm not saying much more than judging any player after 16 games, Toumpas and Wines included is unfair on the player, we don't know if we picked the right or wrong bloke, we know wines is doing well in a strong team and Toumpas is doing okay in a terrible team.