The 2014 finals thread

[P-man 13,366]

Don't put words in my mouth.

They are your words. Wines has hit the ground running since his first game. Toumpas aint going to get near his level no matter how many excuses are trotted out.

I make a point of it so any MFC employees reading this forum are reminded what a shocking job WE did of running a club.

The AFL have not shafted us. We shafted our selves.

Toumpas is light years away from Wines. Neeld & Viney knew it.

Once again the members have been let down.

You can bag me all you like P Man but i am right on this one.

That was the worst draft decision we have made, and there are a pile of them.

I don't see it as bagging you, more your attitude. All you seem to do is mope around the place under this misguided notion that it is achieving something. It isn't. It brings others down. That's pretty much all it does. I like your passion. I just think it is misplaced

lol.."if any MFC employees are reading this". Surely you jest mate. Seriously. Like they are going to read that WYL on Demonland thinks we should have chosen Wines over Toumpas, behind the thousands of others who hold the same view, and then what? Hop in their time machine? You are complaining about the past. Something that can't be altered. We have new people responsible for these decisions, and the early evidence suggests they are more than capable.

Of course Wines would have been a good pick up, but it is totally ILLOGICAL to be putting a line through Toumpas yet, given his injury history. You are just willing the kid to failure and are going to send yourself batty if you remain fixated on the career of Ollie Wines.

[Sir Why You Little 36,946]

The Draft isn't flawed. The MFC have used it incredibly badly for nearly 20 years.

The Toumpas/Wines choice will haunt us for at least another decade IMO....

[Pennant St Dee 13,062]

The Draft isn't flawed. The MFC have used it incredibly badly for nearly 20 years.

The Toumpas/Wines choice will haunt us for at least another decade IMO....

Sorry WYL the draft is flawed if you go and check on the First round picks over the last 20 years there have been a lot more misses than hits every club has had them you, me and all demonlanders focus on our own picks.

As Macca said drafting kids is somewhat difficult, the old system in the VFL where players where taken from WAFL & SANFL was better, I know the WAFC put a restriction in place to stop the drain of talent from WA players and they had to have played somewhere between 60-100games or spent 5 years in WAFL before being allowed to head to the VFL.

The VFL clubs were able to get a good gauge on the talent and pick players up with a lot more examples of how they performed against men and in finals type games

[Sir Why You Little 36,946]

PSD the old system of drafting sent the VFL completely bust by 1985-6. Thus the interstate teams were signed up.

The current draft is fine.

The MFC has been shocking at using it. We may need a PP but we don't deserve it.

We have to start earning our position rather than just wanting it.

[Dr evil 1,185]

Mate i knew how good he was/is.

I knew it 2 years ago. You can think what you like.

People moan that this club gets shafted.

We have shafted ourselves.

You're amazing WYL, you saw something the entire AFL recruiting community that rated Toumpas a top 5 pick all year didn't.

Why aren't you a recruiter?

[old dee 23,742]

You're amazing WYL, you saw something the entire AFL recruiting community that rated Toumpas a top 5 pick all year didn't.

Why aren't you a recruiter?

It is hard to believe he could be worse than the lot between 2002 and 2012.

They did exactly cover themselves in Glory.

[Sir Why You Little 36,946]

You're amazing WYL, you saw something the entire AFL recruiting community that rated Toumpas a top 5 pick all year didn't.

Why aren't you a recruiter?

I saw Ollie Wines play with JV....He has just stepped up

Toumpas still struggles at Casey... That is the reality

We F@#$%ed up

[Earl Hood 6,082]

You're amazing WYL, you saw something the entire AFL recruiting community that rated Toumpas a top 5 pick all year didn't.

Why aren't you a recruiter?

True JW but we had inside knowledge through Todd Viney's long association with Wines. He would have been aware of this kids leadership potential, his aggression and physical strength but we chose JT according to Ox on SEN just yesterday, on the thinking that we had landed Jack Viney so we didn't need another inside, raging bull but we needed instead an outside runner. Again that old adage do you pick for needs or pick the player you rate as the best available? And did we do due diligence on Jimmy's hip problems? Whatever we missed another one.

[Bitter but optimistic 22,218]

I've posted this previously , on another thread, but I was informed by a 35 year Melbourne member who has never steered my wrong, that Wines and family expected to be selected by Melbourne. It was virtually at the last moment that they found out.

Take it as you may.

[Sir Why You Little 36,946]

You're amazing WYL, you saw something the entire AFL recruiting community that rated Toumpas a top 5 pick all year didn't.

Why aren't you a recruiter?

Whoever rated Toumpas 5th in the 2012 AFL Draft should just retire now.

But they won't of course...

[Undeeterred 3,113]

I don't know why you all keeping feeding WYL.

All you get is whiny revisionism and a complete refusal to show us how insightful he is by making forward predictions that we can call him on later.

Complete waste of energy.

[Macca 16,901]

Whoever rated Toumpas 5th in the 2012 AFL Draft should just retire now.

But they won't of course...

Jimmy was rated as the no.2 choice for most of 2012 - by many recruiters and pundits. Later on, the general footy public including many Melbourne supporters joined in on the hype. It happens almost every year - this year it's Petracca who is all the rage. The hype surrounding Scully was enormous - as it's turned out, he's a C grader.

Fiora, Tambling, Morton and countless others were highly rated. Have a read of all the Morrish Medal winners over the years to see how many didn't go on with it. A lot of them were given a try-out of course, some made it, many didn't make it.

I treat the draft like an imposter. There are too many inconsistent factors involved for the draft to be taken too seriously. Too many busts and too many champs slip through (Fyfe 20, Dangerfield 10, Goodes 43, Black 31 etc etc)

The draft is not an accurate measure of the available 17 year old talent and it's doubtful that it ever will be either. It's a lottery and if you want a highly respected 2nd opinion, ask Paul Roos ... Roos slams draft as a 'ridiculous lottery'

[Earl Hood 6,082]

Jimmy was rated as the no.2 choice for most of 2012 - by many recruiters and pundits. Later on, the general footy public including many Melbourne supporters joined in on the hype. It happens almost every year - this year it's Petracca who is all the rage. The hype surrounding Scully was enormous - as it's turned out, he's a C grader.

Fiora, Tambling, Morton and countless others were highly rated. Have a read of all the Morrish Medal winners over the years to see how many didn't go on with it. A lot of them were given a try-out of course, some made it, many didn't make it.

I treat the draft like an imposter. There are too many inconsistent factors involved for the draft to be taken too seriously. Too many busts and too many champs slip through (Fyfe 20, Dangerfield 10, Goodes 43, Black 31 etc etc)

The draft is not an accurate measure of the available 17 year old talent and it's doubtful that it ever will be either. It's a lottery and if you want a highly respected 2nd opinion, ask Paul Roos ... Roos slams draft as a 'ridiculous lottery'

I think your link to Paul Roos thoughts is spot on. The whole draft thing is a lottery because they are so young. I have posted before that if we upped the drafting age to 20 instead of 18 we would have 2 years to assess these kids playing in the VFL, SANFL etc against men and you would have a much better chance of knowing just what you were drafting in. An extra bonus would be that if we know more about the kids the order of the draft actually helps equalisation! At the moment the Hawks are almost as likely to pick a goer at pick 18 as the lower clubs picking 1,2, 3 etc. an added bonus is the lower leagues would be much stronger and the gap between say the VFL and the AFL would be less.

Edited September 10, 2014 by Earl Hood

[Sir Why You Little 36,946]

I don't know why you all keeping feeding WYL.

All you get is whiny revisionism and a complete refusal to show us how insightful he is by making forward predictions that we can call him on later.

Complete waste of energy.

Thanks Turd

[Macca 16,901]

I think your link to Paul Roos thoughts is spot on. The whole draft thing is a lottery because they are so young. I have posted before that if we upped the drafting age to 20 instead of 18 we would have 2 years to assess these kids playing in the VFL, SANFL etc against men and you would have a much better chance of knowing just what you were drafting in. An extra bonus would be that if we know more about the kids the order of the draft actually helps equalisation! At the moment the Hawks are almost as likely to pick a goer at pick 18 as the lower clubs picking 1,2, 3 etc. an added bonus is the lower leagues would be much stronger and the gap between say the VFL and the AFL would be less.

If we view things in a practical sense, EH, the draft age probably won't change in the foreseeable future (that's not to say that the draft age shouldn't be raised) I doubt that raising the draft age would be high on the AFL's agenda.

My solution would be to raise the draft age gradually ... say, 3 or 6 months per year over 6-7 years until the players are finally evaluated and then drafted when they are 20 years old. At the same time I'd like to see an Australia wide under 20 or under 21 competition started up (the AFL could afford to subsidise a competition like the one I'm suggesting but a competition like that might end up paying for itself if it's done properly)

The issues surrounding raising the draft age are what to do with the 17/18 year old's who are "ready to go." Players like Daniel Rich, Ollie Wines & Lewis Taylor have all made the transition to senior footy with relative ease but again, there are plenty of draftee's who are predicted to make that transition early who never do.

When the draft first started, many complained that we'd never see another "Timmy Watson" (Watson made his debut when he was 15 years old) but that type of argument is never heard of these days.

With the system that we've got right now, the simple solution is to lower one's expectations and be far more realistic. I guess having that view stifles debate and negates those who want to complain but ... it's a far more sensible way of looking at things.

[Moonshadow 17,673]

C'mon Roos, beat those Cats!

[SaberFang 7,151]

North giving Geelong quite the pantsing and it's only the first quarter. Almost Port vs Tigers-esque, 30 points up already.

Have fun at Geelong, Frawley. Cats might just finally be on the decline.

[SaberFang 7,151]

... and at quarter time they trail by only 2 goals.

Should've kept my mouth shut.

[Chook 15,012]

North giving Geelong quite the pantsing and it's only the first quarter. Almost Port vs Tigers-esque, 30 points up already.

Have fun at Geelong, Frawley. Cats might just finally be on the decline.

I was going to make a snide comment too, but then I remembered it's Geelong.

[Sir Why You Little 36,946]

Cats are hanging in by a thread...But yes it is Geeeelong!!

[ILLDieADemon 804]

Everytime I watch north and Richmond in the finales it make me sick because we were a head of them in our rebuild now there both playing finals and we are second last again on our 3rd rebuild.

[Chook 15,012]

Lindsay Thomas and Ben Brown both look like horrendous spuds but actually play surprisingly well.

[Moonshadow 17,673]

Lindsay Thomas and Ben Brown both look like horrendous spuds but actually play surprisingly well.

Gee, Goldy is a bloody useful ruck. Gets a bit of it around the ground and snags a goal or 2.

[Moonshadow 17,673]

Good lord, I just saw an ad during half time for dancing with the (alleged) stars with David Rodan in it.

[Cards13 9,117]

Lindsay Thomas and Ben Brown both look like horrendous spuds but actually play surprisingly well.

For all the Lindsay hate I actually think he is a bloody good player. And ice skater but has worked his tail off to be a contributor. Blease, Gys, Watts should look to him as an example of working to get better.

Picked Norf to win by 40 plus but Norf do po op the bed when in control.