You back on this hobby horse [censored]? Go to the local supermarket and buy another pallet of tissues dude.

Is that your best shot...Really.

Back on the hobby horse....

No i just watched tonights game Sambo. Did you?

Ollie is a Jet

Toumpas is a timid kitten

We can pick 'em can't we.

Pick 4

Let me know when that happens will you....

wyl please go through Maccas link i don't see you in there commenting as you have claimed that we had to take Wines over Toumpas.

I was there tonight he was very impressive after half time and only knows one way but he's not ours so at the moment barring any dramatic turn around it was a mistake. But again like I asked you weeks ago please tell us and the footy department who we should take this year.

Can our previous list mgrs, recruiters & others be brought before the courts for negligence & duty of care for the absolute abysmal way of how they could overlook so much great talent along with our many early draft picks which have failed!

You back on this hobby horse [censored]? Go to the local supermarket and buy another pallet of tissues dude.

Seriously? Who writes like this and uses the word [censored]?

A [censored] springs to mind.

wyl please go through Maccas link i don't see you in there commenting as you have claimed that we had to take Wines over Toumpas.

Right you are. Not one post from our resident hindsight recruiting expert.

wyl please go through Maccas link i don't see you in there commenting as you have claimed that we had to take Wines over Toumpas.

I was there tonight he was very impressive after half time and only knows one way but he's not ours so at the moment barring any dramatic turn around it was a mistake. But again like I asked you weeks ago please tell us and the footy department who we should take this year.

Been O/S this year PSD so would not have a clue who is in line. Roosy will know so i am cool with that.

Are you insinuating that i jumped on the Wines bandwagon late??

Was well aware of his progress with Jack Viney as they grew up.

His form is no suprise.

More Tequilia???

"We've had too many attempts at fairytales in the drafts, this time we should avoid sentiment and go with the guy generally considered the top-3."

Sadly this hasn't worked for us either.

Think Watts , Scully and Trengove.

All considered within top 3 picks.

wait wait wait... are people suggesting that the draft order has not precisely reflected the performance of those players over the first two years of their careers?

Been O/S this year PSD so would not have a clue who is in line. Roosy will know so i am cool with that.

Are you insinuating that i jumped on the Wines bandwagon late??

Was well aware of his progress with Jack Viney as they grew up.

His form is no suprise.

More Tequilia???

no worries im still waiting for your post on Wines v Toumpas from 2012

A lot got it wrong. GWS more than anyone. What gives me the irrits is [censored] on here carrying on like it was an obvious oversight. Whitfield (clearly ahead) & Toumpas were touted as 1 & 2 from along way out

Re-do that draft with 20/20 hindsight and Ollie goes No.1. He is a mile ahead of Whitfield at the moment. O'Rourke ? Plowman ? Both have done even less than Jimmy T.

He's a ripper young Ollie & I'm going to enjoy watching him - hopefully for two more finals this year

As an aside, the infamous poster Picket Fence gives me the [censored]. He bangs on ad infinitum about his chosen few topics, is often wrong and I suspect is quite mad.

Nonetheless he was steadfast in his belief that Wines was the player we needed to take. Well before the draft. So when he pumps up Wines & mourns our not taking him - fair enough. Credit to PF, he saw it & called it early unlike most of the hindsight heroes. . Just wish he wouldn't use Ollie's success as an excuse to bag the player we did select.

Yeah, but does he bother to tell us about all the predictions that he gets wrong?

We all make the big calls and we all get some things right and we all get some things wrong. Anyone who thinks they never get anything wrong with these big calls is having a lend.

The great part about these forums is there is nowhere to hide when someone gets it horribly wrong ... some of the older threads are hilarious. The search function reveals all

Seriously? Who writes like this and uses the word [censored]?

A [censored] springs to mind.

LOL!!! Standing up for your buddy. How cute. Keep it up warriors.

no worries im still waiting for your post on Wines v Toumpas from 2012

would send you the smashed radio i obliterated after Wines name wasn't read out in 2012, but it went with the hard rubbish.

To be honest i knew nothing about Toumpas except his name at the time. Had to research him in the following days. Wish i still knew nothing about him now.

I wouldn't be so angry at how pathetic this club was run pre PJ.

Such is Life

I will only be upset that we picked Dmitri if he's not one of our most important players when we make a charge at the finals in 2 to 3 years time.

A more intimate knowledge of Wines we couldn't have had.

I need professional help ... the sheer anger won't subside.

Every club has draft hits and missed ... but this is something different.

Two ultra competitive animals ready made for modern football who were best mates.

A nice kid from SA with hip problems.

Only the MFC can reach such depths of incompetence.

I know kids who have done the same and they never got out of the local leagues.

Parker went on to captain Vic Metro was overlooked by all Vic sides.

Just amazing really.

I remember sitting there listening to the draft wondering whether Parker had suddenly lost a leg or something.

With Toumpas, he was always referred to as a quick outside player with good skills.

His skills seem pretty good (although I hate how he leans back on his kicks) but he is anything but quick. In fact he and Trengove would be two of the slowest players in the league and I would back Wines in to beat him in a foot race.

Outside players who are slow are as useful as ruckmen who are short.

There are some people who adapt quickly and who thrive in a new environment, others who take their time and yet others who never realise their potential when the time comes to step up. Wines has been one of first category but the jury remainsl out on Jimmy who is still only 20 years of age.

In November, 2012 most judges rated Jimmy Toumpas ahead of Ollie Wines in several areas and I would suggest that at least ¾ if not all of the AFL's recruiting officers would have taken Jimmy ahead of Ollie.

There were question marks about both of them. Jimmy was the creative and brilliant youngster who already had senior experience and had been instrumental in a SANFL premiership with Woodville-West Torrens. He had leadership and good character written all over him. He had also recently had surgery on both hips but before that had a brilliant national under 18 championships behind him (hip injury notwithstanding). The experts rated him second best prospect in the draft.

Ollie was a big bodied man child whose national championships were good but he was no sensation. The big question was whether or not his strengths would be negated when he took the step up to play with the men of the AFL.

When it came down to a choice of selection, our recruiting team headed by Todd Viney (who knew Ollie well) made the call in favour of Jimmy. The club already knew that it would select Jack Viney as a father/son and decided on Toumpas as the better credentialed player at that time and who it considered also best filled the mix of midfield player it badly needed.

As it turned out, Wines came into a favourable environment for a young player. Port had a new board, new coaching panel, new fitness guru, a united club with good strong leaders and an infectious ring of confidence around the club catapulted the team up the ladder faster than anything seen in this modern age of the game. It was the perfect environment in which a young Wines was able to thrive.

The contrast at Melbourne was obvious. Toumpas was hampered by that as well as the fact that his initial hip problems held back his first pre season and his development. Injury and illness have done likewise to his second. Despite the fact that there are rumours that he (like everybody else on our list) is on the trade table, we won't know how his career is going to pan out for a while yet, so let's see how he goes with a full pre season behind him in 2015.

Full credit to Wines - he's exceeded all expectations but that's by no means the fault of our recruiting people. He also happens to have achieved a lot more in his two years than Lachie Whitfield, Jonathan O'Rourke and Lachlan Plowman who were picked 1, 2 and 3 ahead of Wines as well and I don't hear people tearing strips off SOS, the GWS recruiter responsible for their selection (or, since the usual suspects find it necessary to use this as another issue to pillory Mark Neeld over, Kevin Sheedy who was the coach at the time).

Incidentally, we had picks 3 and 4 at that draft so we could have taken both Toumpas and Wines but instead chose to trade pick 3 for the GWS mini draft selection that secured Jesse Hogan and also helped get us Chris Dawes, Dom Barry and ensured that Jack Viney would cost a second round draft pick rather than a first.

Wines has had a relatively injury free career to date and a clear ride into a team now in its second finals campaign. The Melbourne players have endured a rocky road but history tells us that circumstances can change in sport.

I know this sounds like an old war story and our coach recently said we should look forward and not back, but in 1953 Melbourne finished a dismal second last. A year later, swept up on the back of some inspired recruiting and a great coach in his second year in the role, we made a grand final and a year after that won a flag.

None of us can say that will happen again just as none of us have the power to go back in a time machine to change the result of the 2012 draft so why agonise endlessly over the situation?

Roos is right on that score. It's time to look forward.

I also think Ken Hinkley and the fitness guy at Port have to take credit. They have created something special at that club. Who knows if he would have been the same player with us.

Just another disastrous event in our history of poor drafting...... We can only hope that our current coaches & new culture will get players like Toumpas to become great players ..... Whilst it's unfair to compare Wines it's frustrating as when we took Morton over Dangerfield ... One wonders even if they were picked would they have developed under the previous regime???

One thing to get early picks but if your culture & development are crap.......How would these same players have gone in a top club??

Just on Parker being picked at 40, he was bottom age in 2009 at Dandenong Stingrays the year when Scully was drafted. Nearly everybody had Scully as the number 1 pick. Parker was taken the following year after 39 names were called out and yet today, who would take Scully ahead of Parker?

Which proves that drafting is not an exact science and the people who screech on and on about one selection or another have nothing better to do with their time.

I feel sorry for the people who can't enjoy watching Wines play because of their own bitterness.

It's great to see a kid have a rampaging start to his career and take on all comers, especially at a club that had it's back to the wall (we could take a lesson from some of this!). Especially one who seems to be a good bloke, as well.

Some of you may have wanted him drafted to the Dees, some desperately (though I have my doubts on the main culprit in this thread) and yes it would be frustrating but surely you've got to move on and enjoy his ride for the great footy story it is. If you can't enjoy players like that because of their one time potential link to the club then I think it's a shame.

We've got to recognize the ratings of players at the time and the fact JT still has a lot of time on his side.

If you were bitter over every player we didn't take at drafts (especially the last 8 years) you wouldn't leave the house.

the funny thing is this week they did a best under 22 team and didnt pick Wines. Last night was the first time I looked at wines and thought geez I wish he was ours. So far I have thought give the kid Toump a go but and i hope im wrong but he wont impact games the way Ollie is.

Coulda.

Shoulda.

Woulda.

We fukked up

And we move on.

Bloody id1ots - recruitment

We fukked up

And we move on.

Bloody id1ots - recruitment

Yep that covers it in ten words