Hindsight is not the case for some.

Leading up to the draft I will un-happily admit I wanted Toumpas ahead of Wines, although I liked the risk of Stringer ahead of the two.

For those that said Toumpas went or he fell where he should have, unquestionably ahead of Wines, based off newspapers articles are blatantly wrong.

Without question Toumpas was in that correct range and the debate between the two was valid at that point in time.

The fact is, as S.O.N.S and I have mentioned previously, it was a fierce debate between T.Viney (then head recruiter) and Neeld over the selection of Wines and Toumpas respectively, and Neeld's overruling has proven costly (now hindsight) (see previous links for the appropriate referencing).

Overall I would love to know where Harrington stood (then list manager).

Why are we still talking about this? 

As was often the case pre-Roos, we recruited the wrong player. It doesn't matter where he was "ranked" by experts or who wanted who, we drafted Toumpas and it was ultimately the wrong decision. Being a hindsight hero on these threads has absolutely no benefit to anyone.

Our drafting and recruiting over the past few off-seasons seems to be much improved as we have as solid a group of youngsters on our list as I can remember. Let's look forward, not back. If we're lucky, maybe Wines will choose to come "home" at the end of the season.

to be fair, Todd Viney choosing Dom Barry over Jed Anderson was probably the most questionable selection from that time. Regardless of how their careers ended up and Jed Anderson has struggled at Hawthorn, he was clearly the best prospect out of the NT at the time.

Regardless of what Todd Viney wanted, he was eitehr not strong enough on his conviction or was too easily persuaded to change his mind towards Toumpas. Imagine if Paul Roos said to Jason Taylor "We want darcy parish instead of Clayton Oliver", i think Taylors response would be irrate. It is his job to choose who we pick and I understand that Neeld did play a significant role on the draft table that year, only because we couldnt have Taylor until the year after.
Kent was a win imo

On 1/22/2016 at 5:36 PM, Captain Todd said:

Wines had the mature body, Toumpas didn't. A big difference to the immediate playing team. If you don't have the size, it doesn't matter how much talent you have. You'll just get pushed off the ball. Years of watching Cale Morton has shown this.

Could not disagree more - I don't care if you look like king kong or twiggy - if you don't have talent  - take your bat and ball go home - you are not going to make it.

If you are suggesting that you have two equally talented footballers but one is undersized and one is a brute - then it is no brainer. To also suggest that you draft for the immediate playing team flies in the face of what Roos constantly says ( and every expert of the game). You hope for some exposure from your draftee in year one and more output in year two - and established in year 3  - big men generally take longer. Drafting any footballer because they are "ready to go" is folly - Ready to go footballers are the exception rather than the rule.

Using Cale Morton body size is interesting - He is 192 cms and played at 88kg ( footywire). Jack Gunston is 193 cms and plays at 85kg ( footywire) - interestingly Gunston doesn't suffer from the same problem as Morton did. Years of watching football shows me that talent is and always will be paramount. 

I'll give you two more  - Adam Saad of the Gold Coast - he is a ripper - all 178cm and 74kg of him.  Are you critical of the drafting of Neal Bullen - 182cm and 76kg - 1cm shorter than Toumpas but 5kg lighter. There is no substitute for talent

The major difference between Toumpas and Wines is not body maturity/size -  it is about talent. Wines is more talented than Toumpas.

 

On 27 January 2016 at 11:16 PM, spirit of norm smith said:

89 posts... mostly vitriolic and in spite. Victriolic is under V in the dictionary and is an adjective. It sums up your style. 

The truth about Wines hurts, so don't get angry to posters. Get angry about Neeld setting back MFC for another 3 years.

You looked at all 89 posts????

 

I am angry at injustice being heaped on young kids not meeting the expectation of our keyboard warrior mentality. No wonder the players all leave us. Not all get kicked out. Our culture sucked as did our development. Poor Wines ain't coming to us. Geelong will grab him. You watch.

What I find amazing is that Clayton Oliver stormed into top 3 contention without a single game being played.

Therefore, even if Toumpas was touted earlier as a higher pick there's no reason it couldn't change.

23 hours ago, ignition. said:

For those that said Toumpas went or he fell where he should have, unquestionably ahead of Wines, based off newspapers articles are blatantly wrong.


 

Actually blantantly right.  Newspapers are working off information from recruiters and TAC watchers.

Until you provide one shred of evidence that Wines was rated by anyone ahead of Toumpas then your comment referring to "blatantly wrong" is blatantly wrong.

Did we get it wrong in hindsight ? no argument. Your comment " Without question Toumpas was in that correct range and the debate between the two was valid at that point in time" is correct but the debate at the time was one sided - At that time it was envisaged that Toumpas would be selected higher than Wines and that is exactly what transpired.

I will watch with interest how Parish goes because before any more rewriting of history happens, I will also state that Parish was more highly fancied that Oliver so I expect there to be much hand wringing if Parish ends up a much better footballer than Oliver.

However I don't get angry over who we could have had  - it is a pointless exercise.

 

2 hours ago, nutbean said:

Actually blantantly right.  Newspapers are working off information from recruiters and TAC watchers.

Until you provide one shred of evidence that Wines was rated by anyone ahead of Toumpas then your comment referring to "blatantly wrong" is blatantly wrong.

Did we get it wrong in hindsight ? no argument. Your comment " Without question Toumpas was in that correct range and the debate between the two was valid at that point in time" is correct but the debate at the time was one sided - At that time it was envisaged that Toumpas would be selected higher than Wines and that is exactly what transpired.

I will watch with interest how Parish goes because before any more rewriting of history happens, I will also state that Parish was more highly fancied that Oliver so I expect there to be much hand wringing if Parish ends up a much better footballer than Oliver.

However I don't get angry over who we could have had  - it is a pointless exercise.

 

 

I provided evidence on p.18 that our head of recruiting wanted Wines ahead of Toumpas.

Instead of the selective reading, my point was that the top order particularly between Wines and Toumpas was hard to differentiate, and that in no way was it a general consensus that Toumpas automatically should have been selected ahead.

That "evidence" you seem to support is nothing more than inside intel as to how the draft will fall by questioning clubs on who they intend to select a couple days prior. NOT the general consensus by all clubs as you seem to suggest. Do you really think that journos would be asking Sydney (pick 22) who should go at 4 or for their top 22 listed prospects? - the same applies for every other club.

So please provide a shred of evidence that Toumpas was outright ahead of Wines by multiple scouts (amateur or pro) / recruiters. 

The only hint available that suggests so is Knightmare's but then he says (which supports my point that you seen to miss):

"This top region is much more even than advertised and I see very little separating this group. Crouch, Wines and Stringer to have the most immediate impact. "

So no it is not blatantly right.

 

8 minutes ago, ignition. said:

 

I provided evidence on p.18 that our head of recruiting wanted Wines ahead of Toumpas.

 

You provided "evidence" that Schwarz said Viney wanted Wines, not that Toumpas was rated as the better draft pick.

 

1 minute ago, stuie said:

You provided "evidence" that Schwarz said Viney wanted Wines, not that Toumpas was rated as the better draft pick.

 

Coversation that could have taken place between Viney and Neeld:

Viney: Wow, i really want Wines to come to Melbourne, i hope there is a way that we can get him to the club.
Neeld: Yes, Wines does look like a likely type, do you think we should take him with pick 4?
Viney: Here is our top 10, currently it sits like this, ...... Toumpas, Wines......

soo whilst he would have obviously wanted Wines, he may not have rated him ahead of Toumpas and when he was available we took him.

its alot of he said/she said and in hindsight it was the obvious wrong decision, although they could both have 8 years left in their careers

2 hours ago, ignition. said:

 

So please provide a shred of evidence that Toumpas was outright ahead of Wines by multiple scouts (amateur or pro) / recruiters. 

 

 

Seriously ? Just type in Jimmy Toumpas and go to the earliest threads and there are umpteen references to Toumpas going in the top three and not making it to our pick - Even Jack Viney in an interview asked who he would take and he nominated Toumpas but further elaborated that he didnt think he would be available at our pick. ( I cannot find the interview but Hannibal refers to the same interview in Nov 2012  - " I heard Viney (Jack) interviewed a few weeks back and he was asked which other player in the draft do you really rate and would love to go to Melbourne and he nominated Toumpas".) So much talk  of Toumpas hopefully "Sliding" to our pick. Even enjoying the conspiracy theories of us overpaying for Hogan in exchange for GWS letting Toumpas slide to our pick. 

 

Ill set you a challenge - you provide one shred of  evidence that Wines was higher rated prior to the draft than Toumpas and was the "obvious" choice and I will then provide double the amount for Toumpas being rated higher than Wines. (FYI - in the first minute of searching I have two from July and September of the draft year).

 

 

 

Edited January 29, 20169 yr by nutbean

3 hours ago, stuie said:

You provided "evidence" that Schwarz said Viney wanted Wines, not that Toumpas was rated as the better draft pick.

 

Quite the valid point as it happens..There were definitely those that wanted Wines and not Toumpas. Jimmy was more the flavour of that month and the sheep following phantoms all seems to fall into line. The nature of Wines did appeal to some though. The rest is history. Seems we've learnt a bit from it  !!

4 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

Quite the valid point as it happens..There were definitely those that wanted Wines and not Toumpas. Jimmy was more the flavour of that month and the sheep following phantoms all seems to fall into line. The nature of Wines did appeal to some though. The rest is history. Seems we've learnt a bit from it  !!

 

Jimmy was not the flavor of the month - he was definitely the more fancied selection by the experts

What I have learned from numerous drafts is that the experts are pretty good at identifying the top draft picks but trying to identify them in order of how they will turn out is nothing more than guesswork - if you go through the top 10 from every draft, they have generally identified the top talent but not one draft would not have a complete reordering - there will always be picks that in retrospect should go higher and others that should be lower and picks that are a complete bust and smokey's that no one really identified - how in in the name of all that is good did Fyfe get through to the selection he did. 

We were lucky that last year we had picks 2 and 3 - who here is willing to bet who will turn out better ? Petracca or Brayshaw ? We are fortunate we did not have to make that choice.  But if we only had pick 2 and not pick 3 as well and picked Petracca - we would be upset if Brayshaw turned out better.   

1 minute ago, nutbean said:

 

Jimmy was not the flavor of the month - he was definitely the more fancied selection by the experts

 

huh !!

2 hours ago, nutbean said:

Ill set you a challenge - you provide one shred of  evidence that Wines was higher rated prior to the draft than Toumpas and was the "obvious" choice and I will then provide double the amount for Toumpas being rated higher than Wines. (FYI - in the first minute of searching I have two from July and September of the draft year).

Again you seem to be jumping to conclusions mate, when did I state that Wines was rated higher overall, or that he was the "obvious" choice? Go back and re-read my last posts. I suggested they were close and worthy of debate, and by no means was Toumpas the outright choice and general consensus as you elude to.
 

4 hours ago, stuie said:

You provided "evidence" that Schwarz said Viney wanted Wines, not that Toumpas was rated as the better draft pick.

????

Yes stuie I did, so please remind me what T. Viney's role at the club was in 2012?... Head of Recruiting ring a bell?

T.Viney (2012 head recruiter) rated Wines as the better draft prospect, whereas Neeld specifically wanted outside run presumably supporting the opinions of the S.A scouts.

 

1 hour ago, nutbean said:

Jimmy was not the flavor of the month - he was definitely the more fancied selection by the experts

In ways yes he was the flavour of the month.

I recall people getting their knickers in a knot because "Jimmy goes for a run on Christmas day".

Please show us all these fancied selections by all these experts? or are they newspaper clippings a couple days before the draft?
 

All we can do is hope Toumpas turns it around and becomes the better player

I wish some of you guys could see just how ridiculous you look when you're constantly arguing in circles and splitting hairs in an effort to defend your fragile egos. 

It's the off season 

Is it time to raise Lucas Cook again?

Just now, Redleg said:

Is it time to raise Lucas Cook again?

I was hoping we could go even further back and have a discussion about Luke Molan...

1 minute ago, Wiseblood said:

I was hoping we could go even further back and have a discussion about Luke Molan...

Don't be unfair, he could play, but was cruelled by several injuries. He was also tough. Two attributes not held by Cook.

19 hours ago, ignition. said:

????

Yes stuie I did, so please remind me what T. Viney's role at the club was in 2012?... Head of Recruiting ring a bell?

T.Viney (2012 head recruiter) rated Wines as the better draft prospect, whereas Neeld specifically wanted outside run presumably supporting the opinions of the S.A scouts.

 

Mate, you seem to be missing my point. I've not once argued that Viney didn't want Wines. But if you look at actual evidence (rather than the hearsay you've provided about Viney/Wines) then you will see Toumpas was clearly rated higher than Wines pre-draft by the overwhelming majority of recruiters, football staff, experts (Shifter said he wouldn't be surprised to see him go number 1) and media commentators.

It's an actual fact. Not sure why you're arguing that?

 

Just now, Redleg said:

Don't be unfair, he could play, but was cruelled by several injuries. He was also tough. Two attributes not held by Cook.

It wasn't necessarily about his ability to play the game, more that we picked him in the Top 10 of what was dubbed a super draft and missed out completely, just like Cook.  Very different players but we picked them both and missed out on others.  

I was only being light hearted, didn't think you would take it so seriously.

1 minute ago, Wiseblood said:

It wasn't necessarily about his ability to play the game, more that we picked him in the Top 10 of what was dubbed a super draft and missed out completely, just like Cook.  Very different players but we picked them both and missed out on others.  

I was only being light hearted, didn't think you would take it so seriously.

I didn't, I am smiling.