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In Jason Taylor we trust!

Bobby Clark
Bobby Clark
in Melbourne Demons

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In Jason Taylor & Todd Viney we trust. Not a bad debut for Hannan. 

Mitch Hannan. 16 disposals, 7 marks, 4 tackles and 2 goals playing half forward. Only one game but I reckon we've found a player. 

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    It certainly helps the club when the player intake quality improves.  We are a better club in many ways than the pre Jackson years so it's difficult to pinpoint any one area responsible for the turnaround. However, since Jackson arrived, he has certainly improved all areas of the football department (in particular) and the one area obvious to me is the increase in player quality coming into the club since Jason Taylor came in. We have better coaching structures in place now but you need the players to have the qualities required and Taylor seems to get it right most times.

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    13 hours ago, Bobby Clark said:

    In Jason Taylor & Todd Viney we trust. Not a bad debut for Hannan. 

    Mitch Hannan. 16 disposals, 7 marks, 4 tackles and 2 goals playing half forward. Only one game but I reckon we've found a player. 

    It's usually a player from another club doing it to us.....

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    It's certainly another feather in the cap for Jason Taylor, but kudos to everyone else at the club for still having him ready to play, even after he arrived at the club with a shoulder injury.  To manage his load and development from there to yesterday is a terrific effort for all involved and we reaped the rewards big time.

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    Dare I mention that Jason Taylor was recommended for the recruiting role by the current Essendon Football Club Game Performance Manager!

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    Thought this would be a thread about picking Oliver.

    I love that they've been able to find gems late in the draft like Hunt, Hannan etc, but it's nailing those early picks that the previous bunch muffed that will project us towards the top 4. It looks so far that all of Oliver, Brayshaw, Petracca and Salem will at least be very good, with Oliver almost certainly going to be in the top echelon if not already. There's always misses in the top 20 but we seem to have gone from one extreme to the other.

    It's just such a relief knowing our key picks are in such good hands. 

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    • Like 16
     

    Tubby Taylor will find it difficult to avoid a few media interviews and a few new major offers after his selections have consistently come up trumps - not bad for a bloke who left the Pies in embarrassing circumstances.

    If someone, with inside knowledge, on who was behind the choice of Hannan can reveal details please. Obviously the VFL GF was the major rider on this as he cut us up, but I doubt Tubby would have been there as he would have been off looking at other players in GFs around the country and the Etihad game was an easy one for so many of our other key staff to get too.

    But I do know Tubby was right behind the choices of both Oliver and Vandenburg and had the backing of Paul Roos to go for big-bodied midfielders. 

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    16 hours ago, Nasher said:

    Thought this would be a thread about picking Oliver.

    I love that they've been able to find gems late in the draft like Hunt, Hannan etc, but it's nailing those early picks that the previous bunch muffed that will project us towards the top 4. It looks so far that all of Oliver, Brayshaw, Petracca and Salem will at least be very good, with Oliver almost certainly going to be in the top echelon if not already. There's always misses in the top 20 but we seem to have gone from one extreme to the other.

    It's just such a relief knowing our key picks are in such good hands. 

    Early picks are definitely very important, but I would argue the later picks are just as important.

    If you take the Hawks for example, they definitely nailed their early picks in Hodge, Lewis, Franklin, Roughead and Riloi. However, what they were also able to do is get some really good players with mid-late picks as well. 

    Sam Mitchell: Pick 36

    Isaac Smith: Pick 19 (not as late but still a good selection)

    Liam Shiels: Pick 34

    Taylor Dureya: Pick 69

    Luke Breust: Pick 77

    Paul Puopolo: Pick 66

    If you nail the late picks and ensure you are getting the majority of early picks right you have the opportunity to build a very strong side. Fingers crossed we've been able to do that!

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    Before PJ was bought to the club, we were not members of a football club. 

    We were members to the past history of the MFC

    The previous admin was sadly clueless and it led to dire consequences (RIP Bails). I am not going to call PJ a genius, but he KNOWS what a CEO is required to do. With a minimum of noise and disturbance he has rebuilt the club to what we have today. The building continues, but we are now able to launch both on field and off. 

    Yesterday i noticed Kaspersky was a sponsor on the helmet of Sebastian Vettel. 

    Yet another conpany burnt by the MFC years ago. 

    The same way that BP completely burnt all those draft picks

    How did they get so much wrong all at the one time....?

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    • Like 1
    59 minutes ago, Is Dom Is Good said:

    Early picks are definitely very important, but I would argue the later picks are just as important.

    If you take the Hawks for example, they definitely nailed their early picks in Hodge, Lewis, Franklin, Roughead and Riloi. However, what they were also able to do is get some really good players with mid-late picks as well. 

    Sam Mitchell: Pick 36

    Isaac Smith: Pick 19 (not as late but still a good selection)

    Liam Shiels: Pick 34

    Taylor Dureya: Pick 69

    Luke Breust: Pick 77

    Paul Puopolo: Pick 66

    If you nail the late picks and ensure you are getting the majority of early picks right you have the opportunity to build a very strong side. Fingers crossed we've been able to do that!

    If those players entered the Dees during the Neeld or Bailey eras then they wouldn't have succeeded. 

    I believe to a large extent tht structures and player development areas are more important than who you pick. 

     

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    2 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

    Before PJ was bought to the club, we were not members of a football club. 

    We were members to the past history of the MFC

    The previous admin was sadly clueless and it led to dire consequences (RIP Bails). I am not going to call PJ a genius, but he KNOWS what a CEO is required to do. With a minimum of noise and disturbance he has rebuilt the club to what we have today. The building continues, but we are now able to launch both on field and off. 

    Yesterday i noticed Kaspersky was a sponsor on the helmet of Sebastian Vettel. 

    Yet another conpany burnt by the MFC years ago. 

    The same way that BP completely burnt all those draft picks

    How did they get so much wrong all at the one time....?

    Your so right SWYL. We had so many top 20 selections in recent drafts that we got wrong i.e. pre Todd Viney and then Jason Taylor afterwards.

    They rated talent too far ahead of competitiveness back then believing they could be taught. Simply not possible. Cale Morton running away along the wing from an angrier and bigger opponent was an extreme example of that. Can't image any of the recent competitive draftees doing that.

    We would have had better luck just selected randomly from the top 20 draft prospects each year ... which highlights to me that the player development and the environment (including but not limited to tanking) were far worse that the drafting ... 

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    2 hours ago, bandicoot said:

    If those players entered the Dees during the Neeld or Bailey eras then they wouldn't have succeeded. 

    I believe to a large extent tht structures and player development areas are more important than who you pick. 

     

    It has got to be both talent and development but I could not agree more on the first line. Putting talent into the cesspool of a club we were and it expecting it to thrive is just nonsensical. 

    I think the club structure that Roos put in place and his emphasis on development ( and the coaches he has employed to do the developing) will be his lasting legacy.

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    37 minutes ago, nutbean said:

    It has got to be both talent and development but I could not agree more on the first line. Putting talent into the cesspool of a club we were and it expecting it to thrive is just nonsensical. 

    I think the club structure that Roos put in place and his emphasis on development ( and the coaches he has employed to do the developing) will be his lasting legacy.

    It wasn't a club before PJ and Roos were bought in. That is the bottom line. 

    Certain people should be ashamed of what was made to happen before those 2 professionals walked in and let's be honest got place at least functioning again fairly quickly. 

    Edited by Sir Why You Little

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    3 minutes ago, Sir Why You Little said:

    It wasn't a club before PJ and Roos were bought in. That is the bottom line. 

    Certain people should be ashamed of what was made to happen before those 2 professionals walked in and let's be honest got place at least functioning again fairly quickly. 

    When you think about it ( and I am sure that other people those two brought in were also part of the revival) it is hard to imagine that all it has taken is two professional people to turn around the stinkhole that was our club. 

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    • Like 3
    Just now, nutbean said:

    When you think about it ( and I am sure that other people those two brought in were also part of the revival) it is hard to imagine that all it has taken is two professional people to turn around the stinkhole that was our club. 

    Exactly. Which was why i and others were so angry. 

    It wasn't Rocket Science, but the previous admin for some reasons had no idea.

    I wasn't the first to tweak, but when sponsors pull out and say they will never come near the place again, even though those companies had been bought in by supporters!! It was always going to be bad. 

    We got the double Whammy as well. 

    Not only did a certain person not know how to run the place, he also had bugger all knowledge of recruiting top end talent. 

    Dean Bailey had the same coaching style as Simon Goodwin!!

    it was such a tragedy what happened to Bails

    RIP

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    It just shows you that you need all moving parts of a club working.

    It really does defy belief how the Eagles won the premiership in 2006 with all that was apparently going on.

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    • Like 3
    3 minutes ago, nutbean said:

    It just shows you that you need all moving parts of a club working.

    It really does defy belief how the Eagles won the premiership in 2006 with all that was apparently going on.

    Yes. 2006 is a massive buck to the system. 

    (They did only win it by a point after al that. Pity Roosy didn't go 2-0)

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    3 minutes ago, nutbean said:

    It just shows you that you need all moving parts of a club working.

    It really does defy belief how the Eagles won the premiership in 2006 with all that was apparently going on.

     

    Not really. ``We`re the eagles, we`re flying high``

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    • Like 1

    Personally I'm a big fan of the 'high-low' draft strategy that the Taylor-period Demons have leaned towards - on the one hand using genuinely early selections and making them stick, and on the other hand being ready to 'churn' the late picks, giving multiple chances each year to bring in 'possibles'. 

    High-low drafting under Jason Taylor:

    2016, first pick at 46.

    2015, picks 4 and 9, then 42.

    2014, picks 2 and 3, then 40

    2013, pick 9, then 40

    At the Demons, Jason Taylor has never used a draft pick from 10 to 39.

    Anyway, sometimes it isn't just who you take or pass on in drafts that matters, it is who you keep or de-list. I don't think with our current administration we'll be seeing errors like the 7-year career of Michael Newton. Again that points to recognising the value of late picks and keeping them turning over. If a player is not going to deliver AFL quality, then they are not valuable to an AFL team, even if the replacement might be even worse, you can't rate below zero!

    Edited by Little Goffy

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    • Like 5
    5 hours ago, Deespicable said:

    Tubby Taylor will find it difficult to avoid a few media interviews and a few new major offers after his selections have consistently come up trumps - not bad for a bloke who left the Pies in embarrassing circumstances.

    If someone, with inside knowledge, on who was behind the choice of Hannan can reveal details please. Obviously the VFL GF was the major rider on this as he cut us up, but I doubt Tubby would have been there as he would have been off looking at other players in GFs around the country and the Etihad game was an easy one for so many of our other key staff to get too.

    But I do know Tubby was right behind the choices of both Oliver and Vandenburg and had the backing of Paul Roos to go for big-bodied midfielders. 

    What "embarrassing circumstances"? He was headhunted by us and left Collingwood early because of it. I'd be a bit careful about this type of speculation.

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    • Like 2
    4 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

    Before PJ was bought to the club, we were not members of a football club. 

    We were members to the past history of the MFC

    The previous admin was sadly clueless and it led to dire consequences (RIP Bails). I am not going to call PJ a genius, but he KNOWS what a CEO is required to do. With a minimum of noise and disturbance he has rebuilt the club to what we have today. The building continues, but we are now able to launch both on field and off. 

    Yesterday i noticed Kaspersky was a sponsor on the helmet of Sebastian Vettel. 

    Yet another conpany burnt by the MFC years ago. 

    The same way that BP completely burnt all those draft picks

    How did they get so much wrong all at the one time....?

    The same way SOS over at Carlton keeps getting it wrong over and over again at the draft/trade table. He's not very good at his job. 

    When you have key decision makers who are not very good at their job, other poor key decision makers are employed and it's a self-perpetuating cycle.

    The MFC was a cesspit, but time to move on.

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    • Like 2
     
    6 minutes ago, A F said:

    The same way SOS over at Carlton keeps getting it wrong over and over again at the draft/trade table. He's not very good at his job. 

    When you have key decision makers who are not very good at their job, other poor key decision makers are employed and it's a self-perpetuating cycle.

    The MFC was a cesspit, but time to move on.

    The SOS situation i find very interesting

    it does seem to be "all eggs in one basket"

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    Just now, Sir Why You Little said:

    The SOS situation i find very interesting

    it does seem to be "all eggs in one basket"

    it's all about 'relationship building' SWYL - sometimes it works really really really reallllly poorly for you.

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