Just now, olisik said:

Mate find my one phantom draft from 2018 that had him in top 30. Most had him around the below.

"Phantom" draft says it all.

I'll take the words from club list managers above your fan guesses any day.

You want to give away 5 or 6 of our better players for 2nd or 3rd rounders (because thats what we'll get in a fire sale) and collect a bunch of pointy end draft picks which we will somehow pull out of our arrse, because we wont get them all. We'll have one.

14 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

And the same nuffies that start these kind of threads will start one in 5 years time saying we need a big clean out because these draftees haven't worked out also ?

Well, yeah. If after 5 years into a rebuild you're not contending, you make a change. What are you suggesting? We do nothing, make no changes and just hope? Are you in charge of our gameplan by any chance?

18 minutes ago, olisik said:

Mate find my one phantom draft from 2018 that had him in top 30. Most had him around the below. Gotta love that he has a - next to kicking efficiency and decision making as well.

Exactly what we needed to trade up the draft for...

 

Cal Twomey is one of the most respect journos when looking at the draft. He had Sparrow going in the 30s with a bunch of clubs keen on him.

Source

The kid broke through for a few games in his first year before injury and has strengths we definitely need. Seems strange to be bagging this pick based on phantom drafts rather than actual outcome.

 

40 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

 

Cal Twomey is one of the most respect journos when looking at the draft. He had Sparrow going in the 30s with a bunch of clubs keen on him.

Source

The kid broke through for a few games in his first year before injury and has strengths we definitely need. Seems strange to be bagging this pick based on phantom drafts rather than actual outcome.

 

Cal Twomey also had us taking Tom McKenzie with our first pick. He went to North as a Rookie. 

Anything after the first round is a lottery and guessing game by most outsiders. 

Edited June 30, 20195 yr by Ethan Tremblay

Just now, Ethan Tremblay said:

Cal Twomey also had us taking Tom McKenzie with our first pick. He went to North as a Rookie. 

Anything after the first round is a lottery. 

Yep, which is why he's writing for the AFL and not living off his lotto winnings. Was more just quoting a pretty respected footy writer given there was talk of phantom drafts.

Just find it staggering that people are now using phantom drafts as a means to judging draft picks before they've even finished their first season. Bizarre.

 

10 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

Yep, which is why he's writing for the AFL and not living off his lotto winnings. Was more just quoting a pretty respected footy writer given there was talk of phantom drafts.

Just find it staggering that people are now using phantom drafts as a means to judging draft picks before they've even finished their first season. Bizarre.

 

I agree and that was my point using Twomey as an example. It’s ridiculous using phantom drafts to justify your opinion. 

I think the couching staff is well aware after the preliminary final smashing that this group won’t take us all the way. 

I don’t think we are due for a full rebuild but we do need a little rebuild to get more depth with our playing group. 

21 minutes ago, Ethan Tremblay said:

Cal Twomey also had us taking Tom McKenzie with our first pick. He went to North as a Rookie. 

Anything after the first round is a lottery and guessing game by most outsiders. 

Insiders too at some clubs.

3 minutes ago, ILLDieADemon said:

I think the couching staff is well aware after the preliminary final smashing that this group won’t take us all the way. 

I don’t think we are due for a full rebuild but we do need a little rebuild to get more depth with our playing group. 

The group playing for most of this year is effectively the same group that got top 4 last year. Clearly there are other factors at play, like the horrible off season and harder draw, plus other teams chasing us not the other way round. Our core team is still extremely inexperienced both in age and games we just need more time.

Cats-supporting Uber driver last night:

”What’s the name of that guy who dropped the sitter in front of the goals?”

”Tom MacDonald”

”He’s hopeless. You should get rid of him”

”Yep”

we need a mini re-build to bolster the team, we almost have the Back line covered and gave up a lot to get it done, we need a fast outside mid that can pick out a team mate also another inside mid with a bit of size and last but not least a tall marking forward and another crumbing forward that knows where the big sticks are. No doubt losing a top forward in Hogan has really de-railed a critical component in our re-build.

11 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

I can think of three more important things than a list rebuild that we need to do going into 2020:

1. Change/tweak the gameplan - less playing on, fewer handpasses, more kick-mark, feeding into better connection between the midfielders and forwards
2. Fitness - full overhaul needed here. Too many players stuck in rehab too long, too many injuries, not enough two-way running, too many players failing to develop physically
3. Leadership - Viney/Jones need to be removed from captaincy and it needs to be given to Gawn. 

We need to make some list changes too of course, but we don't need the drastic changes that some on here suggest.

I don't agree that we stand to benefit by trading out someone like Brayshaw or Petracca. We'll get a top 5 pick and a second rounder in the 20-25 range. Do our homework, take those to the draft, and bring in two quality top-25 draft picks. 

Solid post. Nailing the 2 top 25 picks, along with a bargain basement pick up (Lewis Taylor) type would help enormously. However, most of our problems stem from the Chaos Ball game plan, we need to respect possession as opposed to counting possessions.

1 hour ago, praha said:

Well, yeah. If after 5 years into a rebuild you're not contending, you make a change. What are you suggesting? We do nothing, make no changes and just hope? Are you in charge of our gameplan by any chance?

Maybe not kick and scream like many of you are doing.

We need to make changes yes, start with the coaches. Get in some experience heads like Blake Caracella or Nigel Lappin. Both have coached at premiership clubs and would be a great sound board for Goodwin. 

Now look at these names and get some perspective for once, Brayshaw, Petracca, Harmes, Salem, Lever, Oliver, Weideman, Frost, Fritsch, Hore, Baker, Lockhart. All of these guys are still under 100 game mark. In fact none have hit even 90 games yet. What that shows is we are still a young and inexperienced side Viney is pur only on baller who hasiver 100 games experience. Next year the core group of our midfielders will hit that 100 game mark which is where we start to see the growth development and ripe time of where peaking period begins

We need to add more experience depth. Look at what the lions did in the off season. They went and grab two experienced players in Lachie Neale and Jarryd Lyons to add to there thin on ball unit and now its paying dividends. RiRichmond  it back in 2016 after a horror year when they added Prestia, Caddy and Nankervis. All 3 played a huge part in their  premiership win. Geelong did it in the off season by adding Rohan and Dahlhouse.

If we can add a Langdon, another Jarryd Lyons or Josh Caddy type player to go along with our top 5 pick to our list, get full preason out  of May, Lever, Viney, McDonald etc then me personally i can see significant improvement.

Our game plan needs fixing over the off summer. We are getting so much ball inside our forward 50 but simply not connecting with our forwards. That needs to be rectified plain and simple.

We also need Lever, May and Frost to play all 22 games together next year. If we have Lever and May fit and healthy then it goes a long way to being successful. 

Edited July 1, 20195 yr by dazzledavey36

 

16 hours ago, Redlegged said:

Water under the bridge. Lever is 22 or 23? Good percentage of first rounders are duds. Too much gold-digging around here.

 

16 hours ago, Redlegged said:

Writing Charlie off to ear,y. He's 19 for Christ's sake. Useful last year. Disappointing this year, yes - but he's not alone. Panic and abuse - unbecoming.

 

16 hours ago, Redlegged said:

Palpitations are bad for you. Calm down!

 

16 hours ago, Redlegged said:

You are executing Jones and Hibberd a bit early. H has had a a bad run with injuries - has a couple of years in him. Jones had been good in the past couple of  weeks, and may have found a useful new role. He is not finished - except as co-captain.

 

16 hours ago, Redlegged said:

Correct. And if Melbourne (egged on by the media and 'supporter' drama queens)  wets it pants into making another peremptory sacking, it will set it back another 5 years. And so it goes.

 

16 hours ago, Redlegged said:

A lot doom-mongering here. Wait and see what happens. It is not a 'fact' that the 'wheels have fallen off'. You can expect the media to relish sticking in the boots - doesn't help when the supporters do the same.

 

15 hours ago, Redlegged said:

Sorry - last reply went to the wrong thread.  Your 'heart surgery on the the child analogy" is misplaced. Talk about hyperbole!

 

15 hours ago, Redlegged said:

Correct. It would be totally destructive. Totally stupid. And totally unwarranted. 

Joined up a week ago.  Half your posts are in this thread and pot anyone non-positive comments.  Similar to your posts in other threads.

Are you the alter ego of one of our absent mfc apologists?

Edited July 1, 20195 yr by Lucifer's Hero

4 hours ago, praha said:

Well, yeah. If after 5 years into a rebuild you're not contending, you make a change. What are you suggesting? We do nothing, make no changes and just hope? Are you in charge of our gameplan by any chance?

So I presume you don't regard finishing 5th after the H&A season (which would have been top 4 but for two losses to Geelong decided by a kick just before and after the siren) and making it through to a prelim as "contending".

Not sure about a full rebuild, but I've been saying for the past two draft periods that we need to add more quality kids on to list. 

Hold on to high draft picks, and use them wisely to fill holes in the list. I get the May recruitment, but I always hated the Lever deal.

Draft picks in the first two rounds should only be used on genuine midfielders and key position players.

Turn over the NQRs on a regular basis, rather than giving them 5-6 years to show something.

Hit the state leagues hard to find guys who can come in and play roles straight away (eg Lockhart) for the last few spots on the list. A T.Kelly / Stewart type late blooming, A grader would be a bonus.

The coach needs a kick up the backside. If he doesn't have an experienced mentor outside the club, he needs to get one. 

A massive turnover of assistant coaches is required, and we certainly need a better alignment between the list managers and the recruiting staff.

9 minutes ago, poita said:

Not sure about a full rebuild, but I've been saying for the past two draft periods that we need to add more quality kids on to list. 

Hold on to high draft picks, and use them wisely to fill holes in the list. I get the May recruitment, but I always hated the Lever deal.

Draft picks in the first two rounds should only be used on genuine midfielders and key position players.

Turn over the NQRs on a regular basis, rather than giving them 5-6 years to show something.

Hit the state leagues hard to find guys who can come in and play roles straight away (eg Lockhart) for the last few spots on the list. A T.Kelly / Stewart type late blooming, A grader would be a bonus.

The coach needs a kick up the backside. If he doesn't have an experienced mentor outside the club, he needs to get one. 

A massive turnover of assistant coaches is required, and we certainly need a better alignment between the list managers and the recruiting staff.

Agree with you on this highlighted area 100% the 1st two round draft picks for Lever was in my opinion bizzare.. i would have easily been happy with 1, but the fact we gave up 2 was a mistake. 

Im excited that we'll have a top 5 pick this year because there are some seriously talented young players in the top 10 this year. Anderson, Ash, Kemp, Serong are names to keep an eye out for.

Experienced mentors of names I'd look at is,  Brad Scott, Alan Richardson (if he gets the chop) Mathew Knights, Michael Voss, Brett Ratten, Nigel Lappin, Blake Carecella.

4 hours ago, Garbo said:

The group playing for most of this year is effectively the same group that got top 4 last year. Clearly there are other factors at play, like the horrible off season and harder draw, plus other teams chasing us not the other way round. Our core team is still extremely inexperienced both in age and games we just need more time.

Agreed

3 hours ago, Scoop Junior said:

So I presume you don't regard finishing 5th after the H&A season (which would have been top 4 but for two losses to Geelong decided by a kick just before and after the siren) and making it through to a prelim as "contending".

I'm not referring to last year. My post was in response to davey saying that anyone crying for a rebuild would then want another rebuild if we don't content after 5 years. In response I said that, yeah, if you're not contending after 5 years, you need to rebuild. But good stuff for taking my post out of context.

But even in the context of our current situation, we are one game off the bottom almost two thirds through the season, three years into Goodwin's tenure, and in year six of the current rebuild. If our depth can't sustain injuries enough that we're staring down the barrel of finishing bottom 4, that would suggest a rebuild of sorts is needed, no? 

I'm actually surprised that even after round 23 2017, the game vs Hawthorn in round 4 2018, and last year's Prelim that alarm bells weren't ringing for a few of you. There is clearly a combination of coaching, list management, player management, and conditioning mishaps that find us in this current predicament. We have to be the only team in the league that takes half a decade to be half decent, because crashing down to the bottom third of the ladder again after only a few months and injuries.

Either we need to reassess the list or it's a coaching issue. Which one is it?

18 hours ago, olisik said:

Eyebrows were raised when Sparrow was picked so early in last years draft. Especially since we traded up for that specific pick, only to take a player who would’ve gone later anyway...

That's not true.

We traded up with the Saints for the Jordon pick, and given we had 2 picks in the 50's I was fine with swapping out a couple of picks in the 40's and trying to get up to the 30's to get a bit more quality.

The Sparrow pick came to us in the Hogan deal. I get the feeling we were hoping Sturt, Duursma or even Bobby Hill fell to that pick or that we could move up a few spots - the Gold Coast and Giants both did in deals that cost them plenty - but we didn't move up to take him. The Suns had him next on their board and moved up because they wanted to get a particular player - Jez McClennan - otherwise they'd have taken him in the 20's. He's a strong athletic kid with some positives and negatives, probably wait until he's played some more footy at AFL or VFL level to judge that decision.

11 hours ago, Lord Nev said:

Just find it staggering that people are now using phantom drafts as a means to judging draft picks before they've even finished their first season. Bizarre.

It's par for the course on Demonland, and particularly for people like olisik, who have very little positive to say but a tonne of negativity.

Draft pick hindsight analysis is wonderful but even if we did completely stuff the Sparrow pick up that's about 50th on the list of things that have gone wrong this year.

3 hours ago, praha said:

I'm not referring to last year. My post was in response to davey saying that anyone crying for a rebuild would then want another rebuild if we don't content after 5 years. In response I said that, yeah, if you're not contending after 5 years, you need to rebuild. But good stuff for taking my post out of context.

But even in the context of our current situation, we are one game off the bottom almost two thirds through the season, three years into Goodwin's tenure, and in year six of the current rebuild. If our depth can't sustain injuries enough that we're staring down the barrel of finishing bottom 4, that would suggest a rebuild of sorts is needed, no? 

I'm actually surprised that even after round 23 2017, the game vs Hawthorn in round 4 2018, and last year's Prelim that alarm bells weren't ringing for a few of you. There is clearly a combination of coaching, list management, player management, and conditioning mishaps that find us in this current predicament. We have to be the only team in the league that takes half a decade to be half decent, because crashing down to the bottom third of the ladder again after only a few months and injuries.

Either we need to reassess the list or it's a coaching issue. Which one is it?

Richmond 2016 anyone?

That was Hardwick's 7th season as coach. Three straight finals appearances without a win, then a bottom 6 finish with an 8-14 record.

Your final sentence is a classic Demonland analysis - it's not just one thing. It's both of the two you mentioned, and more.

On 6/30/2019 at 4:35 PM, picket fence said:

Well  a light in the black today was Steven May

LEADER...... I SAY AGAIN LEADER

LOVED the masterful way he took a developing Sam Frost to account for an errant punch and love his Generalship!

Jones can play next year. Viney same BUT

MAY is the no no nonsense leader we haven't had since Ronald Dale

Apologies Rob

If this club is fair dinkum then need to make this change!

MAY FOR CAPT!

 

Not sure I want as captain an experienced player who wasn't in suitable condition when he arrived for pre-season training. Hardly setting a good example.

 

On 6/30/2019 at 7:10 PM, DeeSpencer said:

We aren't getting more than a packet of chips for Oscar McDonald or Hunt so forget them. At best late 3rd round picks that they'd fetch probably aren't more valuable than keeping them or delisting them or whatever the plan is.

Trading Weids for what? To draft another young key forward who might take 4 years to become better than Weids. How does that help?

Trading Tommy Mc I can get around but who are we getting in? If we've got a 50 goal a year key forward we can swap Tom for then fine go for it. 

Trading Trac, to get in what? Cam Rayner who's just Trac but younger? Trac's played perfectly decent footy the last month or so. Unless you think he'll never buckle down and go to the next level you're pretty much giving up a good player on the hope of a better player. Trade out the one guy who has the ability to be a great half forward flanker only to draft a lesser half forward flanker?

Brayshaw is the one I agree with because his value is hopefully high and we can cover him.

 

Largely agree with this.  I think Brayshaw is the most expendable because he is one of the few players we can move on without "robbing Peter to pay Paul". He is our 3rd inside mid, and despite being good at this role is actively contributing to our major weakness: disposal by foot and decision making.  We really need some disposal class through the midfield. I'd only trade him if we had a player lined up who filled this need though. 

 

Edited July 1, 20195 yr by deanox

8 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

It's par for the course on Demonland, and particularly for people like olisik, who have very little positive to say but a tonne of negativity.

Draft pick hindsight analysis is wonderful but even if we did completely stuff the Sparrow pick up that's about 50th on the list of things that have gone wrong this year.

Richmond 2016 anyone?

That was Hardwick's 7th season as coach. Three straight finals appearances without a win, then a bottom 6 finish with an 8-14 record.

Your final sentence is a classic Demonland analysis - it's not just one thing. It's both of the two you mentioned, and more.

You mention Richmond as a counter whilst also mentioning three straight finals appearances. Wins are irrelevant. They played finals. And they also had a fairly major list turnover at season's end. So you agree a rebuild is necessary?

6 hours ago, deanox said:

Largely agree with this.  I think Brayshaw is the most expendable because he is one of the few players we can move on without "robbing Peter to pay Paul". He is our 3rd inside mid, and despite being good at this role is actively contributing to our major weakness: disposal by foot and decision making.  We really need some disposal class through the midfield. I'd only trade him if we had a player lined up who filled this need though. 

 

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