Is Taylor the best get we have ever had?

[Pates 9,541]

4 hours ago, Little Goffy said:

Hmm, I'm going to go through a process of looking at the picks systematically without actually having decided my opinion beforehand!  Wacky!  What I might do is take our early selections and consider how they compare to the 'next ten' in that draft, and then just add our later picks as a kind of bonus.  If I recall correctly, the first draft Taylor was responsible for at Melbourne was 2013.  Here goes - 

2013

Pick 9, Salem.  Of the next ten picks, 5 are already out of the AFL.  The others are Sheed, Cripps, Z Jones, Dunstan and Acres, so a pretty respectable group remaining after that 50/50 split.

The extras; we still have Hunt and Harmes.

2014

Pick 2 Petracca, Pick 3 Brayshaw.  You'd expect to do well at the very pointy end, but the next ten include three already out of the game, and a mix of the not so good, the unlucky, and a couple of other very good; Lachie Weller, Peter Wright, Nakia Cockatoo, Caleb Marchbank , Darvy Moore and Jordan De Goey,

The extras; Still with are Nibbler and Vanderberg.  Still playing football (for 40 glorious minutes!) is Oscar McDonald.

2015

Pick 3 Clayton Oliver, Pick 9 Sam Weideman. Well, Oliver's only realistic rival for best of this draft is Weitering, so that's a win. There's a lot of just pretty 'goodish' players in that first round, especially now at Essendon. In the hunt for a tall forward, other options were Carlton's pair McKay and Curnow, as well as Eric Hipwood and Harrison Himmelberg who were both academy selections.  All of them are still a bit on the wait and see side, even Hipwood who has had amazing games but isn't yet a consistent gun.  Beyond tall forwards, that second half of the first round was pretty strong and at this stage Weideman has delivered the least of the group except for the injury-cursed Doedee.

The extras; Only Joel Smith remains.

2016

No early selections.  Which may have been a good call in itself as very few of that first round are looking like true guns - with the caveat that we're well inside the too-soon-to-tell zone here.

The extra; only Mitch Hannan is still playing AFL, at the Bulldogs.

2017

Again, no early selections.  And, again, a draft that is pretty ordinary after the top 9 plus players now at West Coast.

The extras; Charlie Spargo, Bayley Fritsch, Harrison Petty and Oskar Baker.  Other than the top ten and West Coast (who not only nailed this draft but also went on to grab the draft's best player across from Geelong) 

As for the more recent drafts, we're getting too far into the only time will tell fogs. 2018 we took a bunch of later selections and for a variety of reasons the jury must remain in discussion.  2019 Jackson, Pickett and Rivers are still hugely subjective judgements as all have shown promise but also weakness.  Well, Rivers not so much any major weakness! 2020 of course there is no point trying to evaluate.

Pretty fair summary I reckon, I think he’s had hits high up and a few later picks that are fringe/depth. I don’t like the idea of heaping pressure onto young blokes saying they’re stars when they clearly have lots to work on. Pickett’s attack on the footy and keeping forward pressure was sensational vs Freo, LJ has flashes of brilliance but yet to put it into a full game. 

Oliver is definitely the jewel in his crown for us, a surprise by many “experts” but had been a gun from day 1. 

[ManDee 7,093]

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Edited March 22, 2021 by ManDee

[Demon17 4,690]

6 hours ago, 58er said:

Think it would have been $$$$ not pounds. Was in the 70's 

Correct. I said Dollars. But 30K was huge then.  1971, Round 12 was debut when the club got permission to play him.

[Macca 16,174]

16 minutes ago, Demon17 said:

Correct. I said Dollars. But 30K was huge then.  1971, Round 12 was debut when the club got permission to play him.

I remember the figure as being $38k for Tilbrook and $62k for Big Carl

But the actual details would be difficult to ascertain D17

The Wells transfer fee (midway through 1980) was rumoured to be in the region of $200k - did the club need the dosh to pay for the homecoming of RDB? 

Wellsy picked up 48 disposals in his last game for the Demons and in his first game for Carlton (2 weeks later) he picked up 31 disposals (against Melbourne) Ugh!

[Demon17 4,690]

6 hours ago, Macca said:

I remember the figure as being $38k for Tilbrook and $62k for Big Carl

But the actual details would be difficult to ascertain D17

The Wells transfer fee (midway through 1980) was rumoured to be in the region of $200k - did the club need the dosh to pay for the homecoming of RDB? 

Wellsy picked up 48 disposals in his last game for the Demons and in his first game for Carlton (2 weeks later) he picked up 31 disposals (against Melbourne) Ugh!

No you're spot on. $ 38000 was the correct figure. My mistake.

A 7 figure sum in todays money.  

[Macca 16,174]

1 hour ago, Demon17 said:

No you're spot on. $ 38000 was the correct figure. My mistake.

A 7 figure sum in todays money.  

Hindsight tells us that we would have better off spending 4 x $10k on 4 players from other clubs (Laurie Fowler types?)

Even $10k was a lot of money in the early 70's ... that sort of money would have just about bought you a house back then!

Diamond Jim wasn't really the problem though ... we were very much an amateur club in the midst of league entering the professional age.  For instance, teams like North Melbourne seemed to have never ending cash reserves (to bring in ready made talent)

And hearing that Jim Cardwell was still our chief recruiter in 1975 only reinforces to me how poor our zones were ... its hard to go from the best ever (arguably) to an also-ran without sound reasoning

[Tony Tea 2,792]

Cardwell had a massive advantage over Taylor. He could pretty much approach any player he liked and offer him a run at a successful club, and every second week on the MCG.

And if I could bother doing the research, I'd probably - okay, possibly - discover that lots of Melbourne players retired with plenty of petrol in the tank when the Collingwoods and Carltons and Richmonds got plenty more footy out of their stars. Did we try hard enough to keep our stars? Barassi, anyone? 

[Forest Demon 4,681]

He’s done pretty well with what we had, but jury is still out for me on the 2017 and 2018 selections. I’ve said it in other threads, but we need Spargo, Sparrow and Jordon to become solid role players, and signs were mostly promising on the weekend.

Oliver was a great selection, especially considering Parish was the safe bet at hat very selection. He came from nowhere and looked like a real gamble as a chubby country kid. Comfortably the best player from that draft.