8 hours ago, Adam The God said:

If that happens, it's quite ironic that our current situation may look a little different if we'd just traded Clarry at the end of 2023 when he allegedly put his team mates offside.

Agree, moving him on last year would have been culture setting! If Longmire is up for coaching again that’s his dna

11 hours ago, Roost it far said:

We kept our draft picks for JVR, Jefferson, Windsor, Tholstrup, Langford and Lindsay. On top of this we paid our stars big money as any club would have done. You can’t do either of these things and recruit the big names you seem to think were available. You seem to conveniently forget this. Our recruiting has been good and our drafting has been for stop gaps.

Wrong way round. Our drafting is fine but after 2021 our trading horrible. Too many average players and VFL standard recruits and no stars.

9 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Hunter was very cheap for a reason….

Yes and sadly we fell for it.

People were ready to set the seats on fire when there was a suggestion of recruiting Taylor Walker last year. It didn't need to be him but it feels like any experienced, still-breathing key tall forward would help the rudderless fiasco we've got down there at the moment.

53 minutes ago, Demonsone said:

Agree, moving him on last year would have been culture setting! If Longmire is up for coaching again that’s his dna

Longmire is done. He'd be a good head of footy though.

5 minutes ago, Greg Schneider said:

We couldn’t even convince Karl Amon to play for us after winning a premiership 6 months earlier and sitting on top of the ladder in 2022, instead he opts for a team that finished 13th and was starting a re build.

And why is that?

7 hours ago, Young Blood said:

What was the reason? the off field stuff? For the money I thought he was solid enough as a player.

In his first season at the Dees in 2023 he played a full season on a wing. I thought it was a good move because he freed up Brayshaw to play in other positions of need including midfield where Gus really gave us a huge boost. Hunter ended up top 5 for the club in disposals and metres gained.

I definitely don't think Lachie was the perfect player but was complimentary enough to our stars in that first year before his body let him down and had to retire early.

God we've had rotten luck.

Lasted one year. And his skills were very sus, remember his hand balls to the ground?

10 hours ago, bing181 said:

Reasons.

Because we had arguably the best midfield in the league and he'd have to go to the back of the queue. Let's not forget that we even had Gus who had come third in the Brownlow as a midfielder but who couldn't get a run on-ball.

Amon knew that at Hawthorn he'd get regular first-team games as a mid.

We had one of the best midfielders for our game plan. The game started to change in the 22 and onwards. We became stuck in the belief that our midfield could do the same thing over and over, and now we are struggling. I don't know if losing Burgess was a bigger loss than we expected.

And it's just not on the midfield; the decision-making by players is slow, and the skills by hand and foot are at an under-15s standard. Now, I'm sure somewhere along the line we will play better football, but it might be better to burn the house down and start again, and that includes moving seasoned players out to get to where you want to be.

12 hours ago, chook fowler said:

It is really dispiriting to see ANB, Bedford, Jordan and Jackson all thriving in other Clubs. Makes me sick.

Wish we still had Jackson and Bedford. Both had qualities in bulk, such attributes are now very thin on the team listings ....and Jordon was progressing for us rather well but something stopped his impact - perhaps poor management of his potential role.

If you are a free agent Key Position Forward of any repute….. sadly the way we play the only reason you would chose to come to Melbourne is for overs on coin. We simply do not play football suitable for forwards.

2 hours ago, 58er said:

Wrong way round. Our drafting is fine but after 2021 our trading horrible. Too many average players and VFL standard recruits and no stars.

Didn't think I'd ever agree with you but I do. The trading has been putrid.

Consider we let go of Frost, Hunt, Bedford, Jordon, Harmes, Baker & brought in Dunstan, Schache, Hunter, McAdam, Grundy & Billings.

I think we need to go hard at some players with talent at other clubs who can’t get a go due to positional strength. We need them to come in and have the ability to impact straight away, I don’t want to languish back down the bottom again!

For example, Leek Aleer was pick 15 in 2021 but can’t get a go at the Giants. At 23 he’s about to enter a great age for key position players and has extraordinary athletic ability.

I’m sure there are plenty more out there we can target, but if we get White and Sinnema through the draft we are still rebuilding with youth while trying to stay relevant!

The Giants have a ridiculous amount of depth. We need to raid as much as we can.

Edited April 6Apr 6 by DistrACTION Jackson

22 minutes ago, DistrACTION Jackson said:

I think we need to go hard at some players with talent at other clubs who can’t get a go due to positional strength. We need them to come in and have the ability to impact straight away, I don’t want to languish back down the bottom again!

For example, Leek Aleer was pick 15 in 2021 but can’t get a go at the Giants. At 23 he’s about to enter a great age for key position players and has extraordinary athletic ability.

I’m sure there are plenty more out there we can target, but if we get White and Sinnema through the draft we are still rebuilding with youth while trying to stay relevant!

as an example, aleer is a target for about 5 different vic clubs and will command significant coin for a player who, thus far, hasn't got much afl experience under his belt

it will be interesting to see what his decision is if he still can't crack a very settled gw$ defence for the remainder of 2025

22 minutes ago, DistrACTION Jackson said:

I think we need to go hard at some players with talent at other clubs who can’t get a go due to positional strength. We need them to come in and have the ability to impact straight away, I don’t want to languish back down the bottom again!

For example, Leek Aleer was pick 15 in 2021 but can’t get a go at the Giants. At 23 he’s about to enter a great age for key position players and has extraordinary athletic ability.

I’m sure there are plenty more out there we can target, but if we get White and Sinnema through the draft we are still rebuilding with youth while trying to stay relevant!

I agree, but the irony is that it’s exactly these types of players that we have lost over the past few years

Hindsight is 20/20 but it’s an indictment on the coaching staff that they couldn’t find a way to play to the strengths of players like Jordan and Bedford who are now thriving at contending clubs

Yes they didn’t set the world on fire at the Dees but perhaps we didn’t provide them the right opportunities to do so and clearly we didn’t consider playing them in the roles they’re now playing at their respective clubs

Anyway, let’s go and get Aleer, he looks a gun!

chandler and bedford were competing for the same role; chandler has been preferred, and i still say he's the superior player

jordon and sparrow were competing for the same role; jordon has improved since going to sydney and is the superior player

you win some, you lose some...

2 hours ago, Supermercado said:

People were ready to set the seats on fire when there was a suggestion of recruiting Taylor Walker last year. It didn't need to be him but it feels like any experienced, still-breathing key tall forward would help the rudderless fiasco we've got down there at the moment.

Spot on. A Ben Brown like for like

16 minutes ago, whatwhat say what said:

chandler and bedford were competing for the same role; chandler has been preferred, and i still say he's the superior player

jordon and sparrow were competing for the same role; jordon has improved since going to sydney and is the superior player

you win some, you lose some...

Jordon hasn't improved at all since going to Sydney, he's simply getting a game where at Melbourne he wasn't (consistently)

Jordon is no superstar but has all the things Sparrow lacks like footy IQ and decision making. Goody prioritising Sparrow over Jordon was always a really bad sign for me and made it pretty clear Goodwin was a bad judge who valued power and size over being a good footballer

16 hours ago, spirit of norm smith said:

Schache

This was the start of the end.

We had just shown Weideman the door and we recruited a “bloke” even softer and physically weaker than one we off loaded.

I haven’t gone through all three pages of this, but I agree some of our moves post 2021 have been puzzling, at least from the outside with reference to apparent nil-interest in certain players.

Mabior Chol is an obvious one and I’m not suggesting that from a position of hindsight. Like many I thought at the time he could be a legitimate pick up for us. You could also put Levi Casboult into that category at the end of 2021, and Tim Membrey / Sam Day or Jack Darling fat more recently.

Matt Owies would’ve been a great fit for us noting our already known inability to score and absolute lack of depth as it stands with small - medium forwards who can actually perform.

I know there will absolutely be more examples here I’m missing, these are just some immediate ones that came to mind noting where we’ve struggled recently.

Personally, the Billings trade was a gamble and I’m not as annoyed with that trade as some, but then again the move of trading a second-rounder for McAdam was a puzzling amount to pay at the time given his known constant injury plagued career.

16 minutes ago, adonski said:

Goodwin was a bad judge who valued power and size over being a good footballer

Goodwin STILL IS a horrible judge of talent.

And I’m scared he has too many yes men in his camp now. Blind freddy could see Bedford had talent and speed & that Jordan was an accumulator but knew how to position himself defensively at stoppages (we lack any defensive mids now).

I’m drawing a long bow on this one, but Jayden Hunt would be handy up forward atm. In 2019/20 he at least lead up at the ball made a contest. Chaplin’s wouln’t even know how to spell the [censored] words “lead” & “present” .

You just watch Goody back in his favourites this year and we’ll watch players with any form of spark or natural talent languish at Casey because they don’t fit into his “system”.

1 minute ago, BLWNBA said:

I haven’t gone through all three pages of this, but I agree some of our moves post 2021 have been puzzling, at least from the outside with reference to apparent nil-interest in certain players.

Mabior Chol is an obvious one and I’m not suggesting that from a position of hindsight. Like many I thought at the time he could be a legitimate pick up for us. You could also put Levi Casboult into that category at the end of 2021, and Tim Membrey / Sam Day or Jack Darling fat more recently.

Matt Owies would’ve been a great fit for us noting our already known inability to score and absolute lack of depth as it stands with small - medium forwards who can actually perform.

I know there will absolutely be more examples here I’m missing, these are just some immediate ones that came to mind noting where we’ve struggled recently.

Personally, the Billings trade was a gamble and I’m not as annoyed with that trade as some, but then again the move of trading a second-rounder for McAdam was a puzzling amount to pay at the time given his known constant injury plagued career.

Assuming that we didn't try for these players (I know it didn't seem to come up in the media but that doesn't necessarily mean we didn't try), I suspect there are two big reasons we don't seem to go after these players.

The first is the salary cap - I assume we've had TPP issues with the coin we had to shell out in 2020-2023 on Trac, Oliver, Gawn, Pickett, May, Lever and Brayshaw.

The second is our draft attitude - we have consistently prioritised obtaining and using first round draft picks where possible. That attitude will hold us in good stead in the medium/long term, now that we have Langford, Lindsay, Windsor and McVee. But it means I suspect that we've reserved our draft capital for only the A-graders (e.g. Houston) or otherwise for the draft.

Which is why the 2nd rounder for McAdam stands out like a sore thumb.

Also, I was at Marvel last night and if we had taken Jack Darling this board would be losing its mind right now. It shows you how bad we are that he played well against us, because he's utterly finished at AFL level from what I saw last night.

14 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

Assuming that we didn't try for these players (I know it didn't seem to come up in the media but that doesn't necessarily mean we didn't try), I suspect there are two big reasons we don't seem to go after these players.

Well when Petracca almost burnt the club to the ground. I’m tipping most player managers said. Don’t even look at melbourne. They’re a dumpster fire internally.

So Christian’s made his bed and tbh, he can pull his hair out until he looks like Nathan Jones & hopefully by then he’ll play for his team mates not himself.

Melbourne's team against Geelong consisted of:

2021 Premiership players: Oliver, May, Pickett, Petracca, Bowey, Salem, McDonald, Fritsch, Viney, Langdon, Gawn, Sparrow, Rivers, Petty, Spargo (15)

Not in the premiership: Sharp, Melksham, Turner, Windsor, Henderson, van Rooyen, Chandler, Langford (7)

(It would have been nice to have Lindsay and AMW.)

Somehow, I don't think the problem on Friday night was Schache, Dunstan and MacAdam.

4 minutes ago, Doug Reemer said:

Well when Petracca almost burnt the club to the ground. I’m tipping most player managers said. Don’t even look at melbourne. They’re a dumpster fire internally.

So Christian’s made his bed and tbh, he can pull his hair out until he looks like Nathan Jones & hopefully by then he’ll play for his team mates not himself.

10 minutes ago, mauriesy said:

Somehow, I don't think the problem on Friday night was Schache, Dunstan and MacAdam.

I think you’re missing the point.

11 hours ago, Young Blood said:

What was the reason? the off field stuff? For the money I thought he was solid enough as a player.

In his first season at the Dees in 2023 he played a full season on a wing. I thought it was a good move because he freed up Brayshaw to play in other positions of need including midfield where Gus really gave us a huge boost. Hunter ended up top 5 for the club in disposals and metres gained.

I definitely don't think Lachie was the perfect player but was complimentary enough to our stars in that first year before his body let him down and had to retire early.

God we've had rotten luck.

The off field stuff…

Both he and Schache were a major problem

I’ve been concerned that the Club has not given themselves the chance to recruit some of those real gems that are very often found with Picks 25 and beyond through their regular strategy of paying very generously to get back earlier in the draft.

To those few on this site that possess the time and great analytical skills, I’d be fascinated to see a report on what the Club gave away to select these players.

For example, what players could Melbourne have selected that were available at each of the picks they gave away for Tholstrup.

Not the players that were selected with the corresponding picks, more importantly, who was available?

Only selected Tholstrup due to that selection now having had some time to look at it.

I think Kossie was another who was taken in this manner, apart from these two and Xavier Lindsay, are there any others?

I think this analysis might demonstrate why the list lacks depth, and is very unbalanced with nowhere near enough truly athletic players.

I suspect some will say that you can’t assume that our recruiters would have selected the best players available at all those picks, but I would prefer for JT to have those picks rather than filling those spots with a host of discarded players.