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Recruiting - where did it all go wrong

Featured Replies

10 hours ago, ElDiablo14 said:

We should have by now done something to bring someone like Fogarty or Walker at the bear minimum.

Bbc One Bear GIF by BBC

Bear minimum?

 
6 hours ago, Mel Bourne said:

Indeed it is on the board. And the board’s historic failures have been playing out on the field for over a decade now.

ABSOLUTELY CORRECT MEL and it continues to continue

56 minutes ago, Kent said:

Bbc One Bear GIF by BBC

Bear minimum?

Close enough, forgot to edit myself. 🤣

 
14 hours ago, Superunknown said:

Bloody oath it would

100%... it's so far out of town.

That we have made something of it is ok but Caulfield can't come soon enough... IF it does ever come that is.

We need Caulfield, we obviously aren't very attractive compared to other clubs to the talent out there, we got to fix that!


4 hours ago, ElDiablo14 said:

Yep, the salary cap is a cop out. Just look at the Collingwoods and Carltons of the world.

I think we will have to go and buy a few farms in Caulfield.

For me, one of our problems are we keep Woey, Laurie, Fullarton, Sestan, K.kbrown and Verrall(project player) on our list with no intention to play them when we could delist and hopefully find a gem or two in the draft.

Recruiting players like Billings and Schache made no sense when they couldn’t get a gig at their former club. Rather take a pick to the draft.

10 hours ago, Mel Bourne said:

Indeed it is on the board. And the board’s historic failures have been playing out on the field for over a decade now.

Especially that massive failure in 2021

 
4 hours ago, Kent said:

Bbc One Bear GIF by BBC

Bear minimum?

Well you wouldnt a bear maximum would you?

15 hours ago, ElDiablo14 said:

We should have by now done something to bring someone like Fogarty or Walker at the bear minimum.

But why are these type of players saying NO everytime? Surely it should be appealing to play KPF for a potential premiership side.

tex didn't want to leave adelaide (the city) and lynch felt he 'owed' the tigers to stay given the way he joined a premiership side and all their other premiership players were walking out


On 06/04/2025 at 12:38, goodwindees said:

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.

Hmm, in 2023 to upgrade our Tholstrup pick from 14 (pre-acad etc) to 11, we gave up two picks, 27 and 35.

From the entire draft pool still available from those picks, there's only a handful of players to have played ten games so far.

Shaun Mannagh pick 36, Joel Freijah 45, Hugo Garcia 50, Harvey Thomas 59, Lawson Humpries at 63, and the one that might sting a bit is Calsher Dear at pick 56.

It is kind of funny that Darcy Wilson, who we had an interest in, ended up sliding all the way to the pick we originally held. But in the same draft I wonder would we want to wager Wilson when we wrapped Windsor as winger alweady? Wreaks of weckless wecwuiting.

Still, it does look like that draft dramatically dropped away in quality from as early as pick 15, which has been a pattern for a few years now. Even when you discount the fact that only 60ish picks are being used compared to 70-80 each year just a decade ago, the mid to late draft value has been iffy.

Long story short - I don't think we missed out on any lurking Chad Warner.

1 hour ago, Demongirl35 said:

For me, one of our problems are we keep Woey, Laurie, Fullarton, Sestan, K.kbrown and Verrall(project player) on our list with no intention to play them when we could delist and hopefully find a gem or two in the draft.

Recruiting players like Billings and Schache made no sense when they couldn’t get a gig at their former club. Rather take a pick to the draft.

Buying a 2nd hand cheap car usually ends up going nowhere….

33 minutes ago, Little Goffy said:

Hmm, in 2023 to upgrade our Tholstrup pick from 14 (pre-acad etc) to 11, we gave up two picks, 27 and 35.

From the entire draft pool still available from those picks, there's only a handful of players to have played ten games so far.

Shaun Mannagh pick 36, Joel Freijah 45, Hugo Garcia 50, Harvey Thomas 59, Lawson Humpries at 63, and the one that might sting a bit is Calsher Dear at pick 56.

It is kind of funny that Darcy Wilson, who we had an interest in, ended up sliding all the way to the pick we originally held. But in the same draft I wonder would we want to wager Wilson when we wrapped Windsor as winger alweady? Wreaks of weckless wecwuiting.

Still, it does look like that draft dramatically dropped away in quality from as early as pick 15, which has been a pattern for a few years now. Even when you discount the fact that only 60ish picks are being used compared to 70-80 each year just a decade ago, the mid to late draft value has been iffy.

Long story short - I don't think we missed out on any lurking Chad Warner.

So close, wodderwick

Enrolments at my alliteration course open soon

🤌🤜👀🤺

1 hour ago, Superunknown said:

So close, wodderwick

Enrolments at my alliteration course open soon

🤌🤜👀🤺

Excellent. Just one question, though;

At Australian Alliteration Academy, are all adequate applications accepted after arbitrary automated assessment?

4 hours ago, Redleg said:

I think we will have to go and buy a few farms in Caulfield.

Subdivisions inside the Caulfield paddock.


2 hours ago, Little Goffy said:

From the entire draft pool still available from those picks, there's only a handful of players to have played ten games so far.

Shaun Mannagh pick 36, Joel Freijah 45, Hugo Garcia 50, Harvey Thomas 59, Lawson Humpries at 63, and the one that might sting a bit is Calsher Dear at pick 56.

dear was a father-son pick and always going to dingley

On 07/04/2025 at 15:53, DeeSpencer said:

It’s very hard to improve players as a team goes backwards and from our players drafted 2020-2023 it’s not a long list.

McVee is a great player development story. Bowser is starting to turn the corner after some 2nd/3rd year blues and injuries. I’m still confident there’s a player in Disco, he’s not far from putting it together. And AMW had come a long way before injury.

Howes and Laurie appear to be rare JT misses. The problems in their game don’t seem to be fixable.

We’ll know more by the end of the year about Jeffo and Adams but they’ve both come from bog ordinary when they started at Casey to at a minimum good VFL players.

The only talented player who’s really flat lining in terms of development is JVR.

JVR Sparrow Spargo Rivers Turner Petty all stagnated, haven't improved much on their natural talent shown on debut.

Woewodin Howes and Laurie also but admittedly they just may not be up to it

On 10/04/2025 at 21:12, BoBo said:

Would it be any different if we had Caulfield? If a player is 50/50 on us and another Melbourne club, does Casey Fields turn some players off a bit?

I don’t know if it does or not, just curious.

Of course it would

Edited by Dr. Gonzo

11 hours ago, Young Angus said:

We need Caulfield, we obviously aren't very attractive compared to other clubs to the talent out there, we got to fix that!

What is our point of differentiation?

Play at the G? So does every big Melbourne club these days.

Big supporter base/crowds? Nope.

Facilities? Worst in the league.

Culture? Definitely not.

Governance? No.

Success? We had a chance to parlay the flag into creating a successful environment but couldn't due to the culture and governance issues.

We need to create a point of differentiation between us and the other clubs and focus on developing it. Some we can't (MCG/large crowds) but some we can (creating a strong successful culture with good governance).

Until then why would any potential recruit choose us over anither club?

7 hours ago, Little Goffy said:

Excellent. Just one question, though;

At Australian Alliteration Academy, are all adequate applications accepted after arbitrary automated assessment?

Absolutely


12 hours ago, Fritta and Turner said:

Especially that massive failure in 2021

The various formations of the MFC board over the last couple of decades can claim all but a handful of victories, most notably the appointments of Neale Daniher and Paul Roos. Our premiership in ‘21 was the flow-on effect of these appointments.

Our trajectory - and our satisfaction with one GF win, and the subsequent willingness to forgive all other failings - has been similar to the Western Bulldogs, whereas I’d rather it was something like Geelong’s.

It’s our lack of nous and vision in the boardroom that has kept us from fulfilling our real potential

Of course our recruiting has been poor. But we didn’t get to this place due to that - we put all our eggs in our champion player basket and they have fallen off a cliff.

9 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

What is our point of differentiation?

Play at the G? So does every big Melbourne club these days.

Big supporter base/crowds? Nope.

Facilities? Worst in the league.

Culture? Definitely not.

Governance? No.

Success? We had a chance to parlay the flag into creating a successful environment but couldn't due to the culture and governance issues.

We need to create a point of differentiation between us and the other clubs and focus on developing it. Some we can't (MCG/large crowds) but some we can (creating a strong successful culture with good governance).

Until then why would any potential recruit choose us over anither club?

Unfortunately this is 100% correct. We have no pulling power or stand for anything.

Until we get this right, we will continue to recruit VFL standard players such as Sharp, Campbell, Billings and Fullarton.

 
On 11/04/2025 at 13:33, Sir Why You Little said:

Buying a 2nd hand cheap car usually ends up going nowhere….

So you’d think we’d learn 🙃 haha

Edited by Demongirl35

I agree on those saying go to the draft rather than these mature duds. Obviously we were going for ready made role players as we thought we were still in the window, however pre-flag our success rate of late picks was perhaps a key reason we won on 21.

Edited by kurtneverdied


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