I know CAC reads this forum and is welcome to defend himself, however if we look purely at results lets determine how successful the Cameron/Daniher regime has been at bringing in players; drafted, rookied and traded.

I’m not 100% sure, but have they produced an All-Australian player? The only players I can think of that have made AA, is Neitz, Yze, Farmer and McDonald (??) and they were all leftovers from the Balme regime.

When you look at 2001, Geelong produced 3 AA’s in one year, in Bartel, S.Johnson and G.Ablett (F/S).

I’m not sure who makes the decision come draft time, but really our output to this date has been nothing short of deplorable.

Please someone out there, name a player from the Cameron/Daniher combo that has been recognised by anyone outside our own club (Rivers winning the Rising Star Award is the only thing I remember).

How much longer will we be talking up our ‘future stars’ that never arrive?

PS, Im not talking about players that are to young to be judged ie jones, bartram, petterd, frawley. But players who have played for say 4 years or more.

Well its not Craig Camerons fault

He has drafted qiality kids with star potential

Sadly, the Demons player development under Dainher, Fagan, Curran and Riley was the worst in the AFL. Thank Christ that regime is over and we can now build toward a flag

Craig Cameron will continue to weave his magic on draft day, and now with Dean Bailey in control we will see rewards

My prediction - Rivers, Davey, McLean, Bell, Jones, Bate and Sylvia all to make one or more AA teams within the next 3 seasons

Jeff White is one i can think of, but credit should go to the coach when a player makes AA.

Point taken youami, however, Jonathon Brown (who is one of the best players in the comp) was named AA for the first time this year. He was already considered a champion player years before he received AA.

Don't look too hard into the AA, as it ain't the most prestigious title a player or team can have.

A player is awarded AA, woop dee doo. I'm pretty sure they would much rather a Norm Smith Medal or a premiership medallion.

alright lets expand it to norm smith medal, premiership medal, coleman medal, brownlow medal (woewodin was balme's) anything of any significance. Jeff White yes an AA selection. Ill accept that.

agree AA selection is not the be all and end all, however good players whether it be one year or consistently make AA. J.Brown has not made AA for most part due to injuries rather than form, and has the guernsey now anyway.

1 out of say 50 players coming in, what kind of a record is that?

when looking at the daniher era it is important to look at how at performances.

we made the 3rd most final series in the afl in the last 10 years.

clearly our results indicate that Daniher and CAC have built a strong list that has consistently been strong enough to make finals.

however did they build a list good enough to win a premiership...one word. no!

is this CAC's fault for not picking us a superstar? maybe.

however it is important to note that we have had a number of players in the last 10 years who had the ability to become superstar top 10 players in the afl.

the fact that none of them have been able to consistently play at the top of their ability is NOT CAC's fault.

Bruce, Yze and T.Johnstone (maybe even Green) are all players who have played atleast 1 season to show that they have the ability to be in the top echelon of afl players.

Especially Johnstone on ability could have been a superstar. The fact that none of these players have been able to consistently display their ability season in, season out, in not the recruiters fault.

my honest opinion, is that the main thing that has been an obstacle to us moving up the level from 5th-6th to competing for a flag, is our lack of a player who has come on to become a top player in the afl.

CAC has done a good job at building a list that can compete strongly, make finals and even preliminary finals. sure, he has made mistake (Luke Molan pick 9 in superdraft, Nick Smith, Aaron Rogers...) but which recruiter doesnt make the odd mistake!?

the fact that our players with ability havnt turned into stars like we wouldv hoped is not CAC's fault. is it the coaching staff's fault? who knows...

but until our most talented players (new generation being Mclean, Sylvia, Rivers, Jones) can turn out consistently great performances, we will not be true flag contenders.

Mclean, Sylvia, Rivers and Jones all have the ability to be in the top 20 players in the afl. will they go down the path of Green, Jonno, Yze and Bruce and never fulfil their full abilities?

let's hope that Bailey can turn it all around.

Judd would help.

he is true champion, and players who have the ability to become stars could follow his lead.

I'm not sure if producing AA's is the definitive criterion for judging a recruiter. Everyone's been raving about Collingwood's great team effort in 2007 but despite that there were no AA's this year. Since he became our recruiting guru we've made the finals more times than any other club bar WCE and Essendon and that was coming off a low base in terms of player quality and depth. IMO I'd rather have team success than AA's and it's not the recruiter's fault if his time at the club has been dogged by salary cap penalties, internal board disruption and a massive injury list as we had this year.

That said, Junior Mac was drafted as a rookie by CAC. He also drafted the Rising Star in Jared Rivers and runner up Aaron Davey in the same year a few years back.

I wouldn't be so worried about individual efforts, more for getting the team to gel and play well and consistently. As they say a champion team is better than a team of champions. In 2000 we had a grand finalist team which would have been capable of the premiership had Essendon hadn't had an extra weeks rest from the old 8 system. Essendon had fresher legs and it showed as the game wore on

I agree a team is important but the team game can get you only so far, perhaps prelim finals (think Kangas and Pies this year). You need superstars, Geelong (a bit premature but good for point making), West Coast, Sydney (possible exception, but had/have goodes, hall, okeefe, oloughlin, kirk), Port Power, Brisbane, Essendon, Kangas. How many AA's were in each team?

Please spare me the jargon about making more finals than not. We could put another spin on that fact. We won 1 final in 5 years or 2 finals in 7 years. Our most successful years were 1998 and 2000, perhaps due to the Balme legacy, or the Gutnick approach. This is not a pro Balme thread though.

From 2001 onwards we have won 2 finals. We won as many finals as Carlton in 2004-05.

This is not supposed to be an attack, this is supposed to be supported by fact.

Let's also remember that Melbourne prefered Phil Read in the Pre-season draft to Aaron Davey. Davey would have gone to the Kangaroos had Shane Harvey (Brent's) brother not been available. He was overlooked in the National and pre-season draft. We got him almost through default.

If J.Mac was recruited by CAC well add him to the list, which now equals 2. However if he was elevated from the rookie list in 1997, it would have meant he had to be drafted in 1996. I wasnt aware that CAC was around back then, but I'm happy to be proven wrong.

All I want is for Melbourne to be successful, and in the 25 years that I've been kicking they havent, and the Daniher/Cameron group has been in charge for 10 of them.

CAC if you are reading this you are the best in the business

Everyone in the AFL world knows that

I know CAC reads this forum and is welcome to defend himself, however if we look purely at results lets determine how successful the Cameron/Daniher regime has been at bringing in players; drafted, rookied and traded.

I’m not 100% sure, but have they produced an All-Australian player? The only players I can think of that have made AA, is Neitz, Yze, Farmer and McDonald (??) and they were all leftovers from the Balme regime.

When you look at 2001, Geelong produced 3 AA’s in one year, in Bartel, S.Johnson and G.Ablett (F/S).

I’m not sure who makes the decision come draft time, but really our output to this date has been nothing short of deplorable.

Please someone out there, name a player from the Cameron/Daniher combo that has been recognised by anyone outside our own club (Rivers winning the Rising Star Award is the only thing I remember).

How much longer will we be talking up our ‘future stars’ that never arrive?

PS, Im not talking about players that are to young to be judged ie jones, bartram, petterd, frawley. But players who have played for say 4 years or more.

Hoestly , who gives a rats arse if we get a few players in the AA. Premierships is what matters! And if you want to lay blame for everything that went wrong this season and previous seasons, El Nino, global warming, petrol prices etc, or anything else ND and co did during their time, then blame them for getting us to a GF in 2000, Woewy's Brownlow, being stiff not to win GF in 98, Yze's rise when given opportunities, finals in 98,2000, 2002,2004, 2005, 2006. There's probably lots of other stuff i've forgotten. Who do you think gave guys like Bate, Dunn, Bartram, Petterd, Jones, Frawley etc thier first goes. Thats right, ND. I'm not the biggest ND fan. I think he lacked a second and third plan on game day and a few favorites who were not up to it, but when I see some of the posts you clowns have put up, it makes me want to spew.How long are you going to blame ND. Maybe if we had a better run with injuries this season, things would have been different. Just remember 12 months ago a lot of people were predicting we have a good year. Oh and by the way, when you decide to make wise comments, "I'm not sure", "I'm not 100% sure", "....the only thing I remember", leave your opinions without a leg to stand on.

I wouldn't be so worried about individual efforts, more for getting the team to gel and play well and consistently. As they say a champion team is better than a team of champions. In 2000 we had a grand finalist team which would have been capable of the premiership had Essendon hadn't had an extra weeks rest from the old 8 system. Essendon had fresher legs and it showed as the game wore on

In 2000 we actually also had a week's rest prior to the preliminary final as they were using the current finals system then. We were not close to winning the premiership that year as Essendon were a super team that were daylights a head of the rest

We should rename this site to "Dreamland" for the likes of redraft molan.

You must have been alive the last time we won a premiership, such is your defence of Daniher, the coach who didnt have a 'second or third plan'. Do you know that as fact? Or did you read that in a newspaper article and you quote it to sound as if you know something about football?

Your knowledge of our 'achievements' is astounding, if losing the first week of finals is an achievement then your acceptance of mediocrity is the reason why we finished 14th in 2007. If Shane Woewodin winning a brownlow medal is your lasting legacy at a football club then congrats. Daniher did get his charges to a GF in 2000, but why did we go backwards from there? Our team was young and stayed relatively the same for the following 7 years. What went/continues to go wrong?

Last time i checked this whole website is based on opinion, and it is my opinion that you need good players to win premierships. Im not saying that AA selection guarantees that you are a good player, however, players that consistently get picked qualify as superstars of the game. The fact is Daniher/Cameron have brought to our club one AA rep who made it once.

Right now Melbourne have no superstar players, and nor have they during any time in Daniher/Cameron's time. Whether it's their fault, I don't know, but if it's not can we have reasons, not Paul Gardner PR garbage that we are constantly fed.

To give a balanced view to this opinion, McLean may be a very good player, Sylvia too, Rivers is a very good player, Jones will be very good, Petterd looks very good, Bate and Newton are others but the difference between very good and superstar for all those players and more, is the difference between a premiership and a loss first week of finals. Perhaps we'll revisit this and thank Cameron and Daniher for their legacy but from results so far, I'll hold my tongue.

We all want a premiership so take it easy redraft molan, if reading demonland makes you physically ill, I apologise but dont take back a word of it, if only for healthy debate.

This is much like our low polling at brownlows. Simply none of our players are consistent enough to be recognised in either of these categories. Our team as a whole is too inconsistent to be taken seriously. Hopefully this changes with Bailey. Im sick of being the good ol demons that do jack [censored].

We should rename this site to "Dreamland" for the likes of redraft molan.

You must have been alive the last time we won a premiership, such is your defence of Daniher, the coach who didnt have a 'second or third plan'.

When you've followed the Dees since 1980, you tend to see a lot. One thing I don't need is a newspaper to tell me where ND's weakness's were or a forum to quite it. If you read a lot of the post's about ND, you'll come to the result that i'm not the Lone Ranger Einstein! Consider yourself lucky youv'e seen MFC reasonably successful (without a flag). Supporters of my vintage (38) have seen some dark, dark winters that make 2007 look pretty good. So forgive me for getting a warm fuzzy feeling when we make finals. The way I see it, a club is in one of two stages. One stage is a rebuilding phase( Brisbane, Richmond, Hawthorn etc), where a club realises it can't win a flag with the team it has. Or a holding phase (Sydney, Freo, St. Kilda), where they think they have a list that could challenge for a flag, and will top with players from other clubs. The problem with us is that we went from being a holding phase team to a rebuilding one in the space of probably 2 months, due to injuries/poor form whatever. Guys like Ward, Brown, Godfrey etc, who at their best were only good average players, were asked to be our best players (due to our injuris) And guess what, surpise, they werent. For good average players I think they had good years personally, and were harshly villified. But hey, I've only been watching the Dees for 27 years, what would I know? as you could/should tell by my name, I haven't been 100% happy with our recruiting, but I still think we have got some gems as well. As far as us not having an absolute A grader. I couldn't agree more with you. I just don't think blaming ND will help or matter. As Pagan once said "you dont look in the rear vision mirror as your driving forward".

And what happened to Pagan?

And what happened to Pagan?

Like redraft Molan, I too have been following the Demons since the days of Ditterich as coach. I agree with him that the Daniher years were hardly abject failures. In fact, in our attempts to woo Judd, I believe much has been made of the fact that we are the third most successful side (in terms of final appearances) in the past 10 years. Certainly, Daniher and Northey stand out as our best performed coaches in my time. However, and I have said this a number of times on this forum, I believe that CAC has done no more than a solid job with recruitment. Our best efforts have clearly been at the rookie draft (McDonald and Robertson both winning B&F coming off that list, Bassett was rookied by us before becoming an AA with Adelaide; Davey, Ward, Bishop, Walsh, Jolly, Jamar etc etc) I'd have to say that his best draft was 1999 (Green, Bruce, Whelan, Wheatley and also Godfrey in preseason) and that was after losing our first round pick (would have been pick 5) after salary cap breaches. Other than that I can see CAC has had a few draft shortcomings, mainly in KPP's. Despite this our list is hardly in horrible shape - I believe we have as much young potential as most sides and now that we have a few delistings and retirements, our list is beginning to look a little younger. Also, don't judge a list by the number of AA on it. There have been some shocking AA selections over the year - it is pretty much a wasted exercise which does nothing more than prop up a players ability to bargain at contract time.

In respect to S.Johnson, correct me if I am wrong but was he not offered up for trade with no takers last year?

If so, a fair argument can be made as to you can be the best spotter of talent in the world but unless you have a strong culture to push players to excel it's all trivial.

If we're going with player awards as symbols of recruiter ability, maybe we should look at the Rising Star award...

Petterd - 2007

Jones - 2006 & 2007 (was it second or third in 07?)

Bartram - 2006 (third place?)

Bate - 2006

Mclean - 2005

Sylvia - 2005

Davey - 2004 (runner-up)

Rivers - 2004 (WINNER)

Green -2000

Bruce - 2000

Whelan - 2000

Based on this list, you'd have to say there was a serious slump from 2001 to 2003, but the form has been good since the sensational double of Rivers/Davey winner/runner-up in 2004.

Meanwhile, how many of these players had poor years in 2007? Half of them were missing through injury for almost the whole year.

And what happened to Pagan?

Yes, thats right he was sacked! But he did say that later. He was only a dual premiership coach though.

Ill start off by saying that Cameron is a very good recruiter. Saying this there have been a number of dissopoining outcomes. Molan, Smith come to mind and we havnt made the best players out of the higher picks above picks 60 like some other clubs have. From my point of view, melbourne are a long long way away from being a great team. We have a number of promicing players like Dunn, Bate, McLean, Jones, Bartram, Pettard, Frawley, Rivers, Bell and Newton. However we have also got to look at Sylvia and Moloney who have both never reached what they were regarded as. It still strikes me as to how Moloney can be a great player at Geelong and then come to melbourne and injure himself so badly.

We do have a number of young players who show signs of being sensational players but at the same time if you look at Port, they spend 1 or 2 years on the bottom 4 and now have a team with a nunber of classy young players. The 2001 draft killed us. Where the draft was one of the best in the last decade, players like Hodge, Bartel, Judd, Ball, Dal Santo etc and we got Molan, Armstrong, Rogers, Miller. Its fair to say that draft pritty much killed us. Even Brian Harris who is a better FB than Carroll went for pick 71. David Johnson went for pick 81.

1999

Pre Season Draft

9. Simmonds

Draft

19. Green

20. Wheatley

42. Michael J. Clark

50. Wheelan

63. Shannon O'Brien

64. Bruce

Rookie

Luke Williams

2000

Pre Season Draft

3. James Cook

11. Steven Pitt

14. Simon Godfrey

Draft

16. Scott Thompson

62. Daniel Breese

73. Ross Funcke

80. Mitchell Craig

Rookies

Broadbridge

2001

Pre Season Draft

10. Nick Gill

Draft

9. Luke Molan

25. Steven Armstrong

26. Aaron Rogers

55. Brad Miller

Lost

Simmonds for Daniel Bandy and crage Ellis

2002

Draft

14. Daniel Bell

15. Nick Smith

26. Rivers

39. Gary Moorcroft

54. Cameron Hunter

66. Ryan Ferguson

Got

Chris Heffernan for pick 10

Lost

Shane Woewodin for pick 14

Rookies

Jamar

2003

3. Sylvia

5. McLean

36. Chris A. Johnson

Got

Holland and lost pick 20

Rookies

Carroll

2004

Pre Season Draft

Phillip Read

Draft

13. Bate

15. Dunn

43. Michael Newton

Lost

Scott Thompson for Moloney

Jolly for Dunn

Got

Jamie Baker for pick 45 (Justin Sherman)

Rookie

Davey

2005

Draft

12. Jones

53. Buckley

60. Bartram

68. Heath Neville

Got

Pickett for picks 28, 44 (Matt Riggio, Alipate Carlile)

2006

Draft

12. Frawley

30. Pettard

46. Garland

62. Weetra

Its pritty frightning how many players have not turned into some names that we would have expected. Thoes are the players in red. We would be a much better team with these names playing well dont forget and its why clubs like Port have really done well making the most of every pick. I have no doubt that CAC is a good recruiter but too many bad decisions have been made about trades and players not developing.

You cannot seriously expect every player taken 50+ and in the preseason draft to become a player.

They are taken so late for a reason, because they are a risk.

Once again you prove your stupidity.

You cannot seriously expect every player taken 50+ and in the preseason draft to become a player.

They are taken so late for a reason, because they are a risk.

Once again you prove your stupidity.

Yes i know that but there are some clubs that have made good players out of 50+.

How do you explain these

42. Michael J. Clark

9. Luke Molan

25. Steven Armstrong

26. Aaron Rogers

15. Nick Smith

39. Gary Moorcroft

54. Cameron Hunter

36. Chris A. Johnson

There are what...8 names there that were taken at reasonable picks and are now either mediocraty on the team or playing for regional clubs

Yes i know that but there are some clubs that have made good players out of 50+.

How do you explain these

42. Michael J. Clark

9. Luke Molan

25. Steven Armstrong

26. Aaron Rogers

15. Nick Smith

39. Gary Moorcroft

54. Cameron Hunter

36. Chris A. Johnson

There are what...8 names there that were taken at reasonable picks and are now either mediocraty on the team or playing for regional clubs

The only really bad one is Gary Moorcroft

The rest were all kids from the under 18 comp and nobody knew what they were to become and what path their careers would take

The only really bad one is Gary Moorcroft

The rest were all kids from the under 18 comp and nobody knew what they were to become and what path their careers would take

well i guess im the only one who fully realises what thoes 8 players cost us. Basically we didnt compete in 2 of the last 8 draft seasons and that is a lot of players