Axis of Bob

What if we draft Rich because he's the best player? We could have taken a risk and picked Kepler Bradley instead of Brock. Just because they're different doesn't necessarily mean that they're the best player. I'm waiting until the under 18 championships to get a better idea.

I get a feeling that we'll get pick one, but not Natanui. I just think that, at the moment, the hype is so big that people are overlooking what his effectiveness would be in relation to a gold plated midfielder. Look at the ruckmen of the past 10 years. Barnes/Alessio, Keating/Charman, Lade/Brogan, Ball/Jolly, Cox/Seaby, Ottens/King. If you look at them they are not leaping ruckmen aside from Barnes. They are all big, strong ruckmen who clear traffic in the contests rather than run wide around the ground. Is this all something that Johnson can't do? Look at a lot of the rucks and they generally come from far further down the draft order. There is so much development left in ruckmen that you have to guess, so you just don't know. The real top shelf midfielders are easy to spot and they are almost always picked very early. Look at the midfields of each of those teams and they are top shelf. I think that the midfielder is a) a sure bet and, b) comparitively more important in building a good side and, c) something we are missing more in our future side.

Actually that's Jamar with 7 Clearances and 11 contested possessions. He led our clearances with his excellent follow up work.

But we moved the ball the worst when the players regressed to the kick based plan of years gone by. Maybe the sting had gone out of the game late, but we could see what we're trying to do and it got us space inside 50.

Dunn - lazy and unaccountable? He kept Johnstone to 15 touches, which doesn't seem to be too lazy and unaccountable. Jamar has been underwhelming in his career to date, but he was excellent yesterday. Exceptional work around the stoppages. McLean has generally been good this year. Bailey seems to like playing players who have a really strong work rate. Bartram certainly does.

It was interesting that the period where we moved the ball the worst was when the players regressed to the old kick-based style of moving the ball in the second quarter when they lost confidence. We moved the ball best when we ran with the ball later in the game.

If you don't remember it then it is because you have a very short memory. The whole football media were criticizing Clarkson's handball crazy gameplan. They would handball so much that it became a common joke. They sucked int heir first year of it, but slowly got better at it and are now playing the style very well. But you are irrational so this won't make a lick of difference to you.

My comparison with Brennan is not fair, just as the comparison with Buddy isn't. Naitanui doesn't appear to have the issues that are associated with Buddy and Brennan, so the comparison is more likely to be between Buddy and Brennan without Naitanui. I suppose it comes back to the modern argument of athlete v footballer. Here we probably have the extreme of athleticism with Naitanui versus the outstanding footballer. It will certainly be rivetting watching the rest of the season unfold.

Look out everyone, it's round 6 and the first "I will not watch a game while X is coach" has come out! Join the queue of people who do the same and participate in their group self-gratification sessions - we don't care. Happy with the changes. Surprised that Bate isn't in, but we all know that it isn't because he's not good enough so it must be a different reason - not chasing, not fit, whatever. Garland has improved a heap since the start of last year and now looks excellent at Sandy. I think it's just a matter of time before he adjusts to AFL.

I personally think that a ruckman is not high on our list of priorities. But who cares what we need maore - it's pick 1 (potentially)!!! That's the time when you sit down, gather your thoughts and just say the name of the best player available to you. And everyone who is looking at Nat like he's Buddy, don't. They're very, very different players. Buddy is freakishly talented. Naitanui is a freakish athlete. But he doesn't play like a power forward. Look at his stats - very low number of marks. If he was a power forward then maybe this argument becomes slightly different, but he isn't. Also, with people saying we need to risk getting him to get a Buddy, how would you feel if we used pick 1 on Jared Brennan? The argument is the same. There's plenty of risk in picking him first. Maybe in a different year he may have been a cetain pick 1. But the prevailing whispers seem to be that this year Rich is the best in the land. But let's just wait until we can actually see them play in this year's national championships first before we label them. As for the thoughts on us needing 2-3 KPPs, my thought is that we need 1 power forward only. Our key defensive positions I think are quite well set for the future, but we need a focal tall forward. If pick 1 isn't a power forward then we just pick the best available.

How do you know? Have you seen him play? Have you seen Rich play?

If he could do all of that then I'd say that this other kid who rucks like Naitanui and plays like Goodes will go at pick 1 before Rich and Naitanui.

........but is he a better player than Rich? That's the point that I'm trying to make. If Naitanui is the better player then great. If he isn't then I'd be all over Rich like a rash. I get a sneaking suspicion that some people will be upset on draft day when we don't take Naitanui. Listen to those that live in WA. They're not the ones drooling over Naitanui. They're the ones drooling over Rich.

I, personally, would be more inclined to go for the midfielder in Rich. I don't think that ruckmen influence the game as much as midfielders. I think that that Rich would win you games of footy, while Naitanui is more fun to watch. But do we waste pick 1 on getting pretty hitouts, or on a dynamic goal kicking midfielder? Especially when our midfield is crying out for quality and Johnson looks like he could take over from White. I think that our main deficiencies going forward are midfield and a power forward. I don't think Naitanui helps us with either of them. From what little I've seen of these players it will be a tough decision to make as they are so different.

Melbourne Backs: J. Frawley, N.Carroll, D.Bell Half backs: P.Wheatley, J.Rivers, C.Bruce Centreline: B.Green, B.McLean, C.Bartram Half forwards: C. Morton, R.Robertson, C. Sylvia Forwards: A.Davey, B.Miller, A.Wonaeamirri Followers: J.White, J.McDonald, N.Jones Interchange from: M.Bate, S.Buckley, L.Dunn, C.Garland, M.Jamar, B.Moloney, M.Warnock Ins: Miller Garland Bate Buckley Out: Neitz Whelan

If the player we drafted with pick 5 was Darren Glass (as I am led to believe was probable) then would we have wasted all of those subsequent picks on key defenders? Maybe we would then have ignored Molan and picked up Dal Santo instead since we no longer needed that key defender. Suddenly we go into this year with an AA full back and a midfield led by Nick Dal Santo. Plus we may have picked up Jed Adcock with the pick we traded for Ben Holland. The fact is that none of us know what would have happened if we hadn't have had the draft penalties. All we know is that it definitely had an negative impact. To dismiss it altogether is foolish, as is blaming it as the sole cause for our troubles.

fatty, being tough doen't mean being smart. Chest beating is fine, but doesn't achieve anything - you just attact more monkeys.

What are the junior footy 'basics' that we are going against that West Coast doesn't? I think that it sounds like a commentator who played footy in an era where the gameplan was all long kicking and he is using that as his reference for 'natural instincts'. Natural instincts are different for everyone and I think that it's got a lot to do with coaching. The gameplan isn't natural yet, if they keep doing it then it will be.

Is the first instinct in junior footy to play in the same style as Brisbane, Sydney, Collingwood or Geelong? They all play with different game styles, so which one do kids first start playing? The point is that game style is coached into you. We are having problems because many of the players have been coached in a particular way for 10 years and now have a different style. The younger players will adapt to the style quickly, whereas there will be others with habits that are harder to break. As you keep playing your instinct because what you train to do. I dare say that the comment was made by a commentator who played the game in a time where handballing was frowned upon. Why does Bailey need to explain his plan? He only needs to explain that to the board. He'll do it if he wants to, but he has no need to do it.

Sylvia showed today that his power running could be a real advantage for us with this style. Similarly McLean's clean hands and vision in close show work really well going forward. We need the hard in and unders. But now we will focus of getting differernt types of footballs to complement our gameplan. Also, Hards, we have seen you argue that you don't believe this gameplan to be the way forward because it doesn't suit our current playing list. You believe that the gameplan should be "based around running half backs, kicking to lead up targets and quick ball movement to multiple tall key forwards." Looking at that I could equally make an argument that this gameplan doesn't suit our current players so we need to get a new plan. We don't have "multiple tall key forwards". Who are our multiple tall key forwards that we should be basing our gameplan around? The way I see it, our forward line will be more geared around pace and movement with mid-sized marking targets because these are the types of players we have. Bate, Dunn, Sylvia, Garland, Maric are the types that dominate. Robertson is around for another year after this perhaps. Newton is in trouble. Miller is the only of these players that can contest the long ball, but even he is a better hit up player. So, given our forward line's strengths (especially in the youngsters which is where we should be looking) we need to develop a plan that enables us to use our many mid-sized marking options. This may be by utilising their mobility to push up and down the ground which would involve linking up with players so that we can either hit up a forward on a lead inside 50 or run the ball through 50 and goal. I think that the biggest problem we are having at the moment is coming to terms with full ground accountability. I saw it get a lot better this week, although we let them get away with a burst in the second quarter. We forced them to chip around a lot in defence due to our improved accountability which was pleasing. The defensive running was much better this week (from most) which I liked. Nobody can say yet whether Bailey's appointment was right or wrong, as the season is 5 rounds in. I don't mind that you have a different opinion of his style as everybody does it differently and time will tell who's right. I personally like what he's trying to do with the club, as it shows that he is focussed solely on winning a premiership rather than just aiming at short term finals action.

So people are calling for youngsters to be brought in, but after 3 games they are condemning Garland as not good enough. I was at the Sandy game last week and Garland was very good. He's still very raw but he has some of the natural attributes that could make him an excellent player. People are too impatient and it's indicative of the 'magic pill' society we live in. Also, you can't compare the two teams' best players. One team got pumped by 15 goals so there was an obvious difference. For all we know McGlynn could have had 47 touches, but equally he may have been best because he put in a good team effort. Apples/oranges.

Ha, I saw that you'd posted in this thread H and was almost 100% sure that I knew what you had said!! :D I don't like Buddy, but he is freakishly talented. The difference now is that he can actually mark the ball.

Hawthorn rebuilt. Brisbane are topping up around their mature stars who are already there: Lappin, Brown, Power, Black, Bradshaw, Charman. Why else did they pick up Johnstone? It's not because they are looking beyond the next 3 years. We are 'building a team' around immature players who are under 23. How you could compare our position with Brisbane is beyond me. That's a more definite distinction that when I told people that I distinguished between quick and fast! Hawthorn rebuilt and brought in players that they thought could play the way Clarkson wanted them to. He traded out the players he didn't think could, such as Thompson, Hay, Lonie, Everitt and Rawlings. We've already started out with this by trading Johnstone. Who was the last experienced player that Brisbane traded by choice?

What makes you think that Bailey didn't originally think he was going to rebuild? Was it the part where he said that he'd build the team around the group of under 23s?

I don't care if the players think Bailey is Lucifer himself. The fact is that he's trying to create a hard nosed and unselfish culture at the club. Culture is very hard to change and, I would presume, that many of these selfish players don't like the home truths that Bailey has told them. They don't live in the 'good ole days' anymore. In the end if the players don't want to buy into the new culture then Bailey will simply find new players that will.