stevethemanjordan

My 'obsession' with Garland isn't any different to Ron's except that we have differing views about his value to the side. He posts about it just as much as me and yet I don't hear you calling it an 'unhealthy obsession'... I know why that's so. It's simply the emotional attachment one holds to a player who has played many years at the club that we're in love with. My obsession is with desperately wanting us to continuously transform as a club and as list until there comes a time where we stop having periods of play and games where we play the most embarrassing bad football the AFL world is witnessed to. I want to know why Ron thinks Garland is such an important signing? I want to know because he said the same thing about Frawley and it makes me think that he and the others who 'like' those statements have no idea that changes like these are just as important as recruiting well or trading well. It's not so much about the pick we'll be receiving for Garland. You all seem to bang on about it. It's more to do with the fact that we have too many one-dimensional footballers all over our list but especially in the backline with a consistent theme being 'not skilled enough'. Just take an objective stance for a minute and look at what we need to continue to improve and you will all realise this individualised player shmoosing just doesn't make sense. Not when we are a club who is still so short of real leaders, skilled and smart footballers and smart decision makers. Don't be afraid of change. You might lose something good but you may gain something better. All of the players we have moved on or who have left since Roos has been in charge we have without a doubt benefited from. Look at what Vince, Cross and Garlett have done in the short time they've been here and compare that with what Garland has achieved? Feel the mother [censored] change ya'll. It's coming.

You and many others said the exact same thing about Frawley. Look how that turned out? I cannot for the life of me understand this way of thinking. What makes him a quality player in your eyes? What is his value to our side presently?

You know nothing John Snow.

I think we should be looking at our list needs. Aish is not that player. He is almost identical to Toumpas in style of play, height and weight.

You're calling it because it was speculated on the news? Or you know something we don't?

I'm always happy to defend my view so I'll move past what 'annoys' you about my posting and get to the point. Pleasant opening line though, thanks. You and others who consistently 'defend' Garland seem to almost entirely miss the much broader and more relevant picture. The rebuilding and reshaping of our list. I'll repeat that. The rebuilding and the reshaping of our list. Is there a complete lack of awareness of how [censored] putrid our club has been over this period of time? It sure feels like it when talking about things like this. You all write the same response. 'It's hardly Garland's fault', 'He plays his role', 'Who do we have to fill his role'. etc etc. The same [censored]. When you are faced with reshaping one of the worst lists seen in AFL football, some difficult decisions are going to need pondering. Read some of these stats from only last year: * Lowest average score since 1920 * 20 straight losses at Etihad * 15 straight losses at Subiaco * Second worst total score ever in a 22 game season There are plenty more. I'll also mention our consistent drop-offs in effort and skill during games. Brisbane game last year at etihad. The last half against GWS at the G when they had blokes dropping like flies from injuries. This year against GWS after half time. Our non effort until the last quarter of last weeks game. These are a few examples of SO MANY. How about other stats like goals scored to opposition teams from our turnovers this year? Inside 50 deferential averages. The lists are endless and these astonishing records that we've tallied up point directly to the deeply rooted problems that have surrounded our club and list for so long now. We've had a leadership void. We've had a shocking recruiting strike rate with high picks meaning many less talented players have been playing many more games at AFL level than they should have. We've had terrible trade ins and FA bring ins through the Neeld days. We still have so much work to do with the list. That can't be stressed enough. With all that in mind I'll now talk about Garland and my view is as follows. He is unique in that he's yet to sign a contract and he is a restricted FA meaning there is some value there for us. We wouldn't talking about the guy if I wasn't out of contract and wasn't a FA. He has been with us since 07 and he offers no inspired change on the field which is one of the things we so desperately need and can get through moving someone like him on if there is potential for a player upgrade. He is part of a back six who have some of the most questionable footskills and decision making skills in the AFL and as a backline we are desperate for attacking run and footskills. He plays a role and position that can be easily covered and we've seen that in the games that he hasn't played this year. Garland is not 'the' problem. But he is part of the 'problem'. Tough decisions need to be made with guys like him who are coming out of contract and who are not inspiring change at the club. The very thing we need most.

Nice to hear there are some supporters who see it too.

DE? You're not really looking at that are you? It is sooooooo misleading. I'm using him as one of many in our backline who do not use the ball well enough.. They don't make smart decisions and they don't kick well. You can't have a backline with most of the players sharing the same weakness.

Whilst I don't wish to 'pick' on him, can some of you watch Garland today and tell me what he's adding to the side today? He's already fluffed kicks. One of which was to a player less than 15 metres away on his own. Do people see how one-dimensional our backline is? Garland has value through FA. We need a different skill set in our side and in our backline. Watch Garland for the rest of the day and you'll see what I mean. He is insignificant. Irrelevant.

And I'd agree with you. But we wouldn't be 'disposing' him. And that's the point. We'd receive compo which could set us up to get someone decent through a trade. That's the whole point of this. He still has value.

I saw it also. In any workplace, the relationships you hold have to be strong while you're there. I don't think a 'hug' after a win is any indication that Garland is a required player... But that's just me.

Jamar and Garland along with Dunn, Frawley, Sylvia are and were a core group of underperforming, inconsistent players who were and have been with us since the pre-Bailey era. Howe came along not long afterwards. All of them, (for various reasons) have at times during their career shown a lack of care and commitment to be fiercely competitive at all times. They also share these following traits: * Lack of skill level and decision making. Sometimes to the point of making comical extremely comical errors. * Have never improved their individual games over the course of their careers in a consistent way like Nathan Jones. Form has always been up and down. * An extremely low level of leadership qualities present in their game and in the way that they play. When you have a group of older/experienced players such as these guys who share those sort of traits, it doesn't bode particularly well for your club, the list, the younger generation of players etc etc. There is a reason Frawley and Sylvia are gone. And no I do not believe that Roos would have preferred to keep them regardless of what he said to the media during that time. Jamar and Garland are another two that will be gone for the same reasons and Howe has seemed to follow trend with this lot and we can still net something really good for him. Someone please tell me what Garland adds to our club in it's present state? What?!

No. Why jump to a silly ultimatum when it's easy to see what the post is referring too? We are talking about blokes who have been here since the Bailey days and some from before. The blokes who are insignificant players at our club but who should really be the leaders. Nathan Jones isn't in that bracket and neither is Viney both for different reasons. Why is it so hard to understand?

In your view. Whilst I agree that this year he has been more consistent in his effort, I've seen enough to know that: A) We've won plenty without him as we have coverage for his position and over the past few of years I have never thought 'Gee, we missed Garland today'. B) Our backline needs to be more dynamic. We have far too many players who cannot kick. Garland is another. C) Our recruiting and trading over the past couple of years has been exceptional. To think he'd be a loss simply doesn't make sense when looking at the wins our club has had via trading/drafting. D) Even if we somehow managed to lose out on the trade/draft pick, there has been nothing to suggest that his position can't be filled and played just as well. As that has already occurred this year. Seriously. Did you just appear out of a cave? Have the last two drafts, recruiting and development done absolutely nothing to quash that view? Have you been following the club since the Bailey days?

I'm of the belief that both Garland and Howe will be shown the door by the club at the end of the year and I reckon Roos is comfortable knowing that it'll give us the ammunition we need to further compliment and improve our list. To continue to bring in blokes with a fresh state of mind and willingness to compete at all times. Whether it be specialised positions we'll be targeting or mids to complement our one-paced midfield or both. Our own supporters are scared of what the unknown looks like. Posters were scared and underwhelmed when we grabbed Bernie Vince, arguably our best mid (along with Jones). Posters were scared when we got Garlett for nothing on the back of a poor season at a club he was uninspired to play for and look at the impact he has not only on the scoreboard but in general play. I implore you to look at some of the vision of opposition players kicking out and how something as simple as kamikaze style running at that opposition player, (providing they play on) usually results in a miss-kick and a restart for us. We've been missing those kind of pressure acts from most players on our list for the best part of a decade. Do I even need to bring up Vandenberg again and the impact he has had in his first year as a bloke who had a shoulder op and did half a pre-season before he played. I can't fathom the idea that some supporters of ours want to keep underperforming players in the hope that they'll come good. Or because they've been with the club for so long that there's a sense of 'sorry' felt for them. [censored] me. First year players have shown both of these blokes up! Not only that. If you're looking at the needs of our list, it doesn't even make sense to want to keep someone like Garland! A player who's strengths we already have covered and who's weakness/weaknesses we already have enough of. Imagine if we'd kept Frawley like so many here were hoping we would!? It's astonishing. We need to continue to turn over underperforming experienced players who are NQR's. Roos knows it, the rest of the club knows it. We don't have the champion leader veterans of yesteryear like a club like St Kilda or even the Doggies have. We had to bring one of them in! Cross! When will people wake up to the fact that keeping as many 'experienced best 22 atm players who have been on our list for 6-7 + years' is simply not an option for the MFC!?! I will happily eat humble pie if we keep Garland and or Howe. But I honestly cannot see it happening for the sake of rebuilding and rebranding our entire list from top to bottom. Garland Howe Jamar. They'll all be gone by the end of the year. Save this post.

Garland and Howe need to go if we're going to continue to make inroads as a club. Take the picks and continue to trade well. Consistent, dynamic, hungry and skilled players across the list. All of whom need to play at the same level of intensity every game.

Your patience must be through the roof for a player like Watts then... Yarran has proven his ability and performed dominantly a number of times at the top level displaying elite level skills, pace and intensity. Like Garlett last year, he's form is suffering from possibly a number of reasons. Yarran possesses so much of what our list lacks. Speed and elite kicking. I think you're being short-sighted with this one.

He's been dropped to the reserves in order to work on some deficiencies a handful of times. Like many young players.Saying he hasn't been getting games is just a silly thing to say. As for Yarran. He's proven that when he plays at his potential, he's an extremely damaging and great player.

He's been deadly accurate. Whilst this isn't a knock on him, the only thing I can say I've seen that he doesn't possess is distance in his set shot kicking. He doesn't seem to have a huge amount of penetration from 45 + when kicking for goal. As for everything else. He's almost perfect.

Love the entrance

I think for us, players like the ones highlighted are part of the problem. It's the 'scarred mentality' thing. We need players who's game and psychology has not been subject to this MFC conditioning, (for lack of a better term). I'm with you in that we need to improve the depth end of our list just as we need to improve our midfield. There are many areas. And there are several identifiable reasons as to why we are stuck in the [censored]. And why we can concede record breaking opposition goals in halves of football. It's not simply just the 'midfield's' problem. Just as it isn't Garland, Grimes and Watts problem alone. But it's definitely those combined and then some. Moving on some of those more senior players is a non-negotiable and we'll see it happen, even if we're not going to 'get much' in return. If you hold the belief that our recruiting and football development teams are infinitely better than what we've had in seasons gone by then I wouldn't be worrying about what picks we'll be getting. Hogan, Viney, Brayshaw, Salem, Petracca, Toumpas, Frost, JKH, Kent. We need for these guys to remain hungry and competitive at all times and not have them follow in some of the footsteps of 'problem players' that we have. That can't be stressed enough.

Agree with this except for Toumpas. I'd keep him. He is showing the right signs now and once he becomes more and more comfortable in his 'skin' and how he identifies himself within the team, we'll see a really good player. His speed and power are starting to improve and his physicality has improved a lot which has come from greater confidence. He's slowly building and I'm happy with his progress. For those others you mention, I agree we need to be pretty ruthless again and think about list improvement all over the ground. We'll need to lose someone to gain for our team. Whether that's Garland, Howe or Watts I don't mind but it simply has to happen if we ever want to completely break the shackles.

No he's not 'the' problem. But he is most definitely an unfortunate result of one of the many problems we have with our list. One being that we've had so many top 20 draft picks fail over the past 5 + years. Had some of those guys come on like they should have, Matt Jones wouldn't be on our list. The plight of the MFC is complex and there are so many factors that have contributed to it. Our recruiting is simply one of many. I agree with posters who continue to back Roos and ask for patience. It's as if some people live in this fantasy world in which they believe players like Fitzpatrick, McKenzie and Bail will all make it if given enough time. The reality is we've had to hold on to average players over the past couple of seasons simply because we've had no other choice. We've had so many of them and there can only be so many delistings made at the end of each season. As well as being aware of when certain contracts finish etc. There are underperforming and mentally scarred senior players that still need to go just as there are players who are simply not good enough that will need to go. Next year will be the third year that Roos will have had to slowly but surely reshape our list in a mindful way. It's a waiting game. No club has had a list as bad as we've had for this amount of time. No club. It's not that amazing that we capitulate like we have been during games when there are still so many [censored] kickers running around.

When Vanders gets a full AFL pre-season of running in, he'll be a really really valuable mid for us. He reminds me of Dangerfield with his explosive attack on the ball and man. I reckon we'll be pleasantly surprised about how dynamic he'll be once his anaerobic capacity improves. A really good pickup for a rookie.

Few that have been on our list for 7 + years would be deemed 'crucial' players in my eyes, which is only one of many contributing factors as to why we've been so bad for so long. Garland is one of those guys like Frawley and like Grimes who is incredibly up and down. The difference between his best and worst is astonishing. Defensively, when on song, he can be an extremely valuable member of our back six. His offensive drive, intensity, kicking skills and decision making however have all been questionable over the entirety of his career. When he plays a great defensive game and plays with a visible intensity as he did on Sunday, he (like others in the same boat) lift our side enormously. It's again a question of consistency. It's a question of intensity and concentration. He's another senior bloke who seems as if he's been really affected by what he's endured for many years. Of course it's not all the clubs fault as someone like Jones has been able to overcome it. In my opinion, the need for decision making skills and foot skills coming out of our back line is a priority along with adding to the midfield so losing Garland on current form would not worry me in the slightest. Especially considering our success rate for players we've got into the club from losing long time MFC players. He is part of the Dunn, Frawley and Jamar crew era. None of them are club changing players. I think Dunn is the one to hold onto as part of the 'old crew'. Garland leaving will net is something good. Unless he decides to play the remainder of the season like he did on Sunday. (With minimal skill errors).