titan_uranus

At first I thought it was funny. Then I thought it might be illegal. I wonder what the club thinks.

I find this kind of attitude a little stupid. I mean, I understand the sentiment: every team needs a bit of mongrel. But is Luke Ball a choirboy? No. Nor is Sam Mitchell. Nor are plenty of other premiership players who are perfectly nice, both on and off the field. You don't need 22 mongrels to win a flag, and you can perfectly well be successful with some nice, non-aggressive players. Love it.

I feel the exact same way. Absolutely stunned, but the results speak for themselves.

Hate diving. Thanks Lynden! Now I have one more reason to dislike you.

Of course you would. Mongrel solves everything. If delinquent was the wrong word, I think it was clear what I was referring to: the drinking, the thuggishness, and the being expelled from school. I was worried I was making all this up from a dream or something, but it's all here: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/jacks-not-every-clubs-darling-20101116-17vwe.html That kind of attitude was questioned by drafters. That's all I was saying. And my argument is not 'everyone else passed on him so our recruiters can't be held to account'. My argument is that it's rich to call our recruiters out for the Darling non-pick when it's not like he was taken straight away because he was so sought after and clearly a top player, he went a whole round later, whereby other clubs also chose not to take him. If he was as good and as clearly-cut a top player as some people say he was, then he wouldn't have slipped that far. KPFs don't grow on trees. You actually touch on an interesting topic in there - the age at which we draft our players. It's just assumed that we take 18 year olds and that's that, but as you note, other sports like NFL take their players a bit more mature. We've already seen over the last few years clubs getting all left-field and taking mature-aged recruits. Gives a bit of merit to the argument for raising the minimum age. It's never going to be done, of course, but it's interesting to think about nonetheless.

No thanks. Beating Fremantle means Carlton plays finals. I don't think a win is worth seeing that...

It's not really specific moments (there have been squibs, I just can't pinpoint their exact matches), but the overall perception Dunn gives is that he's 'tough', when he doesn't do anything tough in a football sense. He struts around and pretends to be an enforcer but when does he ever put his head over the ball and actually attack it? Actually, I just remembered him last year against North Melbourne, not going for the ball but choosing to go for the player (Pratt, maybe?) and copping a suspension because he took his head out instead. From memory, he chose to bump rather than actually go for the ball. Point is, I am flabbergasted at the amount of people who have commented on his aggression, which to me is pathetic and just a ruse. But the votes suggest I am in the minority on that one.

Oh man I'd forgotten that incident with Hunt! That was such a good win. I miss the times where we were decent.

This week has only increased the excitement, I reckon. With Collingwood and Adelaide both losing the top 4 changes a lot. West Coast-Collingwood and Sydney-Hawthorn this week are utterly enormous matches. West Coast playing for top 4, but if they lose, they could finish as low as 7th. Collingwood looked certain for top 4 all year but if they drop this they might be in danger (although West Coast has Hawthorn in the final round). Carlton-St Kilda looks likely to determine 8th, as between Carlton and Fremantle - Freo to lose to North but beat us means Carlton has to beat St Kilda and maintain percentage over Fremantle by smashing GC. Damn I hope St Kilda wins.

I like the intimation 45. But I think the real answer is they are just a hopeless side, like us. Dahlhaus aside, where is their exciting youth? Like us, who are their forwards? Only discernible difference is that I see a midfield there (Cross, Boyd, Griffen) whereas we don't have one. Which only serves to further indict them for being so bad. We should have beaten them this year, we were better for more of the game that day than they were.

I understand what you're saying. I've been looking forward to having a real discussion about this. I'm not sure it's really much chop to be saying 'well I thought we should have taken Talia, therefore there was authority to suggest we shouldn't have taken Cook', although I see your point. I think what's more important is that when we took Cook, we noted that he had talent in a tiny frame, and that he was a long term prospect for playing a KPF role, whereas Darling was possibly considered a ready-made KPF but who may have had less upside (not to mention the extraneous circumstances surrounding him). At that time, there weren't many MFC fans who would have gone against the long-term development idea, so Cook fitted into that mould at the time. Then, with hindsight, we can see that Darling has improved probably more than we thought he might, and Cook hasn't yet played a game. I still think there's a lot of hindsight involved with reviewing these decisions, and I still think that at the time we picked Cook, we had reason. This is also just one pick, and there really aren't any more which suggest that the recruiters have made mistakes. According to this, recruiters are really in a jamb. Either you pick the player the evidence suggests is the safe, sure fire pick, and you are 'unimaginative' or you try something else, which necessarily involves risk, and either you're a genius (which hasn't happened to us because we haven't been picking players well out of their range) or you're a fail because they didn't work. I also would ask you to consider the effect slotting Darling into West Coast's side has had, as opposed to coming into ours. West Coast played a preliminary final last year, largely on the back of others, not Darling. I think playing in a successful side makes it easier to look good than playing for a dud.

Well that's four, but OK.. The attitude is fake and only comes out when we're on top. He's actually quite soft and squibs contests. He's not 'strong' defensively; he's adequate. And he can go forward about as well as Stefan Martin. His long kick shouldn't be enough to keep him.

I can't deny I hate Dunn, so that's where that came from.

Part of the blame does lie with the recruiters. But not as much as most people, you included, think. I believe in the fair trial system, so no, I will not give up. More to the point, though, you just made all that crap up about West Coast telling clubs Darling was dangerous so he'd be left for them. That is straight out of a novel.

Evans doesn't count, he's a rookie. Green too, as a veteran. Agree re: Morton, Petterd, and Bennell, and I'll thrown in Bate too. They're all gone, surely. Disagree re: Bail, unsure on Spencer, as he seems to be offering something and ruckman are scarce, and I have no idea where Bartram's at with his rehab but I think I'd prefer a hobbled Bartram to a fit Dunn anyway. Anyway, point is, I don't think Dunn is in front of anyone except the three I mentioned, and even if he is, we need to clean the list out.

You see, this is where I have trouble. If this is his best, that's not worth it. Surely. I mean, he's been here for so long now, if what he's giving us now is his best, why keep him? There's no upside if this is his best, and if it's not, when will we ever see it? I know I sound like a broken record on this, so ignore me if you want, but I am honestly flabbergasted at the level of support for a player who, in all fairness, has gone nowhere in the last few years, and who just two years ago did the exact same thing he's doing now (played some reasonable games late in the year, sucked in the FD, got a new contract, and didn't improve beyond that, even regressing). And at the same time, people want to kick Rohan Bail out the door, despite him having had half the time Dunn's had to show his worth (not necessarily you, I'm just saying).

Bail and Sellar are better than Dunn. If we're basing things on the last three weeks, Sellar's efforts have been just as good as Dunn's, and he's been kicking goals in the forward line. Moreover, before he got injured he was playing a good role in defence and freeing up Garland and Rivers to go forward. I see no discernible difference between what Sellar offers and what Dunn offers, except that Sellar is a KPP whereas Dunn is a mid (works in Sellar's favour). Bail cops a lot on this site, but I think, just like what people say of Dunn, he works hard and plays his role. Apparently that's good enough when you've been on the list for 8 years instead of 4.

Unfortunately if that were the criterion we applied to new players, we'd be looking at bringing in almost every other player in the comp. I see your point though, and I agree. I think he could add something to the side, and maybe a fresh club is what he needs.

Good call. Clark, Watts and Jones to me are our three biggest shining lights of the year. Clark is an out-and-out star. People scoff when I say he was in AA form, but he was. The problem is that people who don't support MFC don't watch MFC games unless their club is beating playing us. If you'd watched his whole year, you'd see that he was ripping defenders to shreds with leading, contested marking and goal-kicking that should have had him in AA contention. We can finally structure a forward line around someone, and Clark is a perfect FF to lead us in coming years. Could not be happier with that move from Neeld. Jones has stepped up this year. It's still a bit sad that he's our best mid, which tells you why we lag behind other clubs, but personally he has lifted his game to another level. His contested ball work is great, his kicking is way better than it used to be, he tackles hard, and he's developed leadership qualities. Kicks goals, too. I'd like to see him eradicate the Superman stuff which pops up most weeks, but he's helping carry one of the worst midfields on his shoulders. I've never seen a single player cop as much ridiculously unwarranted crap as Watts. If he was anyone else, or had been picked anywhere else, he'd be far more highly rated. He's made so many positive steps this year, improving his contested work and marking, getting far more involved in matches, and settling in to a position he's more suited to than FF. With Clark in the forward line, we can afford to play Watts back, and that frees up players like Grimes to move up the ground. Watts is going to be a great player for us.

This is the biggest load of conspiracy theory hogwash to grace the planet since someone tried to blame 9/11 on George Bush. Look at your own signature. 'I believe in Neeld'. To do what? Coach, right? Coaching involves a lot of things. One of them is to take talent and nurture it, and get the best out of your players. Bailey failed royally at that, and that is the reason we are in the position we are in. If Jack Darling was as good as you say he was, and was not lacking in the problems you said he was, then someone would have taken him. He wasn't a stand out target at the time. Yes, now he's clearly better than Cook. But at the time, there were enough issues (which weren't perpetuated by West Coast, you fool, they were facts) to suggest he wasn't going to be worth our trouble. Right. So what would you like our recruiters to do this year? They can't time travel, so they have to do their best with the material presented to them. Right? Do you understand that? So based on that, my argument is that I want to see our recruiters do the best they can on the evidence available to them. What happens after is obviously in part due to their decisions, but if they make reasonable and informed decisions now, I want to see our coaches and development teams do their best job to get the best out of the players. That's not happening at Melbourne, and looking back at draft day and going 'well, we could have done this or that' isn't fair.

Really? Name them. I don't think there are as many as people think, if you compare them to Dunn.

Agree. It seems that people are saying we should keep him because there are worse. To me, that's not a reason for keeping him. I'm also interested to know who goes before him. Bate is one. Morton probably is another. But after that, I think Dunn is as good a candidate as any to go. Well of course a team has a bottom 6. The fact that Dunn is in the bottom 6 is surely reason to question him, given he's been on the list for so long. Your only reason for keeping him seems to be that every team has a bottom 6. That's such a bad argument that it's not funny. I'd rather our bottom 6 be players who are young and showing signs of improvement. Dunn hasn't improved in 4 years, at least.

Unsurprisingly, I agree with these critiques of his game. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this argument says 'all clubs have bad players. Dunn is a bad player. Therefore Dunn stays by virtue of all clubs having bad players'. I may have read you wrong, but if not, this is as dumb and ridiculous as any argument I've ever heard.

Not a hijack at all, the point is to see why people think we should/should not keep him. I see your argument as being logical and making sense. I disagree with the conclusion, of course, as I think we'll cull plenty and he should be in the top 3 or 4 to go anyway.

I do, yes. But I started this poll to see if I'm in the minority on this one. I'm possibly the leader of the 'I hate Dunn' group, and I'll wear that, but I thought there were more who thought like I did.