Matsuo Basho

How does not rating a player become delight in saying so? I’ve never understood this perception by posters such as yourself. Where do you pull that conclusion from? I can’t speak for others but I never feel that way when negatively critiquing a player. So why do you write it? Please explain.

Definitely one in the plus column.

Where’s the brashness, boldness and fun in that? Ken Hinkley will be coach of the year. Mark it down. They are going places Port.

Fired too early - no good. Fired too late - ‘Captain Hindsight’. How do I win DazzlerD?

Something incredibly admirable about the way Hinkley has handled Port this year. Ballsy and bold, moving on an enigmatic problem child (Wingard) and others then replacing them with precociously talented youngsters is proving a masterstroke, as has been his willingness to pick sides on merit regardless of reputation. Not bad from a coach heading into the year under the pump from sections of the footy media. Brave, creative and forward thinking. That’s what propels you towards success. Not by trying to perfectly replicate what others have done before you. Hats off to you Kenny. Let’s hope Goody and the crew have their own brave plan of attack heading into 2020. Winning a flag in this competition is going to require some risk taking and some serious strategic manoeuvring. Like a high stakes game of chess, one wrong move and it’s checkmate, King toppled, season in tatters ♟️?

If you’ve read my posts about Taylor’s recruiting you would know that my criticisms fall on his post-R1 recruiting. Most clubs have the top 10-20 very similarly configured heading into each draft. It’s picks 20 - 60 and rookie draft where the seriously keen eyed scouts earn their pay packets. That said, Weid (9) over Curnow (11) in 2015 was an incredible balls up by Taylor. Following in a long tradition of intermittent MFC stuff ups at the pointy end. 2007 Morton/Dangerfield&Rioli, 2008 Watts/Naitanui, 2009 Scullgove/Dusty and Gysberts/Talia, 2010 Cook/Darling, 2012 Toumpas/Wines, 2013 Josh Kelly trade, 2014. Etc etc.

It’s time consuming and tedious to keep responding to this type of reply. You miss the ‘point’ and I’m not ‘scared’ of anything. I looked at the available data re Taylor’s post-R1 recruiting from 2013-2017 and formed an opinion on it based on that. It was not based on reviewing one year or one particular selection analysed in isolation. I’m not here to thoughtlessly pat people on the back at every opportunity but to praise, critique and if necessary apportion blame according to things as I see them. I’m interested in the success of the MFC and accountability for those in positions of power running it. Nothing more, nothing less. Please look that last italicised word up. It’s an important consideration that some posters aren’t always ready to acknowledge. Who should we draft this year? Well I’m not even sure we should draft kids in the first two rounds given our mandate to play finals in 2020. But if we do I’ll leave it to the paid experts to get it right. That’s all you can do as supporter is it not? That and opine on footy forums and such.

LordNev - as I’ve said to @Moonshadow and a couple of others, if you can come up with $200k/p.a and have JT sit out of the job for three years I will halt what I’m currently doing and give it a red hot crack. Until that can be arranged I’ll continue to critique from the terraces like any keen observer. You make it sound as though I think our recruiting team gets every decision wrong. Not the case at all. I just don’t feel we get enough right.

Ed’s definitely a better player. Games played doesn’t mean a whole lot. If you have a dearth of tall options in defence you have to play what you’ve got.

Nothing current about it for me. I never rated him from day dot.

Someone better. Drafting a guy because he’s tall and his brother is good seems like an underwhelming set of criteria to recruit players by. And now five years into it he’s being put on a three week weights program to ‘bulk up’? C’mon let’s get real. Freo took Ed Langdon with the very next pick (54) by the way.

It won’t matter how big or small they make his physique, he doesn’t have the agility and athleticism necessary to succeed at this level. He is a VFL or A grade amateur footballer. There is no shame in that. Everybody needs to accept it and move on. Oscar for me is Exhibit A on why you should never just automatically draft one of your better player’s brothers. He was never going to make it as an AFL key defender with his obvious limitations. Waste of a draft pick.

Agree.

Moses, smell the roses. It was as obvious as the ‘garden hose’ on your ‘boat race’ Binga. Blatantly so! Take it to the ‘sherman tank’ we’ll be recruiting a gun ‘Paul Morwood’.

You’d have to go listen to Crunch Time on Saturday on SEN. Pert was on sometime between 11am and 1pm. He did not blatantly say “we will go out and recruit a key forward” but he alluded strongly to it by saying something like “obviously we’ve had some issues converting our chances. We’re getting it in there often enough so certainly that’s an area we’ll have to look at.” This was in a direct question from Kane Cornes about recruiting priorities heading into 2020. Pert’s emphasis was on the conversion of the amount of ball we’re pumping down there, not in the quality of ball being delivered. Quite possibly he means both but I thought that distinction was telling in his choice of words.

?

Post a few interesting and insightful comments on here and I might just consider it! Don’t worry I won’t hold your not having won a Brownlow medal against you.

Not so sure about that. I’ve predicted my fair share of goings on that came to fruition over the journey. Trading out of Watts in 2017, Hogan last year, both calls I made well in advance of most. Gary Pert all but declared on Saturday we will be going after a key forward this off season. I’ve been the driver of that conversation on here. Just a few examples there for you. I have little idea how you see things because you never actually comment on anything. Just snipes and put downs from the shadows. I thought an ex-boxer might be a little more courageous than that. Easy to pot, a lot harder to put up.

What would Ed Langdon cost us? Is he the right type of player? A dasher to be sure but skills?

And that's the rub, isn't it. By bringing May and Lever in and to a lesser extent Hibberd and Melksham the FD declared that the rebuild phase is over and this is the group to launch assaults on the flag. Our time is now. We cannot afford to miss finals action two years in a row and it would send the wrong message the players we already have assembled to draft more 18yo's that we potentially have to wait another 2-3 years on to see if they're any good. There is a bumper crop of free agents available at the end of 2020. Win well and play finals in 2020 and we will attract further talent to the club, just as the top clubs have done so strategically well over the past decade or so. I think it's a call we have to make. Identify the one or two players from other clubs we need to fill the key needs on the list and go hard after them, so be it if that means offering up our prized picks as payment. Then watch us surge back into the eight and challenge for top four within twelve months. If I were Pert, Mahoney, Goodwin and Co, that's the path I'd be going down all guns blazing. ?

A re-building North might seriously look at trading out Ben Brown for our first pick. People might say he's not worth say a pick 5 but if you pay slight overs and win a flag on the back of this type of trade then it becomes a steal. Are we in it to win it or just making up the numbers? 55 years without flag and counting ... B: Frost May Hore HB: Hunt Lever Salem C:Fritsch Oliver *New player* HF: Melksham McDonald Petracca F: Weideman *Brown* Lockhart R: Gawn Brayshaw Viney I: Jones Harmes Hibberd Baker

David King brought it up on SEN this morning. Reckons we have got to decide if we’re going to back our current group again in 2020 or roll the dice on trading out one of both of our first two picks in the 2019 draft for established ready-to-plug-in-and-play talent. Pick 3 - 6 would get several clubs to the trade table to discuss a range of appealing possibilities you would think. Pick 21 - 24 would net us a more than handy first 22 player. Huge calls. Big calls. Which way will we go and which way should we go in our quest for a premiership while this group comes through together? Gary Pert flagged the club’s interest in addressing the current forward line issues in an interview on SEN’s crunch time radio program on Saturday morning. Whether that means potentially dangling our first pick out there - we shall see. Stock brokers and money men would call this an absolute margin call. Our flag hopes may very well rest on it.

Pick 3 - 5 may just come into play Dazzler. Watch this space.

65 forward fifty entries for 12 goals. 25 more forward fifty entries than Freo. Not saying we will land these two specifically but if you replaced Weid and ANB from our 22 with say a Brad Hill and a Ben Brown we would be 7-6 and banging down the door of the eight. Season alive and 40,000 at the MCG on Sunday instead of the paltry 15,000 that were there. Those are the margins you’re working with at this level of competition. Drafting/trading decisions made this October are going to be the most important this club will make in living memory. Will we get creative and take some bold, calculated risks in order to have a genuine crack at a flag in 2020/21/22 ... or will we fumble the ball and go down the wrong recruiting path? The backline is shaping up, the midfield battering rams are set. It’s now about adding the class and bringing in a ‘straightener’ - a true focal point up forward who can kick 50+ and put the wind up quality defenders. We can win the flag in 2020. If we play this hand right.

Copped his right whack for arriving at the club underdone, head down bum up and now he’s earning the respect of teammates, coaches and supporters. Shows character. Great to see. Maysie is going to prove an excellent list management decision. That combination of height, strength, speed, skill and oh yes mongrel is not easily acquired. He will make the whole group walk a bit taller on match day.