picket fence

Has for years been very poor. Since the days of recruiting John Tillbrook we perennially have not got it right!. How can we have got so many high draft picks so wrong and yet Hawthorn produce success with mid twenty or lower draft picks which have tremendous immediate success?

Sorry Mono, Juice has all of these beaten with his record! Nick Smith? I remember watching him in a final, I felt sorry that he was thrown to the wolves as we had no one else at the time!

Yep I'll call it. We made the wrong call! Given our needs then and now!

Cmon posters gotta have a little bit of fun here ya know. I thought entertainment was the key!??

Incorrect, Juice was a regular in the senior side when he did an ACL a few weeks out of finals which lingered into last season as well! Lets all hope a fit raring to go "Juice" Plunders opponents at Norwood this year which will set the tone for a fairytale renaissance back at AFL level in 2015! Lets here it for the mighty Michael "Juice" Newton, THE THINKING MANS FAN FAVOURITE!!!!

And just to prove my point, Juice kicked two goals and was looking sensational then you know what happened!? He was moved into the ruck to cover yet another inadequacy! If only he had played out the game at Full Forward Alas what might have been!

I ALWAYS PUT FULL VALUE ON MY EXCLAMATIONS!!!!!!!!!!

If you go over to AFL stats and look at Newtons Top 10 I think the term "Dud" will be quickly dispelled! Pity I cannot upload otherwise I would do so! Any other poster out there with the required know how If you wouldn't mind doing this so that in the interest of fairness the revelation of stats might just surprise some on this forum!

Agree with all of this Nathan, you cannot have too many quality in and under mids! Never! What our recruiting dept failed to see I believe was that 1 You must get the infield clearance first 2 Outside run becomes very redundant if you don't! What my main beef about Toumpas is he is neither quick or damaging enough, nor does he show much appetite for the ball via some two way gut running! prerequisites for outsider mids. Had we went for Wines then we may not have gone for the mids we did this preseason and if that was the case we could have picked up another KPF OR something else. FWIW I would rather develop Jack Watts or Christian Salem as the outside mids.

Yeah well Biff you never say never, One good season and with plenty of clubs looking for tall forward who knows!??

Nup but as I have said previous, there was a bloke who kicked 35 goals from 25 games "Juice Newton" never ever got a real go and then when he did got injured! Rather a Juice than a bloke who never ever played a game! Playing for Norwood this year after two injury ruined years ! Would love for him to have a great year and then who knows!? Plenty of clubs might be tempted to draft a 27 year old mature age! Juice Newton? Just a thought!

Do you know this as FACT?

Ok but Nutbean, recruiting isn't an exact science! I never went with ratings, always with what our greatest need was. It really was elementary our greatest need was for Grunt! The fact we went for something different has nothing to do with draft order, ratings etc. I'll tell you now we stuffed up massively!

Yep play a Pagans paddock with Howe and Watts with the Hyphen at their feet!

I don't want "all right eventually" gee this hurts all the way to hell. While Wines "Blows them away" Toumpas will probably start at Casey! It started with Tillbrook and has continued till this very day! Neeld will go down as the greatest flop of a coach in MFC History and the recruiters who masterminded this should go and recruit ants for a sugar picnic! Livid!

As I said late last year I reckon he has played his last game! .A physio mate of mine said then that he would find it extremely difficult to get back given the type of injury and the propensity of other soft tissue injuries impeding his rehab. I really believe has played his last game! . I am assuming of course that his injuries are the reason behind his "Extended Leave" and not something new. If this is because of his injuries then we have two options! 1 Put him on the LTI list in the hope of a miracle 2 Pay him out and move forward. Pity but this continues the scourge that is MFC Recruting. This time however unlike many other times this can be put down to extremely bad luck! Pity.

Two quotes from my learned Posters Beezlebub and Nutbean, "So we have had high picks taken at the right pick that haven't come on, we have had speculative picks taken high that haven't come on. Again this all poses that thorny question - have the recruiters got it so badly wrong or have we just not had the workplace, the culture and the development programs to allow players to thrive ? "Possibly all of the above Nut but if you dont have the right fabric in the first place youll only ever end up with a 2nd rate suit no matter whos cutting the cloth" I think you are both right.I use that word culture again. I reckon two things are in play here, 1 It must be a combination of right player psche and type, of player needed ( with Volition the key ingredient) and 2 Right people who can engender a really fine winning environment (Coaching and support staff) Can anyone really argue the last time we had the right mix of players and coaches were the Northey years? We were desperately unlucky not to Pinch a Flag during his time desperately unlucky! Now I ask this question, what type of player did Swooper Northey have the most success with, a Wines Type Or a Toumpas Type?

I think because Sue part of it will be, if ever confronted by similar choices again, always go for the Junk yard dog over and well groomed Cavalier King Charles. As the great KORGIS song goes "And everybodies gotta learn sometime"

I am very sorry to denigrate another posters comment Dee Zee, but If ,IF, you are serious that would have to be the funniest thing I have ever read on this site EVER! Could be the next Ablett hahahaha LOL Thanks for really making my day!

I reckon its either a direct blow to the Gonad region resulting in bleeding OR Dramatic inflammation of the Osteitis Pubis tendon, resulting in the same symptoms! Anyone else want to have a stab at it?

Another great question Jumbo ! Gee you would hate to think that Todd would do that! I wonder given the nepotistic aspect of it though the question is worth wondering! I wonder exactly how much influence Todd had over this decision to not draft Wines? Burnt ?yep have been many times!

Steve, which players do you refer to as ones where we have been burn't before?

And why not Sue, since obviously we picked correctly or is it incorrectly again, you fail to grasp the fact that we have been making shocking dumb recruiting decisions for EONS, perhaps the Jimmy Toumpas one is seen to be the last straw! Pick, draw blood, reach bone, let it hurt some more, ah "Pain" learn to love it!

Much discussion on this topic I would like to add a response to some From why you little "you make a valid point Sue but when one plays like he is blinded and shite scared by oncoming headlights regularly whilst the other continues to rip it up in the engine room does kind of remind you of the chasm of difference that seems to exist." The chasm of difference is the exceptionally poor recruiting both of players and coaching staff which has plunged our club close to the abyss! For far too long we have been saddled with incompetence of poor choice recruiting and coaching staff! From Demon Dan, Hmm, why wouldnt you take a ready made mid, who already knew and grew up with an important established Melbourne family and again, was clearly the pick of the crop? How long do we have to be the f*cking dumb club of the competition? Pick away.. go hard.. infect.. hit bone! Yep HIT BONE! Only through collective consciousnous can we ever hope that if it hurts enough then so be it. Lets start building from bone like reconstructive knee surgery! Feel the pain before the inevitable watershed of good solid structure and footy nous. From Stui I could not be sicker of people who think every single player should be a pack busting tough as nails ball winner. If we had 18 blokes who were "see ball, get ball" who the hell would they kick it to? Ridiculous comment. Agree in part so, which of our mids would get a game at another club??? Its all about quality midfield clearances the difference between a quality mid and a mid is the ability to win clearances and contested ball.you don’t think another quality mid a la Ollie wines wouldn’t help our cause? From Je Roos Salem If Toumpas is a soft outside player who we need for versatility, then he isn't a good enough soft outside player, or at least yet. He doesn't look like the devastating type, he moves around a bit awkwardly and doesn't really dictate play and win enough of the ball. You can't simply get by with skills, you need awareness, pace, hardness- all things Toump is lacking in to make an impact at AFL level Yep agree on all levels, and perhaps depending on whether Toumpas plays ,I would rather develop Watts, Blease, and possibly Salem for these roles. From Sambo 06 Toumpas = Mitchell, Hodge, Bartel -all speedy blokes LOL! Ollie is great, long live Ollie in PA. LOL!Toump is going to be a star. Soft is he? Refer Geelong. I suppose Sambo is refering to the game last year where Jimmy played well rather than the recent game which I have already spoken about. To be seen as more than a flash in the pan we need to see more of that type of form, that is not to say he can’t, but the early signs haven’t been good. The difference between ability and volition to actually doing in some players is a very hard thing to do! I suspect in Jimmy Toumpas situation this is more the case. HE IS HOWEVER, A MELBOURNE PLAYER AND FOR REASONS ALREADY STATED I HOPE, REALLY HOPE HE CAN DO WHAT OTHERS ON THIS FORUM BELIEVE HIM CAPABLE OF DOING! WE REALLY CANNOT AFFORD TO HAVE ANYONE ELSE BEING AT THIS CLUB BEING LABELED UNFULFILLED POTENTIAL, MORE CRITICALLY NOW! End of rant 2