rpfc

I still think Howe can be an incredibly damaging midfielder who spends a great deal of time forward. Mids have to rotate through the forward line, today's game demands it. If you know what to do when you get down there, you are priceless. I think he can do it. He has been poor when asked to go through there I agree. But I don't want to give up just yet. If I were Craig I would get him to start at HFF and give Trengove a rest for 5 minutes here and there. This leads me to be a supporter of the 80 rotations limit but that is another thread...

Two things: 1. Stop intimating that the only options are a PP or nothing. Draft assistance is the promise of an even competition. Not simply a pre-draft selection. 2. No-one sees it as a 'Miralcle Cure' or a 'Cure All' - there is no one thing that will get us out of our malaise but turning down little things that help us out is not advisable.

Yeah, Roos. He doesn't have a season to wait to end.

No we don't. The best kids go to the worst teams. That is how this works. To ask a teenager to judge a footy club is beyond the pale.

I agree with timD - Howe is not worth what we think he is worth. I need him to become Ryan O'Keefe. Another Russell Robertson is unnecessary in Hogan's Forwardline. With that said - we cannot trade away one of the few things that bring people to the footy until we have a few other things that get them to the G. Such as the aforementioned Hogan dominating and the team winning.

I don't even think that we can interview them until the season is over.

Don't fall for this smoke and mirrors call for an expanded salary cap - it is a trap. We get a bloated salary cap. So we overpay all our players, and then we are told 3 years later that we can't have it anymore and we will have a terrible time trying to fit back into it. We need talent, we HAVE plenty of cap space as it is to keep and attract. We need talent. We need draft assistance.

Because our list is THAT bad. Clark and Dawes for 12 and 20. Find their midfield equivalent and it would go a great distance to making us competitive.

No but two picks in the top 20 can allow a team to draft in Clark and Dawes. That can change fortunes quickly. There may be midfielders of a similar ilk that we can get.

He should never have been Pick 4 and he is now playing WAFL at 23. Time will tell whether the Eagles can develop an AFL player from 23 year old Morton.

I think the effect of those areas are overblown, and I also believe the affect of FA won't be what many fear. If the EPL is the anti-thesis, the NFL is the standard bearer and while there are some perennial losers - sound decisions allow any team to compete soon after being a 'long way' from competing.

It isn't chinese whispers or rumour. It is our record at the draft and in trades - that is why we are in the mess we are in. Jackson said that the most important role is the one managing the list. And he disn't mean the List Manager, he meant that a club lives and dies by the talent it brings in, and keeps, compared to others in the league. When we lost Pick 5, 32, and 47 for salary cap cheating it hurt. When we squandered Picks 4, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, and 21 over seven drafts (2001-2007) it hurts. No matter how 'understandable' those failures are. And yet, we are having this to-and-fro because I defended his recruitment. Explaining that if his recruitment was a failure - it was of infinitesimal significance compared to the real reasons we are where we are.

Option A - ND1: Priority Pick before the draft. Option B - ND11 and ND20: Mid-1st round and end of round picks. Option C - ND11 and ND20 Trade Tied: Mid-1st round and end of round picks, one or both must be traded out. AFL can ratify use of picks should suitable trade not appear. Option D - ND11 and 2-player State League Exception: Mid- 1st round pick and pre-draft selection of 2 players in any State league. If I was Jackson I would fight for each option until rebuffed and not accept anything below Option D. If I was the AFL I would leak Option A as a possibility and then give Option B.

Our list is bad. There are a myriad of reasons why that is. I refuse to believe that acknowledging the truth is 'not letting go of the past.' I don't want blame to be apportioned, I don't care. Some of the the reasons go back to the late 90s. I have actively said that posters should not pinpoint individuals. But let's get serious about the future. And apart of that is recognising what not to do in the draft, with trades, and with your older players. And you could write a 'How To' book on Recruitment and List Management by writing the reverse of what we have done over the past decade and a bit.

Er, I was taking the [censored] (you can't say p.ss?) before... I am excited by many of our kids, especially Hogan, but I really don't want to talk about them the way some do. They are not our saviours. We need to give them a positive environment, on and off the field, where they can play their best football. The rewards will come from that. I prefer to hear MFC officials talk about the environment they are looking to bring to the club rather than read an article by Burgan on which players we will bring in to the side in 2014. I don't mean to pick on Burgan - I think he is doing an admirable job - I just hate that reflex; names won't make us a better team, they won't develop themselves, they won't get the most out of themselves. The environment and the culture we create from here on in will.

He can have the city.

[screaming at the heavens] Oh, Jebus!! He does not speak for us, Jebus! We throw ourselves at your mercy and hope to see him play a few games in 2014 injury free and extend his contract in due course! DT does not know of what he speaks! We pray that you will not take The Chosen one to Blacktown, or give him seemingly debilitating physicality issues, or continual problems with OP, or a rare impact injury to the Lisfranc in his foot. In the name of the Barassi, the Norm, and the Holy Jimmy. Amen.

I refuse to believe we have 'ruined' Morton to the extent you imply. We took Frawley the previous draft to Morton and we developed him into an AA defender. He was a tall rake winger who didn't get any better than he was at 18. He was chosen before he should have been.

Why are you defending those choices? I don't care that unnamed people 'in the know' thought we drafted well. We didn't.

They were mistakes. They are the reason our list is bereft of good midfielders. I will take your acidic remark and retool it: picking 18 year olds is a form of 'clairvoyance.' The entire football world seems to not want us to get draft assistance because we cannot foresee which of those teenagers will become better than others. That's partially true, however other clubs have got those choices right and they do not require a convenient 'out' about hindsight, clairvoyance, or any other magics - they just draft really well with the picks that matter. It is the reason those teams are up the top, and we are in a terrible spot. Unless, you have a problem with me pointing out reality. Which can be quite biased I have found.

Of course it is relevant, but it would have to be some heavy improvement to outweigh the previous six years and our lack of a midfield.

What are you talking about? I am not assigning blame to anyone but I am making the point - that I have made previously, and will make again - that our recruitment problems from the past have left us in the shape we are in. If you ignore the past, you may not avoid repeating it in the future.

It certainly does matter - there is a onus, a responsibility, to get those picks in the first and second round right. Nicholson was taken in the RD and only took a spot on the Primary List this year. If his recruitment is a 'failure' it is of infnitesimal significance.

If there was a 'rap sheet' for Prendergast, picking Nicholson in the Rookie Draft wouldn't be found. When we talk about recruitment failures we can stick in the first and second round of the National Draft and write a tome the size of Lord of the Rings and with many of the same themes!

Look, it's a hypothetical. It is not an objective fact either way. With that said - we will have some analysis to make in a couple years was he has gone to the Eagles which outsiders see as a veritable stable of player development. For me he is stick of a wingman in a game where where the wing has been eaten by rotations and is now a dormant position (not extinct as Richo showed a few years ago). A hypothetical scenario I would love is to see how we would have gone with developing Dangerfield. I don't think he would be the Ricciuto clone he is at the Crows but he would have been a very good player for us. I really only see development helping around the edges - refining talent, not exposing it. Polishing the diamond in the rough, not turning the coal briquette into a diamond.