Ron Burgundy

No doubt about their mids, but I'm not so convinced about their forwards. For instance, we delisted Miller. Was this a mistake?

I do.

And to those who say our recruiting's been first class, but our ability to develop players has been ordinary - well, if that's the case, why would you recruit some many "project" players with high draft picks and not recruit the kids who already look out of the box at age 18 (eg, Cook over Darling). Cook may very well be a good player - but, on any construction, he was a slightly risky project player at that pick - not exactly a percentage play for a club in our situation.

I don't think we should embark on an entirely new rebuild. I would like to see Neeld (and others) tweak our list Sydney Swans style. Be smart about it - recruit the best available juniors, but also broaden the lens to hunt some effective recycled older players. List management's a continuum. And that's what's annoyed the hell out of me to date with our recruiting and list development. I think it's been utterly naive. It's as though they've said - the starting line in this race is 2013, and any player who won't be on the list then will be exited, and we'll plug games into a load of skinny, under-developed kids prior to that date and, hey presto, we'll win a flag. To my mind, it matters not whether player 'x' or player 'y' will be around to win a flag or not. It's whether they have a valuable contribution to make for the period of time in which they're on the list. And if they're in the best 22 and they fit into the structure that the club is building, play them. Make it hard for the juniors players to earn their spot. Create a proper, hard edged club culture. I'm glad we have Neeld at the helm. I don't know him, but I know he gets it.

These boys are going to Harvard this year.

Tell me you're joking - I had thought we are really starting to show some good signs. It's got to be both recruiting and development IMO. And a complete void when it comes to leadership by the club's senior players over several years (except Junior ironically).

I'm not worried as much as I am deeply frustrated. As a club, things have improved dramatically in recent years. We now have a really good coaching team and football department. I think we have a good CEO, and I think our board is sound. We've had a few incredibly bad hits this year, but some of them could ultimately turn out to be positives. Our on-field start to the season is the real concern though, particularly given we're hunting for a major sponsor at the moment. I am very confident Neeld will turn it around though, but it's going to take a long time - and that's simply a gut wrenching realisation, given what we've had to endure since 2006. What really frustrates me though is that we've not seized the opportunity that we had over the past 4 or 5 years to recruit some genuine red hot talent. It was almost like some nerd designing video game algorithms was selecting our players. Reality went out the window, and unrealistic, clever dick strategies kicked in. How we thought consistently picking under age, skinny players with our top picks was a smart thing to do has always troubled me. The reasoning in not picking Darling over Cook really troubles me. The fact that a dedicated recruitment team failed to even interview Dustin Martin, the much publicised likely third draft pick, when we had picks one and two in that draft troubles me. It shows the process was amateur and lazy and possibly arrogant. That sacking Junior on a flight to Adelaide prior to the Port game, a widely respected leader and club stalwart and former AA player who was still clearly in our best 22 and who still had a big role to play in developing this list, even occurred troubles me. Again, completely amateur stuff. And wholly lacking in proper judgement too. None of this is hindsight. I thought all of this at the time. Some conveniently come back at me with EVERY OTHER club would've picked Scully. And EVERY OTHER club overlooked Darling. My response. Not EVERY OTHER club was in our situation. Not EVERY OTHER club had our needs and our deficiencies. And not EVERY OTHER club has such an ordinary list now, so perhaps not every other club would actually have done what we did, because (1) their lists are much better than ours; and (2) their lists are much better than ours despite us having better draft picks than them over a long period of time. The thing that also troubles me is that this should not have been that hard. I look at North - they seem not to get too clever - they make practical selections, and I reckon it will pay off for them sooner than it will for us. And yep Rhino Richards - I reckon I would've done a better job than our recruiters over the past few years. Hard not too to be honest. I would've just telephoned Kevin Sheehan and said, "these are our needs, and these are our draft picks - who the hell should we pick?". I reckon we'd now have a better list had I been in control and we done that, and it would've saved us a lot of dough. I wouldn't have charged the club a cent for my services - all just for the love of the club.

Watts will be okay IMO. It's Cook over Darling, Maric over Selwood, Strauss over Zaharakis and Blease over Shuey that trouble me. And I know nothing about recruitment - but that's what worries me given that my Herald Sun opinions would've landed us a better list than the dudes paid to nail this for us.

I had to go to the physio a few days ago - my hip flexor's stuffed. This guy is very well regarded in sports in Sydney - he services several rugby clubs etc. I asked him if he knew Dave Misson. His response, "not very well, but I know who he is". I then asked what he thought of him in terms of capability. He said, "absolute specialist in that particular field - very, very good". BUT, he then said - "getting that list up to speed will take a long time - not just one pre-season. He'll only be trying to tweak the older players, because he won't be able to rebuild them and it would be inefficient to do so. His main focus will be on the young guys. In three to four years from now, you won't recognise them - but be prepared, these elite fitness regimes take years to implement." Probably obvious stuff - but a timely reminder nonetheless. I reckon we'll get pumped today, but we need to give the new guys (Neeld, Craig, Misson etc) time to turn this ship around. I really think they know what success looks like and they know what they're doing (even though the 'game plan' most likely adopted today, and not properly executed by the players, may give a slightly different impression).

Perhaps on field, but definitely not off the field. I no longer have the latent fear for our survival that I had back then (thanks Jim!). The administration is far more professional now, the facilities are good, the coaching staff is as good as any in the comp - in short, we're in a much better position now. I also think Daniher had a shocker with our list at the end of 2002. We were very unlucky not to be in the preliminary final that year (with a depleted list), and then we let Woewodin and Powell go, and it took us ages to recover from that - 2003 was an awful season. I've also never really got over losing Thompson the next year - perhaps the only truly elite midfielder that we've had on our list in the last 15 years.

Unlike most others here, I really rate Bennell. I reckon something will click for him sometime soon, and he'll be a bloody good player. I also rate Dunn. Good inclusions IMO. That said, I can't see us not getting pumped by about 80 points tomorrow. New game plan. No Sylvia. No Moloney. No class. Could be an ugly game.

I was speaking to a mate the other day. A Geelong supporter. He said he was absolutely stoked about winning the flag last year. I asked him what he did following the win. His response - "just went out for dinner with the missus". Couldn't believe it - simply ridiculous behaviour, and it shows that some fans have become completely complacent about success. It made me think though - what we I do if we won a flag? I know it seems highly unlikely at the moment, but it's a nice thought nonetheless. I think I would literally rip my head off and drown it in a beer barrel for a whole week. I'd probably also run around for a while in no particular direction. It'd be weird if we were to a win a flag. I've never experienced that before. What would you do?

I was speaking to a mate the other day. A Geelong supporter. He said he was absolutely stoked about winning the flag last year. I asked him what he did following the win. His response - "just went out for dinner with the missus". Couldn't believe it - simply ridiculous behaviour, and it shows that some fans have become completely complacent about success. It made me think though - what we I do if we won a flag? I know it seems highly unlikely at the moment, but it's a nice thought nonetheless. I think I would literally rip my head off and drown it in a beer barrel for a whole week. I'd probably also run around for a while in no particular direction. It'd be weird if we were to a win a flag. I've never experienced that before. What would you do?

I can't agree with this at all. IMO the 186 point loss was a positive. It caused the club to really focus on our list and our coaching department. Prior to this I think the MFC just assumed that success would follow our period of 'bottoming out'. Some of the recent events are indeed unfortunate, but not indicia of a bad club or poor club culture IMO. And, for mine, the period at the end of season 2011 was as exciting a period as I've ever experienced supporting this club. We secured Neeld. We then got Misson. We then nailed Craig. We then nabbed Clark. Ridiculous momentum. Despite feeling really aggrieved about the state of our list, I think this club has finally turned the corner, and we will see a very different club in a few years from now. A successful club. Ordinary thread.

+ Darling = a flag. The hits keep on comin'.

Everyone does. And to put it in simple terms, what pick do you think every other club in the competition would now trade for: (a) Darling; and (B) Cook? Cop a tip - Darling would attract a much higher pick than Cook. Let the market tell you whether Darling's been a good pick. Also, this is not hindsight - everyone on this site was shocked when we didn't pick him at 12. Hardly anyone of us (and the AFL world generally) knew Cook was even in the mix at that pick.

I had thought our recruiting has been fantastic over the past few years. Rhino Richards told me so.

Hi Range Rover. It's the hindsight warrior here. I have to say, I can't agree with you on this one. I think Gysberts was a great pick - one of the few in which the recruiters IMO showed some genuine expertise.

Nope I don't get it RR. Neither does the whole of the informed AFL world either. Perhaps in your little universe though, it's all very different.

It's literally impossible to argue with Dr Who and a few others on this point. They seem to think we're the emotional ones, yet they stick to this whole 'benefit of hindsight' stance despite overwhelmingly evidence to the contrary. It seems clear to me who are the emotional thinkers here. For instance, Rhino Richards claimed on another (equally depressing) thread that some of my views on our poor recruiting are 'a victory of hindsight over foresight'. For a start, implicit in that statement is an acknowledgement that our recruiting HAS been poor. From my perspective, I recall thinking many, many times over the last few years, 'wow, that's a curious choice for that pick - I had thought [insert name of Shuey, Darling, Zaharakis, Selwood, Pears etc] was a lock in, if available, at that pick'. But I then thought ( ... hoped/prayed) that these guys, as our expert recruiters, knew more than Kevin Sheehan and Emma Quayle et ors about recruitment, and our seemingly slightly left field choices may prove to be masterstroke selections. After all, I had thought the whole methodology as to why we 'bottomed out' for so long was to get a number of years of great draft picks so we could then identify, recruit and develop an elite list. Unfortunately, being given the great draft picks is only half the equation. Well, to date, those selections haven't looked like masterstrokes - in fact, some of those picks actually look to have been reckless in the extreme. Pendergast is no longer at the club (our recruitment expert), and our list looks tres ordinaire, even though it could've been absolutely bullet proof by now. Bailey is also no longer at the club (our development coach). Not great signs about the quality of our recruitment and development of our list in recent years. So, in short, my thinking has gone from 'what they hell are these guys doing' (foresight), to now - 'what the hell have these guys done' (hindsight). It's not been the the opposite way around, as claimed by RR previously. (And RR, I can predict your response to this already - you'll hunt a victory of FORM over SUBSTANCE. Like an old school litigator you'll hit me with hours of required research and interrogatories, which, if I can't be stuffed answering because I am actually too busy or simply couldn't be bothered, you'll then say my claims are utterly baseless and assert victory in another keyboard argument.) I've said it before, young ER surgeons are taught 'if you hear hooves beating, think horses not zebras' - IMO the same seems not to have applied to our recruitment - quite simply, we have NOT taken the obvious choices FOR THIS CLUB'S NEEDS all too often. If we did, we'd now have a much better - in fact, a great list. I find this very, very depressing. West Coast, with a few players that should be playing for us against them, by 80 this weekend.

We let other clubs pick them.

The Good Neeld's on board. As is Craig and Misson and a few others. The bad We're a lot further off the pace than I had thought. The ugly The realisation that the last few years of rebuild have not been what they should have been.

Nailed it.

"Gaff, 19, is considered a vital cog in West Coast’s premiership plans alongside looming superstar ruckman Nic Naitanui (picked Watts instead), dashing on-ballers Luke Shuey (picked Blease instead) and Scott Selwood (picked Maric instead) and potential star forward Jack Darling (picked Cook instead) under senior coach John Worsfold." This hurts. But for Gaff, we could've had all of these players AND Dustin Martin and Jack Trengove. I have to say though, I am happy with Jack Watts - he'll be okay IMO. I just can't believe the state of our midfield, given what it clearly could/should now be. Hate to labour the point, but this just sucks ...

Pity they're the only victories we seem to be experiencing at the moment.