jabberwocky

No not really, there are multiple examples of clubs picking key talls or mids because of a perceived need.

Best talent, most likely to be a star over the best available midfielder. Pretty simple. The player who is likely to give you the greatest output over the course of their career, that's the one I want Taylor/ Viney/Roos to select. Am I missing something here? The concept is not confusing to me.

I am not in the head of Jason Taylor, but for me he only has to believe that one player has a better chance of being that great talent over another to pick that player. Skewing your selections in favour of the best midfielder is dumb. You speak of picking a "transcendental" talent as if it is an easy thing to do, (and besides if players want to wear ladies clothes in thier own time that is thier business). As for Toumpas, Riley and Michie. Riley and Michie have been at the club 5 mins with the former having done no pre-season after a badly broken leg, and Michie has shown something. Toumpas is a kid and clearly needs to lift but...is a kid. Pick best available or risk losing a star.

I think we understand that players like M. Jones and Mckenzie are not good enough, and Daniel Cross is not a long term option but we have made significant investments in the midfield in the last couple of seasons.Viney, Salem, Toumpas, Tyson, Michie, Riley and Hunt. Throw in Jkh and Kent rotating through as well. Some we know are good, some we think will develop and a few are unknown quantities, We have also committed to Stretch in this draft. At some stage we need to behave like a decent club and back our recruiting and development. If our recruiters think that there is a Matty Scarlett or Adam Goodes available I would be horrified if we didn't draft them because they weren't midfielders.

I am surprised at how many want us to deviate from the "best available" philosophy. We need midfielders but we cannot pass up the chance to draft a great player just because he hasn't played as a mid at u18 level. Best available is relative, but I want our recruiters to draft the players that in their educated opinion are most likely to become champions. We have positions available all over the park. NB: Nathan Fyfe was drafted as a forward.

All hail the new oracle

I think you need more strings to your bow as a 187cm defender. I liked him but not big enough to play a lock down role on talls and not quick enough for smalls and not creative enough for a half back role. I just don't think he could ever own a position in the AFL.

As far as parody accounts go it's a ripper.

http://www.afl.com.au/video/2014-08-13/injured-star-a-draft-enigma Interview

This is my tip.

Interesting that we look at these two players at 17 and 19 from the 2008 draft who supposedly tick boxes in terms of athleticism and skill but fail to make a spot thier own. In the same draft we took a player at 51 who now owns a spot and I hope may end up one of the better small defenders in the comp. Rohan Bail was picked up at 65. You have to wonder what we were doing. I know that the draft is a lottery but we clearly did not investigate the characters of these major investments adequately. Strauss could not operate under physical or mental pressure, and Blease either could not or would not accept instruction and work hard. These are things that surely should have been picked up. I am happy to hear that our interview process is now probing and gruelling,

Hopefully we have about 6 of them, and there is reason now to expect natural improvement like other clubs do. I will say that Toumpas will lead the charge.

The 2008 draft was an absolute disaster for talls bar a couple. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_AFL_draft

I agree with this.

8th 102.3%

I think it is fair to say that our recruiting team failed for a long time. You can forgive them for getting the odd one wrong, but they got SO MANY high picks wrong. It can't possibly all be bad luck. The wrong types of players were selected to play the wrong style of footy.

Correct, Bernie would struggle on Travis Cloke.

From a cynical point of view if the GNF's story is true ...it's telling a player that you would be willing to trade him. And we will never really know what, if anything was offered.

Goodyears highlights

I feel good about our defence. Our midfield as it stands is the worst in the AFL, but with real greater contributions from a developing Viney, and contributions from some of the kids we can improve that standing. A fit Hogan and a firing Garlett could make an enormous amount of difference in the front half. I feel that we will have greater depth in 2015 with more numbers of AFL standard players on the list. Speed through the centre will still be a major issue. We are still largely an unknown quantity as our results are going to dependent upon improvement of youngish players which as Dees supporters we do not expect. I want to expect it now, like other clubs do.

http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2014-10-17/georges-contribution-set-in-stone “I’ve been really fortunate to be at two great clubs – Hawthorn and Sydney – but I’ve just enjoyed the football environment. As much as I’ve enjoyed it at Sydney and Hawthorn, I’ve enjoyed it at Melbourne just as much, because it’s the people that you meet along the way and you make great friendships.”

No there was some idiot that joined earlier this week posting riddles as "the riddler" who indeed posted shyte.

I enjoy reading rumours. The amount of detail in the narrative gives me reason to be suspicious of the completeness of the information. I have no doubt that you have got snippets of genuine info, I suspect that you have managed to join a lot of dots and have filled in some blanks to form a compelling story. A career in politics or journalism awaits.

Now you know I normally don't like what you write you but this is a reasonable sort of post. It captures the essence of the forum groupthink which blows in the breeze. Some are immune and it is those people that I tend to enjoy reading most. In such an emotional game, objectivity is a rare commodity.

Frost and Mcdonald play the talls and negate. All of Dunn, Lumumba and (hopefully) an in-form Garland can rebound well and all are capable of looking after a third tall, while Jetta takes the small. It's quite a tall and fairly versatile defence.