jabberwocky

If there is one thing that the club has got right over the last six or seven years it is the "departures". We have just made a meal of a lot of the "arrivals". The fact that so few of our departees were able to achieve anything significant at other clubs is further evidence of how poor our list was.

Couldn't help myself, and yes I want a medal. jabberwocky Master Demon Location:bs artist formerly known as dandeeman Interests:hoedowns and highland gatherings, candlelight dinners, long walks in the park, thunderstorms. Favourite Player(s):Neville Jetta Posted 23 September 2010 - 02:32 PM I will make a guess E, and it is purely a guess (ie. no inside info.)I will prelude this by saying I like Jones and value him a lot higher than some here do. I reckon there are concerns about his coachability. The issue with Jones is that he hasn't really been able to find that niche between attack and defence. He has an attacking mindset and really only knows one way. When it comes off he looks great, breaks tackles, kicks a neat low pass into an attacking position. When it doesn't come off he gets caught or f**#s up a low percentage kick. My guess is that the coaches have been trying to get him to temper his attacking nature a little, having failed they have given him a negating role to really drum in the defensive mindset. I hope we keep him, he is a strong, talented, durable player with good skills (contrary to what some believe). If thinks click he will be a mainstay of a midfield, hopefully ours. NB. I was exactly the same as Jones as a colt. Edited by dandeeman, 23 September 2010 - 02:34 PM.

Breaking it down simply....more players at Hawthorn win thier position than lose it, and they do that more often. It is players performing at a consistently higher level that thier opposition. The opposite is true for the MFC. Using your words.."based on what we have seen so far" who are the current stars with star quality at the MFC? Anyhow i don't want to get into bickering and I think you are probably young, my reason for entering the thread was to illustrate that Watts Vs Toumpas is a pointless comparison. NB: There are hundreds of players that have shown "star quality" but have been unable to put together a meaningful AFL career.

Garbage. I don't think anyone is playing the man. The club could have done this better, it's posts like this that try to limit legitimate discussion about the Melbourne Football Club that irk me. We all have a stake in the club and if I want to talk about what it can do better I will. As I will about the team or an individual. If we can't talk about what the club can do better then we really wouldn't have much to talk talk about. We can't exactly bask in the glory of recent achievements.

Yeah but I think the point is that you take every opportunity. Winning games is the ultimate sales pitch, doesn't mean that you ignore any other possibilities.

It's a fact though. Fortunately we have enough developing talent on our list to keep most of us interested. Two years versus five. Toumpas is only just reaching Afl puberty.

On what we have seen so far most of our list can't perform at the required standard consistently and most get beaten in their position more often that not. Now what?

Both are players that have not yet displayed that they can play at the required intensity level consistently yet. On has been in the system five years, the other two. Not really a fair (or even necessary) comparison.

Chernobyl United

I think this is right. When the bottom 8-12 of our 22 are replaced with better players there is potential to improve fairly quickly, depending on how much better the replacements are. There has been so much talk about what is wrong with the footy team, but for me it get's much of it gets back to [censored]-poor recruiting, [censored]-poor development and in turn a [censored]-poor list.

The stretch mark isn't something I will see only at a dees game.

The reality is that the chances of these players improving markedly in a few months was a lot less likely than it was likely. Great to hear about the recruits in Newton, Frost, Garlett and Lumumba and about some of our young brigade doing well. We are still the hardest side in the competition to gauge.

Let you know in June

One of the more talented players on our list. Wouldn't be surprised to see him become a midfielder/forward

Yeah after we prised him out of the hands of Man U.

Hawthorn.......winningness? That's what I would like to stand for.

Couldn't agree more, my fear is that he will be one of many who has shown this capacity but never have it realised for reasons that exist between the ears. I sincerely hope he does become elite.

You can't judge a player on a quarter, you need to look at the body of work. Watts is another player who needs to improve markedly. If the side improves as we hope, he will need to lift the bar to be guaranteed a game.

Matt Jones plays a role that we sorely need which elevates his importance in relation to his abilities. If we are going to be the team that we all want us to be he needs to improve markedly or be overtaken. I think both are equally plausible possibilities. Then you could say that about another dozen players.

Off topic..new thread WJ?

I hope so, he still has to get the ball in his hands though. How that happens is still the concern for mine.

No. If you don't like what a poster has to say don't read it. Sure I have heard that somewhere before.

Spot on. He isn't the only one in that category. The policy of "getting games into them" was nightmarish and did no-one any favours. We move on.

I think you are reading too much into the question. You have the right answer to the wrong question. The club currently stands for losing, we need to change the answer. To do that we need to ask a whole new set of questions, which I am sure we have done/are doing. That is the real, non political, non jargonististic answer. I am with Illdieademon, the question is pointless. The question is, "How do we change the answer?"

I suppose it depends on who you ask the question to. If you are asking internally, then the answer would be different. The question is I believe directed to those outside the club, to which the answer would undoubtedly be "losing". There are much better and more important questions to ask as you have alluded to.