Nasher

It wasn't the Darling/Cook decision. It was the Cook decision. And nobody is defending it.

He's been shown where the door is a couple of times when he's stepped over the mark. That said, Demonland has always operated under a philosophy that people have a right to speak their mind no matter how idiotic controversial what they may say is, so long as the topic remains civil and the rules are followed.

Be that as it may Rover, I always find it hilarious when people make those what would the club know? *I* say we should do this! posts. Everyone's an expert. I'm all for discussing the merits of various decisions. I'm even all for discussing this topic. But I reserve the right to ridicule anyone who carries on like they know more on the topic than the club does.

Any danger it could be your assessment at fault and not the club's? Just putting it out there...

That's a WYL-esque I've-Forgotten-What-My-Own-Point-Was---Oh-Wait-I-never-had-one style sidestep Rover. Here, I think you dropped this:

Truth be told, Jack, other than the above post (to offer an explanation to a poster), I choose to remain silent on Watts for the most part. I don't want to slam him too heavily - it's just not my style and enough people are doing that already, but at the same time I absolutely do not want to make excuses for him as per your post. Needless to say, I saw plenty last night that I didn't like and I'm not convinced it's all injury related. That's probably all I'll say at all on the topic.

Maybe you're in the wrong gig, B-H :-) Only half joking.

Still think it was to balance out the sheer number of players who were coming out of contract at the same time.

We have made poor selections in the past old dee, no doubt. All I'm saying if you're going to look backwards, do it in a manner where you might learn something. Saying we should've picked Darling instead of Cook is focussing on the result (which you can't do anything about) rather than how we arrived at the result (can do something about this and ensure we don't make the same mistakes next time). The business equivalent of this thread would be a like the share holder of a company that made a $1m loss lauding its CEO for not instead making a $1m profit. But why didn't you just make a profit, Mr CEO! It's obvious that a profit is better than a loss!

Watts had a purple patch (post move to defence) where he was on fire and garnered a lot of votes through that time. It does seem like a distant memory based on the showing from the last few weeks.

Hey Demonland, if you still have the data from previous years handy: what's the biggest winning margin in the history of this competition? If I remember correctly Jones' lead was already unassailable about 6 weeks ago.

All I'm saying If we'd taken Howe at 12 and then stuffed pick 33, we'd have exactly the same result (same players on the list) but we wouldn't be having this conversation. Nobody would give a rats who sat between our two picks. That makes putting Jack Darling in to the discussion completely redundant. Furthermore, it was redundant once, so you might forgive some of us for being frustrated at thread number one million that brings this up. It's not quite the same as CAC's point - which (and I know you know - for the benefit of the uninitiated) is that later picks can compensate for poor early picks. I'm not saying that picking Howe compensates for the poor pick at 12. It's obvious that picking two good players would be better than picking one. All I'm saying is that this self-flagellation that goes on every time Darling plays a good game is neither interesting nor useful. At pick 12 it's a given that if you stink the pick up that you miss out on better players, so why do we constantly need new threads telling us the same old bull we already know?

To be honest Clint I wasn't even bothered by the free against. I just love seeing a player in a MFC jumper with an obvious penchant for hurting people in his quest for the ball. It definitely takes the edge off my frustration.

I don't want anger, I just want it fixed. Diesel were you really expecting this to be a statement match? Lol. We've barely raised a yelp all year and suddenly we're going to pull something from our arse at Subi against a top 8 side? Ok. I expected an insipid effort and haven't been disappointed.

Tappy hip and shoulder will do actually.

19 minutes of this miserable year to go. Watched in the hope of something to hang on to over the long off season, guess it'll have to come from the draft.

A more simplistic version of BRFE's point: if we had taken Howe with the same pick we took Cook with, would we still be upset about this?

Exactly.

Since I can't see the papers scrambling for the scoop, or the club(s) scrambling for a press conference, I'm assuming this reported in a rumour context and not a fact context.

This line has always grated on my nerves, though I could never put my finger on why. I think I've worked it out. These young players have never known anything else other than playing football. They go from being at school, training in the afternoon and playing footy with their mates on the weekend, to ditching school and just stepping up the training. At what stage do they get to learn about hard work and professionalism? In any other industry, there's no such thing as a professional 18-21 year old. Other 18-21 year olds are either still studying, or undertaking an apprenticeship or traineeship, and very few of them will have taken on their chief hobby as a career. I don't think I started to resemble a professional in my field until I was 25. This just shows why it's doubly important for leaders of the club to show the way. They must show the young players how it must be done, and pull them in to line when they step out of it, and show what it is to be professional. Otherwise their career will just be a permanent extension of their time at school, kicking around with their mates. I think in writing this post I've almost convinced myself that the minimum draft age should be 21 too.

Or he might have set the standard. Nonetheless I expect he might have been a fraction better than Troy Longmuir, who was the player we took with our last pick before Black went. Ahh, hindsight again.

Maybe we could offer him a BOQ franchise in Melbourne? I agree that Black is a pipe-dream. A nice pipe-dream though. Didn't CAC once say on this forum that his biggest regret (including Molan etc) was talking himself out of picking Black? I find that pretty regretful too now that I think about it.

It's been a bit of a pattern recently Chook, but that's almost word for word what I thought when I heard those quotes from Green. Jarka may be right about leading a horse to water, but I'm of the view that most young people in an environment like that would listen if told by senior figures to pull their heads in. Especially if it was regularly being reinforced by the rest of the leadership.

Billy and Redleg have nailed it. There's combinations where Freo can get their home final with a good win. They will want to smash us in to oblivion, and they will succeed.

Please tell me he didn't say anything about reality checks!