IvanBartul13

We need players who win the ball, can break away from traffic, make good decisions and execute well by foot. And we need bigs who can catch and impose themselves. There is enough grunt and grind on the list, the list lacks talent and applied class. It really is the reason we are so bad, not anything else.

B: Grimes, McDonald, Pedersen HB: Dunn, Georgiou, Nicholson C: M.Jones, N.Jones, Vince HF: Howe, Fitzpatrick, Bail F: Kennedy-Harris, Frawley, Kent Foll: Spencer, McKenzie Rov: Tyson I/C: Watts, Cross, Viney, Blease (sub) EM: Clisby, Trengove, Barry In: Nicholson, McKenzie, Blease Out: Evans, Terlich, Byrnes Nicholson - Garlett McDonald - Henderson Pedersen - Waite Georgiou - Rowe Dunn - Robinson Grimes - Ellard Bail - Simpson (tag) McKenzie - Murphy (tag) M.Jones - Yarran

And very similar to hawthorn post roughead/franklin we did rise up the ladder only to be thwarted in part by the entry of the new franchises

Its a bit pedantic locating the true actual bottoming out point as Neitz, Johnstone, White, McDonald, Green, Yze, Robertson, Whelan, Bruce, Rivers etc left over a spread of years. The club may well have manufactured a season win loss low point in 2009 but the actual low point in terms of performance in my opinion happened over many years and is still happening. I find it hard that someone would argue that GWS and GC coming in didnt hurt our ability to bounce back more agressively as it dropped us from from 5 to 12 twice in a row when other clubs were suffering drops at lower variance points of the draft. They also raped the uncontracted player pool to a great degree when the preseason draft may have netted something. In addition they had access to 17year olds the years before draft age so when we were bad, the drafts were awful - 2011 for example.

Quality players but there is no chance we will draft Lever with our first pick. The notion of develoment versus ready made types finds no resonance with me. The game is about getting 200 game players/ gun players based on projection. I would want people in charge of recruiting sacked if they are putting pens through the likes of Fyfe or Watts or McDonald or Martin Gleeson or Jack Macrae just because they are skinny or have immature bodies. As an example Macrae has probably lept above Wines as a player in the last week and has a heap more upside still.

Drafts previous to the ones mentioned were also problematic but i think one thing that doesnt seem to get mentioned is our club's misfortune at bottoming out at the time the two new franchises entered the league and dropped our first round and subsequent picks 8 rungs lower. It also meant the value of our 2009 number 1 pick hasnt been of any field use to any tangible degree and wont until Hogan gets onto the paddock. Any analysis of the 2011 draft and it being a failure is a furphy. It was a putrid draft and there isnt much that could have been done that would have made a difference at any of the picks. Trading for clark was an inspired move that has been cursed with bad luck obviously. The reality is that most gun AFL players were skinny kids who dominated junior levels against stronger bodies and the. Transfer that to AFL football. Are these same peoplemcalling for big bodied warriors saying Tapscott is a great pick? Or that getting Magner was inspired?

Youre only using one stat

This completely excludes the idea that a significant part of a backmans job is to negate his opponent. Would be very surprised if Nicholson is not brought in to play on Jeff Garlett

I didnt look very hard and day.e garlett and ben cavarra are two miscues

Both were inconsistent and at largely ineffective in the early stages of their careers and were dropped before becoming highly effective - Brownlow placed footballers of elite skill level. Its too early to draw assumptions on Toumpas, who could also have been considered a golden ticket pock on the basis of his best on ground showings at senior SANFL level as a 16 year old. Wines is a ripper kid and a good player but he was always going to have an instant impact given his wombat build. As mentioned by a poster earlier, Macrae would have been the best pick on the evidence to date, for what that evidence is worth.

That is not the case i can assure you. The ridiculousness of this topic all but excludes an understanding of the littany of gun AFL careers that started with very underwhelming first 20 games. Is Toumpas going that much worse than Yze or Trav Johnstone went in their first 15 games

I don't see how the club cannot prioritise towards a key forward. Basically there is only one key forward on the list of any genuine long term value and even he has back stress fractures and is yet to play a game. Clarks future is increasingly murky, Dawes body is unreliable. Ideally the club should try and pair Hogan with a key forward running mate for the next 10 years, similar to Hawthorn's Roughead/Franklin blueprint. Wright's ruck ability makes him an incredibly interesting prospect, he would be, from a structural standpoint, highly ideal and there are other viable forwards as well. Obviously the club have been unlucky that the forward trio havent come up but that there is no young forward on the list, bar Max King, is an oversight. The club has used premium material on Tyson, Vince, Viney, Salem and Toumpas, traded for Michie and committed to Watts playing up the ground, it now needs to invest in other areas a bit more aggressively. Obviously if a priority pick is involved and or a Frawley compo pick, that gives the club a bit more flexibility but the likelihood of the forward talent avallable and our needs point towards that path. Would need to be a terrific mid with pace and elite kicking, a counterpointing compliment to Dom Tyson, to warrant another approach.

His kicking is beside the point in the context of his role, they should bring him in to play on Cal Ward or Treloar, most likely Ward.

If thats the case the club should close its doors. If it cant pick the most talented players it is wasting everyone's time and if it abandons any self-comfidence about it being able to develop talent then it will never succeed. The club needs to, if it gets a chance at this upcoming draft to get high echelon picks, get the best players. FWIW i dont understand the fuss about Dunstan. He's doing what he did in the Sanfl, winning a bit of contested footy and being effective in close and useful on the outside. Everyone knew he would make an instant impact and now all of a sudden 36 touches in two weeks against the likely two worst sides in the comp and not picking him is a grievous error. Getting Tyson and Viney has shored up our stoppages, the club needs quick mids who can win and use the football, not more grinders, there is enough of them on the list - Jones, Trengove, Tyson. Getting some elite talls, in particular a long-term partner for Hogan would be a good play as well. Heaven forbid the club goes for a quick fix at the end lf the year again. Vince and Cross are shoring things up/buying time to allow the club to bring significant under 18 talent in, which is what it should do. Petracca is not the type of player to draft first when you havent got a sound list structure in place.

Hes recovered from a knee reco and basically instantly become their shutdown small back. Thats not a fair comment.

Whether Bennell is soft or not is irrelevant. The fact is he is a talented player, he is quick and he can damage by foot. On that basis it is absolute madness that he was let go and that some of the one-batting dribblers that kick over the heads of teammates were retained. Petterd another limited player with some good attributes was also let go and was the second best on ground last round playing as a combative half-back. Its just poor decision maling by the club.

Problem with calves, having pinged them a few times, is that they appear to have come good quickyly and are ready to go, but often invariably when they are put to the test at 100% intensity, rip again. Assuming Dawes' injury is a calf and it is not spin for a knee or other problem, i suspect he has had recurrent tears or strains, maybe two, and now they are just giving him a month to make 100% sure he is ready. FWIW when i saw Dawes train at Goschs in February i thought he was moving terrifically well, so its very disappointing. The case of gun cricketer Pat Cummins should give us pause re hogan. Obviously no idea te similRity in their injuries but Cummins has barely played and his lower back stress injury continues to reflare. The club really needs to take all precaution to get hogan completely healed. Cummins has played one test and 6 shield games in 3 years and other tall quicks have missed a shedload of cricket.

How did Steve Edwards go?

Think it is a bit harsh criticising the club for front-ending his contract. He signed in 2010 and free agency was enacted in 2012. Think it very unlikely they could have somehow known or predicted the minute details of free agency two years in advance. In any case the nature of the contract may have helped in acquiring Vince and Tyson and at the time the club was doing all it could to keep Chip out of Gold Coast's clutches and the front-loading May have been player/manager driven. I also don't think the restricted unrestricted businesses of great consequence. If he wants to leave the club is almost in an untenable spot trying to keep him and his new club wiill hold the whip hand in terms of creating a very difficult to match contract. Pleasingly if he does leave we will get a nice draft pick for him. Would be very surprised if dunn left.

Whilst it's easy to pot this draft performance and it's a clearly poor haul, very few players taken after Taggert would have made a demonstrable difference. Grigg would have been a good pick but other than that it's almost irrelevant, there just wasn't much talent to get at this picks.

No doubt - Stinger was fantastic any time he played, but like Glenn Lovett they never had much continuity after that year and or played injured. Pike had to go but was a loss, as they all were. Schwarz was jus a freak. Even post 95 they rolled the dice with him coming back to get Ingerson, Turley, Grant but he went down again. As WJ says, Balme was very stiff.

1994 team is without doubt the best melbourne team of my lifetime and the style of the football played by it was exhilarating. Balme had thad fantastic cattle no doubt but what's under mentioned is that we lost a dynasty through awful luck.Schwarz - best player I've ever seen play for Melbourne - knee/never really the same Prymke - quality tall back - debilitating back which killed his career Glenn Lovett - quality midfielder and infinitely better than Nathan jones - Cruelled by Hammies Tingay - all-aus wingman - barely played after this year Lyon - back - never the same after 95 jakovich - back - finished/never played again Charles - cusp of belng superstar forward - never the same post injury Martin pike - effectively expelled from the club At the end of 94 we drafted yze and farmer. It's actually frightening how good that side would have if it stayed together, particularly if Schwarz, Tingay, Lovett and Lyon stayed healthy.

Vince's best football is a lot better than Jones' Sylvia's been going like a busted arse on the track. Been running 12 mins-plus in their 3k time trials.

Had a bad back injury and they thought he was finished so he was delisted at the end of 2002, having not played at all that year. But he had surgery and got through pre-season so they put straight onto the senior list via the Pre-season draft in 2003.

Haha, touche!