Dr. Gonzo

We can have midfielders as well. I don't really see how my thinking is too restrictive. Big forwards provide structure and targets for those further up field. Cloke & Clark can be interchangeable if required. Which midifielders do you think we should get if we're not going to spend the spare cash on Cloke? We will be getting some in the draft though I assume you have some lined up for the trade period as well?

Not to be pedantic rpfc but Blease is signed to 2014 not 2015.

Clark would play 0-40 metres from goal, being the high marking, goal-kicking forward. Cloke would play 40-80 out leading up to the wings and being the link man between half-back and getting the ball down to Clark. He can also bomb them from 55-60 out occasionally as well. I don't see the conflict.

Good stuff Sammy Blease, has become one of the most exciting players to watch this year. Can find the sticks too which is always a valuable talent.

They didn't watch the 2011 GF??

I don't know about that - he is after still a highly rated junior who is a tall KPF who take time to come on - the problem is we can't afford to have him on our list. He doesn't suit us but he could fit in nicely somewhere else.

Yep - Green gone, Jurrah possibly, Petterd, Bate, Dunn haven't shown enough/might be delisted, Watts playing down back - Cloke would complement Clark nicely.

This is my problem with Cook - you can afford to have one of he or Watts on the list but not both. Watts is clearly the better player so I genuinely think we should see if we can get a late first round draft pick back for Cook and cut our losses (though even that may be asking too much).

Yeah Micky O I remember this coming up earlier in the year as well and it seemed his contract witht he Pies was up before the current draft - there could be issues regarding the IP being taken from the Pies across to us though.

And Neitz.

He's also the same height as Dunstall and Lloyd.

Recruiters are in a jamb and it is the nature of being in an industry based on speculation - you are only as good as the players you punt on make you look. Of course there are some factors involved including exposure at junior level, comparison to other players, experience in watching junior footy etc which can assist you to make the right choice. But at the end of the day a recruiter is judged years after his job is done based on the output of those he has banked on. Of course there are other mitigating factors including what happens once the player gets to the club (development, outside factors, injuries etc) however for the most part supporters expect that high draft picks are going to produce the goods based on the very nature of elite sportsmen being for the most part their own developmental motivators. This may need reassessing by supporters (and perhaps recruiters as well) as we have a different system to the US where players aren't taken straight out of high school and have a chance to develop and compete against mature bodied athletes. They are also developed through the college system so by the time they turn pro they have the tools to continue their own development to a certain extent despite what happens when they get to the club. Here it is different where development does play a key part after drafting, perhaps more important as the players natural talent. Development is not the be-all though as clubs that generally develop players very well have their own share of stinkers on the board as well (Hawthorn for instance had Muston & Dowler). So putting guys like Morton or Cook into better development programs might not mean a thing at the end of the day. There are several factors as to why we are such a rubbish team at the moment including development/FD investment, recruiting, keeping senior players on too long in Danihers years and not turning over the list/developing new players forcing us to mass cull these senior players at the end of their careers leaving no leaders to aid the new generations development etc- but I think supporters have every right to look at our returns since 2007 in the draft and question why with such consistent high draft picks (almost enough to make an entire team) we are still where we are. I still think things can turn around quickly and I'm glad to see Neeld take a much more proactive approach to trading than any of his predecessors in my time - however if we fail to trade in some more "senior" players I think we will struggle for a couple of years yet and won't really be a good, let alone great, team until Jones, Trengove, Grimes, Frawley etc are all our senior players (so 27-28 yo) which is another 5 years away. I think/hope Neeld understands this which is why he is going hard at the trade table because if he waits for that to happen he will have a very short coaching career. He will not make the same mistakes Bailey did and if he goes down he will go down swinging.

What do you mean by delinquent? What exactly is it that he supposedly did which was so bad and worse than any other normal teenage kid? I'll take the "delinquent" with a bit of mongrel about him over the clean-cut professional (Scully) every day of the week. I've already addressed why your argument "everyone else passed on him so our recruiters can't be held to account" is ridiculous. It is as bad as saying "so-and-so went pick 55 yet we picked a dud at pick 12 so our recruiters messed up".

I disagree with this post almost completely. Firstly, yes Darling didn't go in the first round (and hence every club past him over) however 1) we needed a big aggressive forward, I don't think the rest of the competition except maybe 3 or 4 other teams would have rated him above the other players available at the time to fit their needs - most other clubs went with midifielders/backman/ruckmen we however took a key forward and a worse one than Darling who was well known and still available. 2) I don't care what the other clubs did or didn't do - I am concerned with what the MFC did - slitting your wrists over a player who went at 55 that we didn't pick at 12 is ridiculous however this is a different proposition - everyone knew what MFC needed at the time, everyone knew what Darling offered yet we opted for another skinny project player to complement our increasing list of skinny poject players. So saying "every other club overlooked him" is as void an argument as saying "we should have taken Dangerfield or Rioli instead of Morton" Secondly, the fact that people may not have "howled" at the time doesn't mean they didn't disagree with the choices or that they were correct. It also doesn't mean that we are now arguing in hindsight only. I have stated here that I wanted Talia at 11 and Darling at 12 (actually I wanted Tom Lynch first but he went the pick before ours so Darling was my second wish) - I didn't howl about it at the time because I don't claim to be an expert but from what I had read and seen I thought it was a given we would take Darling if Lynch wasn't available. I assumed that the club and recruitment teams knew what they were doing and had more of an idea than I did so I didn't criticise the club over something that could have been a masterstroke - I gave them the benefit of the doubt that they knew what they were doing however evidently that was wrong and perhaps I should have "howled" about it at the time. In future I will now that I realise that I have just as much of an idea as these guys do about who we should take (particularly in the top 20). I do agree that picking Morton was fair however I would also say that in picking players where they have been highly rated to go shows that our recruiters have a lack of imagination and when they do think outside the box (as in taking Cook over Darling) they get it wrong. Richmond took Martin at 3 when before the draft it seemed we were all talking about Scully, Trengove or Morabito. Richmond didn't just rely on consensus and took who they saw as the best player and it has worked for them so far. When we've done that we end up with a rake who clogs our list for years barely earning a run in the VFL by the end of his first contract. Now I understand big men take time so I'm willing to wait and see but Cook in particular has shown me nothing so far to show that he will reach even 50 AFL games let alone become the champion KPF we need.

What made Darling such a head case? As far as I can tell the suspension was because he, ahem, had a girl in his bed on school camp and he was king hit outside a night club. Hardly cause to hang the bloke.

That was just a crap draft all round though - have a look at the names on the draft board, be lucky to be 10 or 15 of them still on club lists/played more than 10 games.

Redleg I agree 100% - I also thought we would grab Talia at 11 and Darling at 12 and was flabbergasted watching the Foxtel coverage when we didn't pick either. At the time I was surprised but thought "well these guys are paid to pick the best kids so they clearly know what they're doing" however now it is evident that that is clearly not the case at all. It seems like they've tried to be too clever by half. They've outsmarted themselves by trying to pick some "left-field" kids to make themselves look like geniuses down the road by seeing what no-one else could but all they have done is made themselves look ridiculously stupid by taking players at least 20 spots ahead of where they belonged. I also agree about going after the big bodied players rather than the kids with the skinny frames who may never come on - sure you can afford a couple (Watts, Blease) but not half a dozen or more (Cook, Morton, Strauss, Gysberts, Fitzpatrick, Bennell etc). Thankfully it seems like Neeld's team has a different recruitment philosophy it's just unfortunate Tynan and Taggert have battled injury most of the year.

The money is not an issue - Green gone frees up $400-500K/year as will Moloney or Sylvia if either of them go. Davey has one year left and is on $500-600K/year. We have money to burn for the next couple of years might as well spend it rather than pay 92.5% of the cap or give it to players to beef up their contracts when they dont deserve it. Cloke playing 40-80metres from goal leading up to the wings with Clark playing 0-40 out and being dangerous around the goals will be great for our structure.

Attacking the ball, going back off the mark, shepherding, running hard to make another option after dishing off, standing the mark on the mark, not 1, 2 or 5 metres back etc etc All things which are easy to fix which have a large bearing on the state of the team.

I think you're off the money here - culture and leadership aren't defined by disposal efficiency. It is defined by effort, hard work, supporting teammates, supporting the coach by following instructions and enforcing those instructions on teammates etc

I'll take it one further - not only do they plateau after having an upward curve, many of them burst onto the scene showing some talent but are never challenged to excel beyond their natural talents - so plateauing from debut without any real upward curve other than minimal improvement that comes with having mature bodies. Look at guys like Bruce and Green. Burst onto the scene in 2000 making a great impression but never really improved their games other than finding some consistency for periods during their careers. This extends even further back to guys like Yze and Johnstone, players are able to cruise on raw talent without needing to put in the hard work to challenge themselves to work on deficiencies and excel. Less talented players at other clubs have far better and more consistent careers than MFC players who ooze natural talent due to the hard work they are willing/forced to put in to get them to the elite level.

I would be targeting people with no club allegiances, people who are new to the game and the country. People who have no cultural affiliations with a club. I never travel to or through Casey so could be wrong, but it doesn't strike me as an area that has large amounts of these types of demographics despite it's growth. Like I've said before, a club coming out to my suburb to train once a week as a kid and coming to our school wouldn't have made me change teams (nor the vast majority of those I went to school with). Sure we may get a couple of thousand extra supporters/members but that is the very most I could really envisage us getting. I would be starting some initiatives to try and get some new migrants to our games, particular their kids as well as international students. We had one game in early 2010 against Brisbane where we did this and we got 35K to the game (probably the highest against an interstate club bar maybe Sydney) but never followed it up. It just seems lazy thinking, "if we just train in the area and cement ourselves there the people who live there will automatically start buying memberships and turning up to games." That may be true in a captive market like Tassie but in an outer suburb of Melbourne where the residents can choose to turn up to other games and support the teams they already have allegiances to I just can't see how Casey is going to be such a goldmine and growth area for the MFC. No-one from the MFC has really even outlined their strategy and how the expect the results to come besides doing some community camps and visiting some local schools. So how exactly is the affiliation with Casey going to help us increase our supporter base?

I'm not sold that we need Casey - we need to expand the supporter base, yes but I'm yet to see how Casey is the answer. I think they're focusing on the wrong demographic. Not to mention the impracticalities of joining the NEAFL. I don't think it's a coincidence that the three teams not included in this are us North & the Dogs.

According to this article by reputable journalist Kim Hagdorn at Sportsnewsfirst.com all the Vic clubs (except MFC, North & Bulldogs) are going to meet to discuss forming a breakaway stand alone reserved comp. This is something the MFC can't afford to be left behind on, especially considering the farce the VFL has become with 4 byes a year - there seemed to be a period in May where we only played one reserves game for the whole month. http://www.sportsnewsfirst.com.au/articles/2012/08/14/new-league-push-for-afl-power-clubs/

Mattingley - I thought I told you to shave those sideburns! You're off the team!