bing181

Therein lies the problem in this argument. First up, there's the assumption that Bailey was winning against "better teams", which is just not true. Adelaide at the MCG in 2011 was as easy as it got. West Coast and Richmond in 2010 were woeful. With one or two exceptions, which a few people here still want to take as some kind of norm, we only ever won against the "easy" teams, and were roundly thrashed by the better ones. For where we really were, have a look at our results against a mid-range team like North in 2010 - 2011. Lost every game. Secondly, the list was worse under Bailey? Not in reality. How many of Bailey's wins came with Garland and Rivers in the forward line, and Spencer as first ruck? Many of the players who performed well for Bailey's wins were unavailable or out of form and heading for the chopper under Neeld. Where were our leading goal kickers from 2010 and 2011 (for example)? Gysberts, Sylvia, Martin, Jamar, Watts, Petterd, Jurrah etc. were all solid (or important) contributors to those Bailey wins, but all were injured or paying the price for being injured for long periods in 2012. Throw in others effectively missing or out of form, e.g. Green (getting to be passed it in 2012), Moloney (lost and confused) and even Scully (useful in 2010) how did Neeld have a better team? Or, to put it another way: if Neeld's list was so much better than Baileys, how come we let a third of them leave?? As for the rest of your post ... it's possible, in a discussion, to hold a certain view, without automatically negating the opposing view. Saying that Bailey's team and wins were poor, isn't necessarily saying that in 2012 everything was hunky dory.

You mean the record where we never beat ANY of the Victorian teams (except the odd fluke and our yearly wins against a developing Richmond), and where a lot of the wins came from beating out of town teams at the MCG? Throw into that the odd interstate win (Port in Darwin, Lions at the Gabba) and you have Bailey's wins. As for the 6% against non-startup teams, even that's a stat of your own fabrication. Go back a few years and Richmond were as bad or worse than GC or GWS, and some of the others at that time weren't much better - it wasn't for nothing that Freeo, Adelaide, Essendon and the Dogs all sacked their coaches. Your stats don't really tell much of a story, yet alone the whole story.

I would have thought so as well. Initial prognosis was that he would start running after Xmas, so he seems to be a month or so ahead of schedule ... FWIW.

Didn't we already do that just a few years back?

Correction: We had the 2nd pick in the PSD but chose not to use it. We took Terlich with our last live pick in the draft. To put it another way, we rated him higher to us than anyone who would have been available in the PSD. Hard to see where the problem is ... or could be.

Robbie Campbell. Ex Hawthorn. Rookie'd in 2011.

Because, as we all knew, we were crying out for a KPF - or KPF's. He was the only left at that stage of the draft. No accident that one of the first things Neeld and co. did was to move mountains to get Mitch Clark - and follow it up with Dawes and Hogan. Wtih Cook, we were addressing a (desperate) need. It didn't come off - in the short term at least. On the other hand, could be interesting to revisit this thread in a few years.

No it's not. What you omitted from that is "ditched talent that could be developed ... at another club after having been ditched by Melbourne". There's no guarantee that they could have equalled that development at Melbourne. As an Exhibit A go over to one of the North Boards, and see what Gysberts said about training at North ... he was surprised it was so demanding. So maybe finally the penny will drop for Jordie G. Pity he had to change clubs to realise that you have to work hard to succeed.

Top 4 actually. AND the coaches award. It's a wonder you can sleep at night.

Just when you think you've seen all the tasteless, insensitive posts ...

Fourth in the Bluey, Coaches award, never say die, one of the first picked every week ... Obviously the professionals at the club see plenty in him that you can't.

Not to mention, adding to the possibility that one of our rucks will be useful as trade bait next year. If we picked him up, can't imagine we'd keep Gawn, Spencer and Hannath over the long term, and we still have Clark, Fitzpatrick and some pinch-hitters (Sellars, Pederson). Surely one would go.

Yes, but similar (same) for all athletes at an elite (professional) level.

Agreed - but also, reading an article like this, only brings home how much work goes on behind closed doors, and how little we really know/see of the players.

Yep, we'll just have to cancel the entire pre-season.

Not if they're not fit enough to implement them, or the other team is fitter and thus better able to implement them.

So you didn't mean exchanging the "P" for another letter, one a little earlier in the alphabet? Under the circumstances, perhaps appropriate.

It's an interesting point, much discussed within marketing and advertising agencies ... but a hard copy version is a completely different reading experience. There are still many people (me included) who would prefer to have and hold the real thing, even if the info is available online.

Only in your case.

You were saying that over 3 years he had become a plodder. A plodder doesn't come at the pointy end of a club TT, matching or bettering his PB. As for the rest, you're just guessing. You have no idea what caused his foot injury, and equally because you have no idea what monitoring (or not) was being implemented, you aren't in a position to say whether that implementation was "proper" or not.

Or EPO if you want more red blood cells ...

"DEFENDER Tom McDonald and dasher Daniel Nicholson have taken out the three-km time-trial run at Princes Park on Saturday. The two Demons broke away from the pack to run out joint-winners in front of second-year rookie James Magner. Elite performance manager Dave Misson said the top five was as he expected. “Tom McDonald and Dan Nicholson crossed the line together to win it,” he told melbournefc.com.au. “Then we had Jimmy Magner, who was third, and then Trenners (Jack Trengove) and Rohan Bail came fourth and fifth. “That top five was what I thought would come across the line. They’re times are great and we’re really happy.” You were saying?

You can't be serious ... one season to write a 21 year old off? Based on your assessment, the Brownlow next year is going to be dominated by GC players, after all, that's where all the best 21 year olds are, so it stands to reason, that they should all be bona fide stars by then. Go and have a look at Jobe Watson's first few seasons. Or Swan, Goodes, Goddard ... god knows, there's a heap of genuine stars out there who were all over the shop early on.

Have we seen anything to indicate he will not reach anything like that level? No. Different players, different teams, different coaches and training blah blah blah. For every Murphy doing decently after a season or two, there's a RIch or a Martin who go backwards, and a Goddard or a Swan who are having trouble just holding down a place in the first 22 at that stage of their careers. And if you're looking at Carlton's high draft picks ... where were their other budding mega-stars, Kreuzer and Gibbs this year? Re Murphy: Trengove did better than him (stats) for the first two seasons - and Jack's third has been no worse than his second, in spite of the extra responsibilities, the difficulties at the club, and a complete change of on-field and off-field direction. Also, Jack missed a hefty slab of last year's pre-season, which can't have helped - and now isn't going to help this year either. Trengove is clearly still a work in progress, but there aren't too many 21 year olds already captaining their club and finishing solidly in the top 10 of their B&F. One side-effect of this is that in missing the Darwin camp - which is supposed to be about establishing leaders - it can't have helped his position as a potential captain.

Think you're drawing a long bow there ... I don't know too many (anyone?) who would ever have put Bennell and Cook (and Petterd for that matter) on the same level as Trengove. Doing fine as far as I can see. People often seem to forget how long it took some of the "stars" to become just that, especially in a team with so little real leadership and role models, not to mention, one that's being hammered from pillar to post each week.