Slartibartfast

Yes. http://demonland.com/forums/index.php?/topic/37395-welcome-to-the-melbourne-football-club-sam-frost/page-9 And onward. I'm surprised you couldn't do this yourself, but then again, perhaps not.

That's about as fickle as the Demonland thread on Sam Frost. He went from someone that wasn't worth a trade (we'd pick him up in the PSD for nothing) to someone who was better than James Frawley.

Ever thought of picking/not picking him on form? Roos has form on this. JKH. That would overcome this rather brainless discussion of whether he deserves a game round 1 and your premise that "good clubs would do". Good clubs would pick him if he was in the best 22. If he's in ours he plays.

What ever impact he makes in his first year it won't live up to Demonland expectations.

I've just watched the highlights. Makes me realize how difficult it would be being a recruiter. McCartin mauling kids much smaller than him and looks terrific. You'd never get to see the kid play on big bodies and that's who he'll get in his career. Players like Fergus Watts come to mind, Nic Smith, Hanson, Thorp, Dowler and Robbie Tarrant never turned into what they were supposed to be. Then there's Roughy, Franklin, Henderson and Kennedy who probably did. How on earth would you know? Roos is spot on, picking talls is a mugs game and big bodied ones like McCartin doubly so. I'll watch his career with great interest, more so if we select him.

Let me try again. How many picks do we have in the ND as of today....

What am I missing? Roos says we have picks 2, 3 and 40. The Age says we have three picks (this mornings paper). Brett Anderson has us with three picks. With Newton we only have 2 ATM don't we?

If Chip leaves then two Tyson deals would do me!

I think if you read the posts I've made here my concern is that we don't make the mistake of taking a footballer who is not a genuine midfielder. I'm not saying Petracca isn't and that's why I asked the questions I did. In the past we made terrible mistakes by taking footballers who we thought would develop into mids - Blease, Tapscott, Strauss, Bennell and Jetta. And before that the classic example was Sylvia. From what I saw of Petracca, and I've acknowledged that it's only one game, he didn't look like a genuine mid, he looked like a tall flanker who's main attribute was his marking which I don't think is enough of an asset at AFL level. IMO we need a genuine ball accumulator like Sloane, Shuey, Redden, Rockliff and Beams to name just a few we passed on, who can participate in possession chains and has the agility to find space in tight and make and execute good decisions. Clearly the recruiting department will have the necessary information and do due diligence and I'm not questioning that. I'm just discussing the type of footballer we want and asking if Petracca has those attributes.

That's my concern. That won't cut it at AFL level. Think Jeremy Howe.

I get worried about players who rely on power at under age level. Also Trengove tested well but I always felt he was a tall in a small body. I want to see him play like a midfielder with a bit of class. I just didn't see it in that one game.

Can Petracca run? Does he get involved in possession chains? Does he have pace? Does he have excellent lateral movement (agility). How much of his game is built around high marking? Is he a dead set genuine midfielder? I don't know the answers to these questions as I've only seen him play against SA on TV in the champs where I couldn't judge these attributes. I liked Ahern.

What great news. Hogan and McDonald were almost more important than Frawley.

What people seem to fail to realise is that Tommy is a fantastic contested possession player and is rarely beaten. He turns it over. Fancy that from a young key position player. MFC will be desperate for him to extent his contract.

As much as I might agree, we're dreamin'.

I'm not over Tommy. I love him. I'm just hanging out for the contract extension.

Couldn't agree less. It may have happened for someone like Viney had a deal not been done but it wouldn't happen for someone like Stretch. Why would another team risk taking a player they don't want at that pick just so they might force us to take him with an earlier pick? They wouldn't because there is too much risk for them. I doubt other teams would be worried if we picked up Stretch for a "bargain". As for the pick this year I'd be dead against taking a "running HB" or a flanker type. We fell into that trap with Blease, Strauss and Tapscott. Good flanker types at TAC cup level often seem to struggle at AFL level. I want a genuine midfielder or a genuine KP player with our first pick. Leave the flank positions for later picks. It's a pity we didn't keep Bennell, he seems to be developing nicely at WCE and was always the type of player who would take time.

I don't revere Flanagan as many do here. I like him but he's as capable of ordinary articles as most. He rarely tackles difficult issues and most of his features are feel good topics. Pretty easy stuff and he does it well. I also like Caro regardless of her critical attitude to us during the tanking investigation. Murphy provides an insight into the life of a footballer and intelligent one at that. I'll probably learn more from Murph and Caro than Flanagan. Each to their own. It takes all kinds Binman!

Bob Murphy is easily my favourite player outside the MFC. He has a lot of the qualities of Robbie Flower. He's also a fantastic journalist up the in the class of Flanagan. He's written a great article in the Age today about the incident with JKH which is well worth a read. It will be a sad day when Murph hangs up the boots.

This game was against Box Hill and he was terrific. Hurt his back that game and didn't recapture this form. I was disappointed when he didn't get another go but Todd Viney was there for his entire time and would have had a good handle on him and been able to assess how much of his failure was due to ability/application and how much was environment. And I think his delisting has been mitigated by the recruitment of Michie and Riley particularly as they are similar ages and ability. I'll watch his progress with interest as I reckon there is a fair chance he'll get another crack.

I go to round 1 every year............................

You're a bit touchy lately Ben. I was serious in about the info you put up on the Swans. It's an amazing performance and frustrating when you realize what we've done in a similar time frame. Anyway chip up old son, not all of us are taking the pizz when we respond to you!

He would have taken Rob Murphy with pick 5 from 1999 and his choice of best available in 2001 was James Kelly. But I take your point.

Wow, amazing.

Excellent post Scoop, as ever well thought out and presented. It's always interesting to look at historical perspectives to understand the present and looking at 2006/7 is a good example. I doubt many would take issue that the list was tired and that we had a big hole in our list regarding leaders and this caused us to fall and fall quickly. WJ has talked about the failure of recruiting in 2004, poor trading of Jolly and a failure to trade in players. But I think in retrospect this doesn't identify the two main reasons we found ourselves in the positions we did. IMO it starts in 1998/9 when we decided to investigate our TPP compliance of the mid '90 when we subsequently found it to have breached AFL rules. We told the AFL and received fines and draft penalties. I didn't support fessing up at the time but recall being in the minority. It's a little like Carlton now going to the AFL and saying "I know the investigation into tanking is over and I know you don't want to hear this, but we tanked and we're holding a presser to tell everyone at 2.00pm". The '90's salary cap rorting was a dead issue when we fessed up and the AFL didn't want to know. It staggers me we confessed. As a result we lost three early draft picks over 2 years and were fined. Those draft picks were in 1999 and 2000 and those players would have been in their middle 20's in 2008 when our rebuilding started. The second thing that happened was a bloke called Ian Johnson. A Board member from the "establishment" and very well connected. He went on television, during a big dinner and botched what I think he meant as a vote of confidence in the Chairman. It came across as a challenge to the leadership and all hell broke loose mid season and completely derailed what was a poor season anyway. This disruption flowed through to the footy department and our recruiting in the 2001 ND where we had three picks in the first 25 or so was nothing short of a disaster. As a result we had a hole in our list spanning 1999 to 2001. To make matters worse we lost Scott Thompson, our only 1st round pick from 1999 -2000 penalty period getting in effect Moloney in return. That group of players that was lost due to factors largely outside the control of the FD resulted in a large hole in our list which was devastating when we ran out of steam in 2007. I don't think the trading of Jolly was a significant loss to the club. IMO Jeff White did a fantastic job and when he left Jamar was a worthwhile replacement. Furthermore I don't think our position in 2007 explains where we are now. IMO the Saints around 2000. Footscray around 2003 and Hawthorn around 2005 were just as poor as we were in 2008. Within 8 years all those clubs, with solid rebuilding, played competitive finals footy. We are the exception. So there is no doubt we were poor in 2007 and poorer than perhaps we should have been but there is no nexus between that and where we find ourselves now. We are poorer now than we were in 2007 and we've had 7 years to rectify that situation. The only other club that's stuffed things as badly is perhaps Richmond. Let's hope we are now on our way.