Slartibartfast

Drove my Morris Marshall to the show Nut, loved both. Great days and I still love the music from the play.

Maybe for you but not for me. I'd say his heart wasn't in it because if it was he'd have taken the rookie spot as the majority of others have in the past. Evans would have known he was a marginal play on the list. He would have known that no other club had any interest in him. He would have seen himself behind a bevy of younger and better players and from last year he would have known that he struggled to play Roos' game plan. I reckon there was a good chance he was going to coast through the year and concentrate on his studies anyway - only playing for the money. When the rookie list option was put to him he just thought "you ripper, full pay to study for the year". Good outcome for both parties.

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.

I'd be surprised if you're disappointed. I went to Adelaide twice this year and it's a fantastic viewing ground with a great atmosphere. Both were great matches and I've decided to go to any match we play at that ground. Etihad is a very good ground - I really like it. Fantastic view of the game (which is the primary function of a stadium IMO), easy to get to, central and dry so you always see a good game. The fact we always lose is not ideal. Waverley was a hole. Even with 80,000 there in a final it struggled for atmosphere and you were so far away from most of the game you needed the radio to tell you what was going on. I used to go to Geelong. I won't anymore, it's a shocking ground for opposition supporters, the worst in Australia that I've attended bar none.

King called Neeld very early. I'm not sure if he called for his sacking either, just that MFC had picked a coach who was wrong for the list.

Ahhh, I remember the excitement when Isaac Weetra's name was called out!

Agreed. If we can get fit there will be no more excuses. What was confusing were the regular preseason statements by Jackson and Roos that the Club needed to play attractive football to win back the supporters and yet we went out and played the most boring footy in the competition. It's just interesting to note that under Roos in 2005 when they won the flag the Swans only kicked 8.10 in the GF and only scored more points during the season than the second and third bottom teams. I hope we do add that attacking string to our bow. But I'm making these comments in hindsight and you're not a fan of that!

Good luck to him.

I've no time for Sam Blease but I sense there are a lot here who are scared that he'll succeed. What I do know is that Geelong is a very good club with significant football knowledge and a professional approach and if they have recruited him there is reason to think he has attributes they can use. If he succeeds we should ask ourselves why we couldn't use those attributes. I don't think we'll have to bother but I don't discount the possibility.

Fair enough. I can't fault Roos other than the game plan which I don't like and I fear is out of date. Carlton and Richmond were terrible early last year playing defensive rot and improved significantly when they started to play more attacking footy. PA were the surprise packet again and played attacking footy. I reckon if you don't play fast aggressive footy now days other teams just strangle you. Our last part of the season was terrible but I didn't realize it was as bad as King pointed out. I think the message I took from King was that he thought it was very ordinary as well. He referenced Roos concentrating on defense and added that attack must be added. I agree. We'll see how good Roos is this year because we'll see if attack is added and we'll see if we can match it with other clubs. Brisbane had a better season than us last year despite a rash of injuries to key players and 5 good young players leaving before the season started. They played fast attacking footy. I'm just hoping that's all.

I'd hoped you'd put me on ignore but no such luck. I'm not lecturing Jabba, I'm challenging them to examine their conclusions. It's a distinction you either don't understand or are ignoring. I don't really care which.

I don't agree on this. I'm not sure if it's recorded here and I can't be bothered searching but I put the idea forward before King that we had the wrong coach because he was trying to get a young skillful list to play stoppage "strength" football. It was Collingwood mark 2 are we needed the fast skillful football game plan to succeed. King then came out and said pretty much the same thing. If I could see it then for someone of King's experience and knowledge it must have been pretty obvious. Fact is it didn't "fall he way". He saw it before many and put his nuts on the line and he was right. It always amuses me that posters on DL of unknown status seem to dismiss people like King who have been involved in footy very successfully for a long period. rjay if King's article is so poor why don't you just put together a similar article that doesn't fall into the same headline grabbing laziness that King is being accused of. I really enjoy your contributions but reckon you're miles off the mark here. I'm looking forward to your insights.

If you're asking this why on earth are you reading this forum?

I rate King. He told us Neeld was no good very early with his "mature bodied game plan for a bunch of kids". He was spot on whilst swimming strongly against the tide. There are a few home truths in his article. He tells us our last 8 weeks (which is a fair slab of the season) was in fact no better than our last year under Neeld/Craig. I for one didn't realize that. He tells us we are the highest stoppage team with the worst stoppage numbers. Surely that's concerning. He tells us we are the worst tackling team in the competition. Rather ironic given Roos' ethos and scathing criticism of Richmond's failure to tackle in previous years. Most of the world including DL have unquestioning faith in Roos. King is now questioning that and is one of the first to do so. I don't expect him to be Nostradamus about next year, in fact I'd think less of him if he tried to be. I happen to be in the King camp and have for some time questioned Roos' game plan and methodology. I'm not saying it's wrong, just not accepting as most do here, that "is Roos is good". The reality is that the last third of last season, a time when we should have been adapting to the Roos game plan better, was as bad as we've ever been. That's a worry. I thought it was a good short form article by King, let's face it, he's not writing a thesis he's writing a article to the footy reading public about MFC. Pretty good I would have thought.

Sorry to upset you with the DL groupthink reference P-man, but we all have our barrows to push. I refer to "DL groupthink" on the occasions I reckon it exists and this is one of those occasions. I do think that groupthink is common here and by my reference to it I'm trying to make people aware of it and challenge them to critically evaluate their position.

Newton is in exactly the same position as Michie and Riley last year in that he's a youngish mid who couldn't crack it for a game with his club. Most expected too much from Michie and Riley and I'm just expecting Newton to be a possible mid at this stage. The reality is that if we are to progress we need a couple of the young mids to step up but at this stage I don't think Michie or Riley showed they'd be anything more than dime a dozen mids. I hope but don't expect more of Newton. My hopes lie with Salem, JKH and Toumpas along with any mids from pick 2 and 3 this year. But those guys are young so they will be useful class in a few years. Those trying to find a spot for Grimes need to do two things. The first is to recognized at he is clearly best 22 despite DL groupthink and the other is to remember that Lumumba played midfield/wing for Collingwood and Roos is on record as saying he's pleased to have a big bodied mid added to the squad for next year. IMO Lumumba will play in the midfield.

Morton thrashed Goodes in a game in Canberra. Goodes was very good at the MCG when we beat them but Morton also played well.

Richmond tried desperately to get him after year one. They rated him exceptionally highly.

I think you're right! I just think that while you may mathematically win with Frawley for pick 3 when compared against each other you don't when you factor in the overall team situation. The player questions were rhetorical but from your answers you don't seem to rate key defenders. I do. The ability to shut down the oppositions key forward is one I rate highly, it wins you games. We should probably talk about this over a beer. Cheers

Oil would you trade out Nathan Jones for pick 3 now? He's only got 6 years or so left? Oh, and if you're happy to trade Frawley for 3 because we've got Dunn, Frost and McDonald I think you're placing too much faith in Dunn particularly and still punting Frost. When will you trade out Tommy Mac. Is Hogan gone when he's only got 6 years left? These questions are rhetorical. But you get my drift. At some point you've actually got to put a team on the field that can win and I reckon, without pick 3, we've got the makings of that and we're better with Frawley.

Excellent discussion. Oil just one quick point. Hawthorn didn't pay nothing for Frawley, they paid a slice of their salary cap. The management of their salary cap will determine how they go overall because the opportunity cost is another very good player. I support the system that say we get something if a player leaves. Pick 3 is excellent compensation. In the long term we may win or we may lose but certainly in the short term we lose. Oil you and Axis are blue sky junkies when it comes to footy. I was too for a long time. I think clubs are as well to a large extent and I believe that they rate picks much higher than they should. Roos has led the way by valuing picks correctly, firstly at Sydney where he seemed to pay overs all the time only for people to say "what a great get". He did it with Salem/Tyson last year and now it's talked about more often. Hawthorn took Frawley because they want to perform now, they want flags. Many here are happy with pick 3 because we are building, they want to gamble on the chance of picking up a very good player. MFC is a terrible football team at the moment. We have a bunch of young kids of varying talent running round but basically getting flogged when the good teams play well. The only way we will get better is to start having people on the park who can compete. Frawley could and had 6 or 7 years left of highly competitive AFL footy. He would help Salem, Toumpas etc etc be in a more competitive team. We have been down the youth path in the last 7 years and failed completely. IMO it's because the balance of youth/experience was completely wrong. It led to the premature delisting of many senior players. Frawley's loss is a continuation of that. It takes 100+ games of experience and one of the AFL's best one on one backs out of our team and sticks in an 18yo of unproven blue sky. IMO we've got enough talent on our list to develop into a good team in years to come. Frawley's loss is significant. My initial point was people think we "killed" it with the compensation we got. We didn't. I think we lost, you think we won or at least could get out of it. What I do know is it is a significant moot point and we certainly didn't "Kill" it.

Thanks for pointing that out Jack. Did anyone else think the article on the website was unusually brief? Makes me wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye but probably not.

My reading is that Evans has been told he's got no future at MFC as players like Salem, Newton, Riley, Michie and Toumpas are all considered better options. I reckon he would have been offered at trade but for obvious reasons nobody is interested. His manager would have spoken to all club with no interest. He's asking himself whether to gamble a year on the very long shot that he'll get a further opportunity or whether to just get on with life.

Demonland groupthink. Frawley can't play. It just strikes me as strange that for a player not many here rate the brains trust of the two best clubs over the last 10 years or so fought for his services. Heavens are they dumb or what.

If we pay him out in full now then he gets to play elsewhere (SANFL, WAFL, VFL) and earn extra. If he has been told he won't get a gig for us then I think he is being compensated for early termination by getting his full contract amount.