Slartibartfast

I'm not sure what this means. Melbourne to nominate Billy Stretch as father/son draftee Are we committed? Why would we declare our intentions? Full preseason? If we are committed we must be confident of where he will be picked.

My biggest disappointment for the year was the complete failure of Roos to get anything out of our early picks - Strauss, Tapscott and Blease. He got something out of Watts, just not enough and of course Trengove was injured although he was dropped to Casey prior before retiring for the year. Neeld as we all know was not a coaches bootlace and I hoped that his approach was the reason these guys had faltered. I hoped that a couple could come good and turn into good AFL footballers. But no. Interesting, in talking to two people involved in FD of other clubs this year Blease name came up. One said he wouldn't have picked him if he had been the last player in the draft and the other said they were stunned when we picked him at 17 as they didn't have him in the top 60. Having said that he did polarize opinions as when I was at the club and Blease was injured there were a lot of enquiries from other clubs about him. I'm not blaming Roos for this failure by the way, I'm blaming Barry Prendergast. He clearly was seduced by skilful footballers and overlooked competitiveness. Watts, Strauss, Blease, Gysberts, Cook were all early picks who really lack AFL competitiveness. In his defence 2009 was a terrible draft in retrospect and 2008 hardly a good one either.

Nice effort Joeboy, I always read your 3 worder. Another shocking season gone, finished and dusted. I'll miss not going to the footy next week.

Fair point. I haven't done the analysis but I suspect most clubs have players drafted late. We get ok players late but nobody "special"! Bloody frustrating.

Perhaps what it shows is the attempt to equalize the competition is more difficult than it appears. There is no doubt our underfunded football department over the last decade has been one of the major factors in our failure. Recruiting is a rare skill, few can do it. Until we get someone that can we will struggle. Lets hope Jason Taylor and Todd Viney have the smarts.

Well you dismissed my contention that we should review the game plan with "the game plan is fine". I took that to mean there was no need to review it because "it's fine". Also I said not many outside the club understood the "full" game plan. Clearly from the outside we can see aspects of GP's but it's hard to know the details including set up at stoppages and specific player roles in given situations. Clearly you and I differ. You seem to contend it's purely the players. I don't think it's that simple. Game plans and strategy change continually. We should make sure ours is effective. I'd suggest our list is not so bad as to score an average of less than 10 points a quarter for a full game 6 times in 20 games. Neeld got better offensive results. You disagree with me. That's fine but don't close your mind to the fact you may be wrong. I not saying the game plan is definately wrong. I just want it reviewed with the same honesty that Roos assesses the players. I can't see the problem with that.

It's this sort of dogmatic refusal to review all facets of the football department that will hurt us. And to be honest I don't know how you can say that because I don't think many outside the club know what the full game plan is. It appears to me we play the most defensive style in the AFL. In recent times Richmond, Carlton, WC and Adelaide have improved significantly coinciding with a change in their game plan - that is to move the ball quickly forward and to play on where they can. We don't do this. Interestingly when we beat Essendon we did do this in the last minute when the imperative was there. We've kicked less than 40 points six times so far this season. That's mindbogglng. If you think this is purely the players I think you're kidding yourself. I recognize we needed to address the way we leaked scores but there are two sides to footy and we are ignoring one. I don't think we can do that and succeed. We need to develop a methodology that kicks more goals.

He said he was responsible but he didn't say he'd coached badly. He made general comments. Sort of like the buck stops at the top. I hope that internally he and his coaching group examine the game plan because to be honest it's putrid. Roos and Jackson both talk of a game style that people want to watch. Well the truth is that we are the most unwatchable team in the AFL. To be scoring less than 10 goals a game is a disastrous outcome. I accept this year MAY be the first step in a grand plan but I also think it's worth asking the question as to whether the game has moved on while Roos has been in the media and he's out of date. If this year is the first step we need to be told because supporters who are welded on are starting to walk. He'll evaluate the players at year end. I hope he evaluates himself and his game plan as well.

Was there a player review this week? I can understand if there wasn't. I don't know how Strauss went but it's disappointing he doesn't look like getting a go this year particularly as he seemed to be part of Roos plans during pre-season. In the sessions I saw he was a stand out but unfortunately it hasn't translated to senior footy. I wonder if he's delisted if we'll rookie him in the hope of "getting another Jetta".

Watching that game was a joy and reminded me of one of my favourite players in Steven Stretch. As a player he was seriously underrated because of the GF incident in 1988 but he showed no lack of courage in the game shown last night and it's sad so many have decided to brand him as they have for that one incident. Great player, terrific bloke and I'd just love his son to have a good career at the MFC.

There is no shame in "getting it wrong" when judging players. AFL recruiters do it all the time and they know much more than we do and they have so much more information. What I dislike is the bitterness and bile that gets thrown at these players by people who have probably never reached anything like that players level of expertize. To them footballers are some sort of comic book heroes that owe the supporter some sort of joy. When they fail to deliver many act like spoilt little boys who lash out and throw a fit. I also just love it when a player like Nev "makes" it. Against the odds and with some limitations in what he can do he's now become a very important part of the team and a very valuable contributor. And these same people who throw the bile and bitterness in the direction of players like Jetta now rejoice with no sense of how hypocritical they are and no thought that perhaps they should rethink how they judge players in future. Well done to Nev in particular because this thread is about you but also well done to players like Ricky Petterd, Jamie Bennell and Stef Martin who are establishing careers at other club "against the odds".

At least he'll have someone to talk to .

Ripper, thanks.

I'm prepared to bet a good bottle of Shiraz (not that crappy Pinot OD drinks) that he doesn't get ANY Brownlow votes in his first three games. Let me know!

Neither got 3 Brownlow votes in their first three games.

If Watts is as bad as many think and not doing the "non negotiables" why has he played every game and never been subbed? Has it occurred to you that either you're wrong or Roos is a dud? That proposition puts many here between a rock and a hard place. Perhaps we should have a poll on which it is!

. Oh dear, a cold day, an open fire and a bloody Pinot. That's a MFC supporter for you.

Saty was Jamar training with the seniors? I suppose with Pedersen out Jamar is safe but boy he's lucky.

But in 2011 we were in the 8 after 14 rounds. The Guardian article is interesting and probably spot on the money in that the Stynes/McLardy/Schwab team did well until the early part/middle of 2011. From there it was all downhill. Oh Jack, I now see what you mean by your bite! Don't you like Barracuda's?

Can't fault it really. Makes depressing reading. To think we were in the 8 after round 14 in 2011 and people said Bailey couldn't coach.

I thought you'd bite. Yep, CAC stuffed up 2007 and then Prendergast 2008 - 2011. Viney was 2012 and Taylor 2013. I think that's right anyway. I knew Barry and thought he was a clever footy person but he was a disaster although as Goodoil points out he was not dealt the easiest of hands. There's no doubt the Gardner Board dropped the ball after a good start and Stynes/McLardy did the same after clearing the debt. Stynes/McLardy never got the footy dept right. The reality is we've had poor CEO's from about John Anderson on and I must say I'm surprised Schwab didn't do better after his time at Freo. I think history is starting to show the late Dean Bailey in a much better light and had he had good funding and a unified club and an experienced head recruiter he may have been an excellent head coach. All he probably needed was Peter Jackson employed on the same day he was. Onward and upward. I'm just hoping this stumble by Roos is a one off and not a sign of battle fatigue.

Great and thoughtful analysis as ever Goodoil and you've detailed the impact of the expansion teams on us. But my point was that by the time the expansion teams came in we'd had a pretty good go at early picks. Morton, Grimes, Maric, Watts, Strauss, Blease, Scully, Trengove, Gysberts and Tapscott were all top 20 picks in the three years prior to the expansion clubs coming in. We traded pick 12 for Clark and used the other on Cook. We now appeared to have made a questionable call on Toumpas when Wines and others in the top 10 are flourishing. You are clearly right that we'd probably be better off if the expansion teams hadn't come in but so would everyone else. And we mucked up not one but the vast majority of our 10 top 20 picks in 3 years. If we had got those closer to right then we wouldn't be talking about our current situation. But I agree with much of what you've said. Scully/Trengove was a shocking year and the Watts year wasn't much better. We've been desperately unlucky this year with Hogan and Clark. Your point on FA is very good. Scoop I agree with just about everything you've said. I think Roos has FU with his tanking comments - he's given the topic oxygen again and he's off the mark IMO. His post game presser was terrible as I've already stated. I wonder how much is frustration, how much is protecting brand Roos and whether there is a hidden agenda. It's interesting that he talks about 7 years as that corresponds to Gardner's exit pretty much putting a line through Jack's theory. If Roos had said after Sunday's loss "we have improved this year but this was an awful loss with terrible skills. It's not representitive of where we are but every now and again a young team learning a new game plan will have days like this." all the focus and bad publicity around our performance and past ineptitude would never have come up. I hope he's acknowledged that to Jackson and the players.

You can spin it anyway you like Jack but it wasn't the Gardner Board that allowed Schwab to build his empire with $1.8 million in admin salaries that Jackson has been able to shed - annually. Imagine what even part of that money could have achieved over his period of management. It wasn't the Gardner Board that was so flush with money that they lent Schwab money for his own use from MFC coffers whilst underfunding the footy department. It wasn't on Gardner's Board that we squandered so many draft picks and completely failed to rebuild where so many others had. The reality is we were in a poor place when Stynes replaced Gardner and with all the opportunity in the world and more money than Gardner ever had we are just a rabble after 7 years. Stynes, Schwab, Connolly and McLardy missed a golden opportunity to build our club and in fact it's a moot point that they achieved anything positive at all. Along with Richmond we are the only club to fail to rebuild given the opportunity we had. Synes can blame Gardner, Gardner can blame Szondy, Szondy can blame Gutnick and so it goes on. The further back it goes the less relevant it becomes. I think you are one of the very very few that believe any significant part of our current situation sits with an administration which was replaced 7 years ago.

Oh Saty please: Melbourne: Maric, Morton, Strauss, Blease, Scully, Trengove, Gysberts, Tapscott, Cook, Toumpas, Watts. All top 20 picks (Maric 21) and not a B+ player amongst them. And 5 of them are top 5. Spin it any way you like, they are just awful numbers. My point Scoop is he handled it poorly. Just because we know how bad it was doesn't mean Roos has to throw petrol on the fire with his comments. "We had a shocking day today etc etc etc...... but it was not typical of the year". That's what he should have said. Because that's right. Roos should have been calming the waters not igniting them. I think it was a terrible performance by him. I also think his continual reference to "from where we've come from" is unnecessary and overused. His "with no disrespect to those that went before me" just continually highlights how poorly those blokes did. Don't get me wrong, I still fully support him but like the players, he had a shocker on Sunday.

Couple of comments: 1. Caro's article is right. It's not nice but it's right as she is most times. She's been knocking us for years. We've been shocking for years. 2. Schwab, Connolly and Stynes are to blame for where we are now. They employed and maintained an understaffed and skilled FD whilst Schwabby was buying desks and building management mega-structures. Jackson cut $1.8 million from the salary budget this year and didn't impact the FD salary budget, it all came from admin. The mind boggles. And while he was doing this we employed a bloke with no experience to head recruiting when we had low picks in the most critical time of our rebuild. 3. For all I think Robbo is awful and he can't write he's right to question the Roos outburst on Sunday as is Thomas. Our skills were awful but so were Roos public comments. They were just extraordinarily awful. 4. Robbo is right. We've kicked a lower score this year on average than we did last year. FM, concentrate on defence by all means but for all the improvements this is a monumental issue. 5. The myth that it's the expansion clubs that stopped us rebuilding is dumb. There were two years of expansion drafts and we had pick 12 in each. In our two PP drafts the expansion clubs didn't get a pick. 6. The greatest failure of this club was to pick the right players. Put in all the equalization measures you like, the club that has the best recruiting department will beat the others. 7. The over reaction to Sunday is mind boggling. We led Brisbane into the last quarter. We should have beaten PA in our match before that. We, as a supporter group, are disappointed about not winning this year - that alone is a massive improvement. The media hysteria this week is because Roos FU his post match media conference. The match was awful, the skills were awful but it was not typical of the year to date. After PA he praised the players. After Brisbane he likened them to the worst he'd ever seen. The players don't change, their performance on the day did as did Roos'. I like Roos but he's not above criticism. He should be taking plenty for the heat he's bought on what he knows is a playing group still struggling with the past. He achieved nothing with his performance on Sunday. When he puts his head on the pillow at night he knows he FU very badly.