nutbean

What a load of hooey ( the article !) The problem is, as opposed to players who have to honor contracts if the club says so, clubs so far have been sympthetic to assistant coaches applying for senior gigs. (lets not mention Collingwoods poaching of a senior coach into a senior coaches role) So let the assistants apply whenever and let them be appointed whenever but be professional like Neeld was and take up his offer when he said I will assistant coach until the end of season. Sanderson also volunteered to stay. You cant have it both ways - either keep the assistant on until seasons end or dont complain if you chose to let them go. I dont think I would like to see the AFL go down the road of making assistant coaches honour their contract if they have a shot at a senior coaches role. (I will admit it is a lot murkier about assistants moving prior to contract end to be an assistant elsewhere)

Our "loyal" senior players have been good at best and have never really taken that next step. I"ll swap you senior player loyalty for some disloyal Judd magic. I want our players to get 100% out of themselves and reach dizzying heights of other stars in the competition. If you want loyalty, buy a dog.

Just when you think you have the whole tears thing under control....... What a magnificent tribute by Garry.

In fact juniors come on quicker when they have a strong core of senior players around them.

Certainly puts a bright spotlight on the uncertainty. well done

I suggest the recruiters be judged on each case. Probably not so much on who they missed but where they have selected speculatively and got it wrong against who they specced on and got it right. and as you point out - more weight should be given to picks 1-30 when judging. You need the judge to be in the know ( not demonlanders). From what we have read pre draft for example. Cook went maybe 4 or 5 places early ( whats 4 or 5 places ?). Howe was about right. Scully, Trengove were right. Gysberts a little early,Strauss definately early but Tapscott slid through to us. So to me i would be judging on the perceived picks that we took earlier than expected. For the record and I have repeated it many times- I beleive our problem is not recruitment - it is developing our recruits. For the record and I have repeated it many times - we have some early bloomers some late bloomers - i dont pot players under 23 as this is when players should be maturing.

Immune from scrutiny? Please see my post where I state clearly that there can be argument made that clearly that Darling was on everyones radar and passed. I have said that we had to make a choice between Niknat and Watts and our recruiters should be and will be judged on that. Strauss is a speccy and BP should be accountable. Not immune at all from scrutiny. But I cannot abide by Scully - we should have known better and picked Martin. It is hindsight about a kid leaving for money.

and have a journo run for parliament and knock the incumbent prime minister out his seat...ohh wait that did happen (i know i know - it didnt last long)

in fairness i have been informed that she puts in the yards herself and watches a fair whack of TAC

well that makes sense - you have outlined a host of reasons of why it is so inexact and host of players that show it is inexact but you wont tolerate that the MFC wont get the inexact, exact.

Damn -thats who they were

Dean Bailey press conference is posted over on 'ology We can have our opinions on Bailey the coach but the man is a class act.

Alien Christensen ?

I had to give it a shot!

I have listened to posters with the luxury of hindsight tell us how we recruited badly and who we should have picked. Lets step up to the plate right now. Name one player after Taggart and Tynan picks who we missed out on (without the benefit of seeing them play). At least that way you can have cred by saying - I told you so at the time.

Since we are all being Captain Hindsight we got Trengove wrong - we should have picked Martin or Sam Reid or Nat Fyfe - all have had a bigger impact than Trengove.

Interesting that Jimmy got his big break because Strawbs was either suspended or injured and Jimmy stepped into the breach a little too well. I stand to be corrected but I think there was a little angst on Strawbs part because he was leap frogged. Does anyone recall that or am i making it up? Edit - up until then he was playing second fiddle with limited time on ground

so we are down to mustache boy in the green shirt

can we name them all. I can see K O'D, viney, one of the febeys, Neita, Connolly,Robbo, Strawbs. Check shirt -is that hoppy? Who is leaning over in pink ? And green tshirt on the right under Connells ? who is that ?

Her good track record on prediction comes from talking to those who do the actual bidding. However I will not dismiss her as quickly as others. I take onboard Nasher's comment that she is good at articulating what she is hearing but I also know she does do a fair amount of her own "scouting". She has experience in watching recruiting teams so maybe this could translate into doing. She does make good judgements from the brief reading of her stuff. If footballers can play for 10 years and be exposed to enough media that they can cross from footy to media who is to say a savvy journalist who is not only skilled at interpreting others information but also gleaning knowledge first hand and has years of focusing on recruiting cant make the cross from journalism to recruiter.

I'll jump in. I think she knows her stuff. I suggested elsewhere that she does get a lot of her stuff from a wide selection of recruiting people and these sources would dry up if she were working for a club.

Interesting notion. Heres the rub - whilst Emma Quale does get out and see TAC football how do you think she is forming her opinions on who will go where in the draft and know so much detail about the juniors. She talks to the recruiters from the clubs.

I re-read and i do agree 100%. You were alluding to niceness, not in our selection but in our treatment of who we selected - hence the softly softly. Cheers big ears.

Really ? I cant understand why students have to study for four to six year course to master it - should be much quicker. So you think they interviewed him and failed to see the character flaws ? Or saw the character flaws but thought they could change him? Again there are a plethora of articles and interviews with the kid predraft that speaks of his professionalism and his frenetic energy with training and bettering himself. I will wait for you to point me to any interview or article where there is a hint of a suggestion regarding his character at draft time. this is pretty simple I think. He was drafted, he got offered to be in the top five paid players in the league. He picked the money. There is no character flaw there. Before you are offered huge money it is really easy to say I dont play for the money. Where he is flawed is that I now believe he lied in his March presser ( albeit in a system that forces players to lie). And there are 6 million reasons that caused this lying to emerge. So you are aware of how easy it is to judge a character ? For certain patterns of behaviour to emerge defined stimuli are required. (6 million dollars of stimuli). Unless that stimuli existed at draft time then no no no - this judgement of character would not have been as easy and evident as you are making out. How about talking to someone in the field and get a professional opinion and then you will be in a position to cast a balanced opinion on how easy it is to judge a character and how we failed. Note - sorry to be so passionate about thisWYL but I think the club should be held accountable for decisions it makes that at the time, with the information and skill at their disposal, was decision that the club ( and most clubs) would not have made. Szondy's regime allowing a tax bill to sit in a draw unpaid until it incurred huge penalties is something the club should be held accountable for. I just cant see how at the time of drafting we should have walked away from Scully.

Everyone failed Captain Hindsights draft Pick one - Dustin Martin ( pick 3) Pick two - Nathan Fyfe ( pick 20) Pick three - Sam Reid (pick 38)