nutbean

My McLean and Sylvia post to my mind highlights what you say - it was never about too skinny or afl ready bodies.. I remember the conversation around these two at the time - we need "grunt", more "afl ready" footballers - look how that turned out. I am not sure that all the players in the picture would have turned out good players. But seriously, the odds that none of them have reached dizzying heights is not all due to wrong picks. I am absolutely in the development camp and compounding the problem of putting young talent into our cesspool of club ( as it was then).

I can answer that - he played 31 but as he made seven horcrux's , which meant splitting his soul 7 times - he effectively played 217 games. Life membership at the MFC !

Sylvia and McLean

I want to know how those matchstick legs managed to hold up the rest of Mortons body

do you remember loony Mark Jackson whacking Robbie Flower in a practice match...

"half the salary cap each" ...laughing....

I I'm the same. I am fully invested in all our players but with the understanding that it is now "here today, gone tomorrow".

It was the paper quoting GWS. Call it what you like but there is something definitely "fragile" about McCarthy. Compare him to Trengove. Injured for the best part of two years, almost shipped off to Richmond. Does nothing but knuckles down and gives it his best shot at making it back. I do agree that players have more power than they have ever had but not all - if you are a free agent then definitely, Not that I like the game of "Chicken" but with Hogan, if he wanted to leave and go to Freo - either Freo would have to meet our demands or Hogan can agree to our terms or if there is a complete impasse and he wants out and we want play ball he would have to take pot luck in the draft ( although we are disadvantaged by this). It is a rarity that players sit out because they didn't get to their destination of choice. However it is now a rarity that if players truly wants our that the trade is not done. The players that don't have power are the fringe dwellers - Ro Bail - thanks for your efforts - contract expired - see ya !

One of the papers suggested that there were issues mid year and were working with him.

So when GWS reported that they were aware and working with McCarthy's issues during the last year that didn't really cut any sway with you ? As far as you are concerned he has just thrown a fit because he didn't get his own way ?

Went to a great gig yesterday - Billy Miller has released a new album called "Australia" - love the album ( hate the title ). He played the album start to finish yesterday and was ably backed up by Bill McDonald, Johnny Annis, James Black, Rebecca Barnard and his son, Eddie. He wrote a couple of songs with Paul Kelly ( in a rain delay of the cricket !) so Paul Kelly was also on stage with him and sang. The second set was him doing some of his stuff from yesteryear including stuff from "The Spaniards" - he had Mick Peeling singing with him. ( also saw John Butler Trio on Saturday night - the man is a genius)

I have seen John Fogarty a few times of recent and he gives great concert - he still sounds the same as he did in the 70's

Again, revisionism at its very best. It is just another player that went later in the draft that turned out much better than our pick.

Pretty simple the club must show an upward trajectory - important for most players. We have been a basket case for so long - it is little wonder players wanted to move on. In my mind we are now stable and poised to continue to improve. We must win more games. meet financial demands - that is in our own hands and I don't believe that will be a problem hope the go home factor is not a factor - all noises being made is that he is happy here - I take that at face value.

Picket, if you love Wines then set him free, if he comes back and plays for the Dees then he is yours, if he stays at Port then he never was......

Jimmy was not the flavor of the month - he was definitely the more fancied selection by the experts What I have learned from numerous drafts is that the experts are pretty good at identifying the top draft picks but trying to identify them in order of how they will turn out is nothing more than guesswork - if you go through the top 10 from every draft, they have generally identified the top talent but not one draft would not have a complete reordering - there will always be picks that in retrospect should go higher and others that should be lower and picks that are a complete bust and smokey's that no one really identified - how in in the name of all that is good did Fyfe get through to the selection he did. We were lucky that last year we had picks 2 and 3 - who here is willing to bet who will turn out better ? Petracca or Brayshaw ? We are fortunate we did not have to make that choice. But if we only had pick 2 and not pick 3 as well and picked Petracca - we would be upset if Brayshaw turned out better.

Seriously ? Just type in Jimmy Toumpas and go to the earliest threads and there are umpteen references to Toumpas going in the top three and not making it to our pick - Even Jack Viney in an interview asked who he would take and he nominated Toumpas but further elaborated that he didnt think he would be available at our pick. ( I cannot find the interview but Hannibal refers to the same interview in Nov 2012 - " I heard Viney (Jack) interviewed a few weeks back and he was asked which other player in the draft do you really rate and would love to go to Melbourne and he nominated Toumpas".) So much talk of Toumpas hopefully "Sliding" to our pick. Even enjoying the conspiracy theories of us overpaying for Hogan in exchange for GWS letting Toumpas slide to our pick. Ill set you a challenge - you provide one shred of evidence that Wines was higher rated prior to the draft than Toumpas and was the "obvious" choice and I will then provide double the amount for Toumpas being rated higher than Wines. (FYI - in the first minute of searching I have two from July and September of the draft year).

Actually blantantly right. Newspapers are working off information from recruiters and TAC watchers. Until you provide one shred of evidence that Wines was rated by anyone ahead of Toumpas then your comment referring to "blatantly wrong" is blatantly wrong. Did we get it wrong in hindsight ? no argument. Your comment " Without question Toumpas was in that correct range and the debate between the two was valid at that point in time" is correct but the debate at the time was one sided - At that time it was envisaged that Toumpas would be selected higher than Wines and that is exactly what transpired. I will watch with interest how Parish goes because before any more rewriting of history happens, I will also state that Parish was more highly fancied that Oliver so I expect there to be much hand wringing if Parish ends up a much better footballer than Oliver. However I don't get angry over who we could have had - it is a pointless exercise.

Could not disagree more - I don't care if you look like king kong or twiggy - if you don't have talent - take your bat and ball go home - you are not going to make it. If you are suggesting that you have two equally talented footballers but one is undersized and one is a brute - then it is no brainer. To also suggest that you draft for the immediate playing team flies in the face of what Roos constantly says ( and every expert of the game). You hope for some exposure from your draftee in year one and more output in year two - and established in year 3 - big men generally take longer. Drafting any footballer because they are "ready to go" is folly - Ready to go footballers are the exception rather than the rule. Using Cale Morton body size is interesting - He is 192 cms and played at 88kg ( footywire). Jack Gunston is 193 cms and plays at 85kg ( footywire) - interestingly Gunston doesn't suffer from the same problem as Morton did. Years of watching football shows me that talent is and always will be paramount. I'll give you two more - Adam Saad of the Gold Coast - he is a ripper - all 178cm and 74kg of him. Are you critical of the drafting of Neal Bullen - 182cm and 76kg - 1cm shorter than Toumpas but 5kg lighter. There is no substitute for talent The major difference between Toumpas and Wines is not body maturity/size - it is about talent. Wines is more talented than Toumpas.

I am ! The Ox suggests it and it now becomes fact ? I becomes pretty suspicious of "facts" when no-one actually mentions this "fact" until a year or two after the event when Wines has become a star and Toumpas a washout. What is absolute fact is the Toumpas was higher rated by so called experts than Wines was. (What is also fact is so called experts get their rankings wrong as much as they get them right)

"retrogenius" - those who look back in time, armed with current data and rewrite history - "it was so obvious that Wines was the better choice than Toumpas". As stated previously - these boards may go into meltdown if Parish turns out much better than Oliver as Parish was more the highly fancied pick.

absolutely.... I am still firmly in the "development is king" camp. I cannot fathom that we had that many footballers come to our club that either failed completely or plateaued at "average at best". I maintain that if you get footballers with some raw talent into a cesspool of a club both on and off field and give them no further tuition or nurture them and basically throw them to the wolves they will ultimately wither on the vine ( unless you are a rare driven specimen like Nathan Jones). I also do not think you can downplay having good role models, mature footballers in your club to help transition youth. This has been absent from our club and to an extent is still in short supply. My greatest delight with the Roos appointment is he firmly put development on the table - he constantly talks about and has backed it up by putting a lot of resources into developing our youth - McCartney to my mind, is an inspired appointment.

It will be interesting to see how we go with Oliver as he only came into contention later in the season and touted as our top pick in the last couple of weeks Darcy Parish was certainly "conventional wisdom" for most of the year.

1 out of 3 ...

either on the thread or on certain people in ill fitting white jackets.