Hannabal

Even if he went as far as not nominating for the draft it won't help us.

Because we came last.

You might be right, but Jurrah plays like a classic full forward. I know he's not kp in build, but is it a stretch to call him the second tall, especially the way the game is now played ? He's taller than Micky O who played as the second tall for 10 years.

We won the battle, but the war is almost lost.

I think I would have said that Richmond were still a very good chance for the spoon, but I doubt I said that I saw "Scully in Richmond colours". The bottom line is we don't need to win the spoon to still get Scully.

As others have mentioned, we'll beat Freo at the G. We could beat North, but I doubt it. The Richmond game is the key. Whether it be by list management, or Richmond winning on their merits, I reckon we will lose that game. I still reckon that Scully will be a Dee. But I'm very nervous.

Love the name The Cougar.

All of that. It was a hollow feeling. I never wear much club paraphernalia, but usually have a scarf on. I deliberately didn't take it yesterday as it would have been hypocritical. And good post Real Demon.

C'mon ! You're the teacher. It's not hard to work out. I'll even correct it for you.

Scully is the first pick whether it's the Dees, Freo, or Wagga Wagga thirds. Some stupid people post on here.

Who in the hell cares who knows or senses what's been done ? It's not hard to do if you're serious.

As Godemons said to me at the G today, we always beat Port here even when we're [censored]. Nothing to be excited about by today's result. I left feeling glum.

We'll know how ruthless the club is over the next few weeks. Five wins will be diabolical. Unless of course you're a supporter that is satisfied not seeing another flag any time soon. And yes, amazingly it's not the be all and end all for many of you.

And I.

How you could not care about getting gifted a free pick in the top 3 is beyond me. "Here, have Griffen for nothing". "Oh, no thanks, we're right".

With the way Watts' every move is scrutinised and analysed he must at times feel like Truman Burbank. Watts' played very well yesterday. I didn't expect him to get much of it. He played as a 197+cm wingman in slippery conditions and a howling gale; and ended up with 26 possessions plus a goal in less than 3 and half quarters. He's been recruited as a key position forward, but the club are protecting him while he develops into his body as well as giving him miles in his legs up on a wing because his training has been so restricted. With Miller and Newton as the focal points in attack and Watts playing on a wing it wasn't his role to fly for marks against his teammates. Watts is a very smart footballer. Some players look for body contact all the time and others will avoid it if it's advantageous to do so. Watts will go if it's his turn and I've not seen him avoid one contest that he really had to endure, but I have seen him avoid contests that other players wouldn't have because it was the sensible option. Whether that has involved running around a player giving a shepherd or deliberately keeping his feet so as to not rule himself out of the next contest. He's not the type to knock blokes over just to make a statement - yet. How many guys at his height have such agility, pace, and skills on either side of their body. Plus a real footy brain. He's something special is young Jack, but the nuffies on here have to be a little more patient while Truman develops into what is going to be an imposing physique. Some of these threads will be fun to bump in a few years.

Exactly right. Geelong were reduced to almost Melbourne's level without Ablett, Scarlett, Johnson and the borderline top 6 in Ottens and Ling. And how competitive were Freo without their two best players in Pavlich and Sandilands ?

No, we would still get pick 1 in this scenario as the pp we get is before the start of round 1 picks; and Freo or Richmond won't clarify for a pp before round 1 of the draft, but instead before round 2 of the draft. To qualify for a pp before round 1 a team must win less than 18 points in two consecutive years, and it would only be their first year under this criterion.

Carlton don't have a "star top 6" yet though. Murphy is a good young player, but still turns the ball over with his disposal; Gibbs doesn't win his own footy yet, or hurt the opposition on the scoreboard; Simpson is a good player but no star; Waite is obviously injured and Fevola plays on his own terms. I said in my OP that Carlton's top 6 is presently overrated and you're falling into the same trap. I believe that their current position on the ladder pretty accurately reflects the rating of their top 6. Also, stars make others around them far better players. We'd all be able to give examples where a seemingly very good player has gone to a struggling club and pretty quickly been found out to be no better than average; Heffernan and Blumfield immediately come to mind, but there'd be stacks more. The point being, if you assemble elite top end quality the ripple effect through the team is palpable. In other words depth becomes a by-product of an elite group of top players. Finally, it just doesn't make sense that the bottom 6 of a team's 22 can possibly effect outcomes of a match equal to the stars in the team. Just keep looking at the ladder from year to year. The evidence doesn't lie.

I touched on the importance of a club’s top 6 in another thread and thought that it would be a worthwhile exercise to evaluate the whole competition’s top 6. For those that didn’t read the post in another thread let me expand. A few years ago Craig Cameron effectively denounced the widely held belief that “a team is only as good as the bottom 6 of its best 22”. He argued and conclusively proved to me that a team is only as good as it ‘best 6’. He pointed out that if one analyzed the end of year ladders over recent seasons there was a strong correlation between the ‘H&A’ ladder at round 22 and the quality of a club’s top 6 players. In most cases the ladder at year’s end mirrors the quality of the team’s top 6 players. Naturally, it won’t be absolute due to vagaries such as injury, but the pattern is undeniable. And it’s not to say that the bottom 6 isn’t important to a team’s flag chances, as we know that all great sides have good depth, but it’s the stars that determine how well a team can be built and how deep it will go into September. Carlton is a prime example that ‘no depth = average team’, plus I reckon their top 6 is currently overrated, despite Judd at the helm, as their young are still a couple of years away. I’ve long held the belief that stars win flags and that our dearth of genuine top shelf stars has precluded us from ultimate glory even when we were regular finals contenders. Whilst our very best players since the AFL officially came into being in 1990 delivered sustained periods of success and many Finals appearances they fell short of being the games elite. More importantly, we haven’t had the champion midfielders that are almost always required to ensure a premiership. This gets back to the quality required in a team’s ‘top 6’. It’s no coincidence that Connolly and Prenderghast have both earmarked in a recent article that it is players that have the ability to become “stars” that we would be targeting in the upcoming draft. It’s our lack of quality in our ‘top 6’ that more than anything else sees us languishing at the bottom of the ladder. I’ve listed the players I believe to be the top 6 of all clubs below. It’s always a little subjective, but it won’t be far off. The players aren’t named in any particular order and I’ve included a couple of line-ball players of each team in brackets. Would Geelong’s second ‘best 6’ be stronger than our ‘top 6’ ? The clubs are in alphabetical order: Adelaide - Thompson/Edwards/Goodwin/McLeod/Rutten/Bock (Vince/Porplyzia) Brisbane - Brown/Black/Power/Adcock/Bradshaw/Drummond (Clark/Brennan) Carlton - Judd/Fevola/Waite/Murphy/Gibbs/Simpson (Stevens/Thornton) Coll - Swan/Didak/Davis/Pendlebury/Fraser/Lockyer (Cloke/Presti) Essendon - Watson/McVeigh/Stanton/Lovett/Lloyd/Fletcher (Ryder/Winderlich) Fremantle - Pavlich/Sandi/Duffield/Hasleby/Mundy/Schammer (McPharlin/Palmer) Geelong - Ablett/Chapman/Bartel/Selwood/Johnson/Scarlett (Corey/Ottens/Ling) Hawthorn - Hodge/Franklin/Roughead/Sewell/Mitchell/Rioli (Lewis/Bateman) Melbourne - Green/Davey/Sylvia/Bruce/McLean/Moloney North - Harvey/McIntosh/Simpson/Wells/Rawlings/Petrie (Swallow/Firrito) Port - Cornes/Cornes/Burgoyne/Cassisi/Boak/Tredrea (Chaplin/Salopek) Richmond - Richardson/Bowden/Deledio/Foley/Tuck/Tambling (Cousins/Jackson) St. Kilda - Riewoldt/Hayes/Goddard/Dal Santo/Montagna/Koschitzke (Ball/Gilbert) Sydney - Goodes/Kirk/O’Keefe/J. Bolton/McVeigh/Jolly (C. Bolton/Shaw) W/Coast - Cox/Kerr/Priddis/Embley/Lynch/Selwood (Wirrpanda/Stenglein) Bulldogs - Cooney/Cross/Lake/Murphy/Boyd/Higgins (Johnson/Giansiracusa) Some of those 'top 6' are ageing, some in their prime, some still on the j-curve, and some all three. As at the end of round 14 the AFL ladder is as follows: Saints Cats Dogs Pies Crows Lions Blues Bombers -------- Power Swans Hawks Eagles Roos Tigers Dockers Dees Other than Hawthorn, would there be much change to a ladder of ‘top 6’ quality ? Hawthorn are the odd ones out due to the vagaries of injury, a late preseason, players having operations too late last year, being the hunted, etc, but overall Cameron was right. If you asses the quality of all club’s ‘top 6’ players you’ll find that it won’t be far off mirroring the league ladder. It’s another reason why a PP is a must at year’s end. Scully just isn’t enough. We need quality and then some. With Grimes, Watts, Morton, Garland, etc, the talent is coming through, but it can’t come quickly enough. And much more is needed. This is my order of the teams ‘top 6’ ladder: Cats/Saints Hawks Pies/Dogs Lions/Crows/Port Swans/Blues/Bombers The rest How far off the current ladder ? So when supporters try and predict our rise up the ladder keep in mind how far behind we’re coming from. For example, when our ‘top 6’ is finally ‘Watts, Scully, Grimes, Garland, Morton, and Blease’ then we’ll be well on our way to sustained success. It’s some time away, as most realize. And yes, there are 40 players on a list and it’s not just about your best players but building a great team through quality depth. The point remains though; it’s stars that win flags. Just look at the ladder. NB: Melbourne was just about the hardest ‘top 6’ to assess. I can understand why supporters that aren’t overly enamoured with Moloney, Bruce, or McLean would say “they’re not in our top 6”, but their present value to the team suggests otherwise. But before supporters lose the point and start saying “what about Rivers, or player X”, just remember we’re crud for a reason and have little top end quality at all. So by all means insert the player you feel should be in our top 6 as it won’t change our position one iota on the ladder of ‘top 6 best’.

Bump Interesting thread on a re-visit. Some people have foresight, like the poster at #40 in this thread and others don't. Especialy taking into account this article in today's HS http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/afl/our...tner_in_grimes/ Rhino's, Hazy's and Lord Travis' contributions were particularly enlightening :D

You don't see Garland as a genuine tall, but you like Talia because he could be the next "Paul Roos" ? By your definition, Paul Roos wasn't a genuine tall because he was 188cms; Garland is 191cms - taller than McNamara. You claim Garland can do "special tasks" from playing "on a nimble small forward or your standard half back flank role or to play on those pacy roaming talls like Riewoldt & Richardson etc", yet you don't see him as a tall ? He's also done well on Franklin. Garland is the modern day prototype running tall. We've got Frawley who was able to outbody Lloyd on occasions, Warnock for similar bulk forwards, and Garland who like Rivers has the uncanny ability to get his fist on the ball at the last moment without infringing. Warnock lacks class, but has improved immeasurably over the last couple of years and bear in mind that the days of the "gorilla" forwards is presently just about shot. I think I know what you're trying to say, but I don't agree.

Colin Garland

I don't have complete faith that they'll do it. But I can't imagine them not doing it. Good post GNF.

The bolded comments are another area where we disagree. I suspect that you'll be in the majority and me the minority, but I reckon that this club has been a soft touch for decades. And it shits me no end. Give me a ruthless, or 'no holds barred' mentality, anytime. That said, I also acknowledge that for many years we've been beholden to the AFL for obvious reasons, which means that the 'tough guy' approach I'm advocating hasn't been a realistic option. Norm Smith was a man of integrity, yet ruthless at the same time. Perhaps that's the balance I'm looking for. As stated, I'm happy to win 4. You see that tally of wins as an Everest we can't reach. My postings on this thread haven't really been concentrating on whether we can or can't, but more the philosophy of what we should do in such an "unlikely" situation.