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One of the accusations hurled at Melbourne in the wake of the disastrous start to the season is that we have a unique ability "to eat our young", in other words destroy young talent rather than nurture it. I must say there is very strong evidence that this is the case. Over the last five years we have drafted or traded for about a dozen first round draft picks. Sure the picks we chose may not have been elite, but they all had elite skills when we drafted them, but in many cases we did not get elite performance out of them. Why is this so? I think it is because we are too impatient and are more than willing to throw these young men to the wolves in the hope of an instant solution. Take Jack Watts. Watts was a school boy when he was in his first year. He should have been nurtured and developed and played all year at school and Casey. But what did we do? We played him mid year in our biggest game of the year, Queen's Birthday. Their was also a promotion going to the effect "walk to the "G" and watch watch Jack Watts be BOG". This promo was officially sanctioned and even had half the Board and Executive (including Jim Stynes) taking part. What happened to Watts that day. I remember seeing him come on the ground half way through the first quarter. As soon as he went near the ball he was crunched by three magpie players and that continued for the rest of the match. Almost from that day forward there has been a continuous "hate Watts" thread on here, and there still is. If you want to get out the foulest bile on this site just mention Watts name on here. In the last couple of years, the general press has picked up a similar theme. Now take Jimmy toumpas. It has started again in here. This kid, barely 18, and moved over here from his home state of SA and reportedly away from his very close family, has had to put up with reading on this site that he is hopeless, we should have drafted Oliver Wines, etc etc. now according to his coaches, and himself, he is down on confidence and is going to try to redeem it from Casey. I suggest that we should be nurturing the sublime talents of Watts and Toumpas. If you don't believe they are sublime, have a look at their junior highlight reels. I watching the quarter and three quarter time huddles for the Essendon / eagles game on Foxtel a couple of weeks ago, and they had the camera in close up on James Heard. He has a very different persona to most coaches, especially MFC coaches. He is clearly very supportive of his players, almost fatherly. No ranting, no raving. And look at the result of that game and how it was achieved. In closing, I should point out that one of the greats of all time, Michael Tuck, played well over 100 games in the a hawks seconds before he played his first senior game. There are are many many others in a similar bracket. I suggest if we had have been more patient we would now be reaping the rewards of the first rounders we have let go: McLean, Gysberts, Maloney (more because we could not tolerate differences), Jolly, Morton, Thompson, we can all think of many more. Unless we start to get this right, and develop a nurturing environment rather than a hostile one to young talent, how will we be able to keep a unique talent like Jesse Hogan, when his contract is up in three years time when every club in Ausralia will be after him.