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Flogging a bit of a dead horse here, but thought I'd go through and analyse the drafts of years gone by. When you look at it in the cold light of day, our drafting was so utterly deplorable between 2006-12 that it truly beggars belief. Have a look at this (position of the player in brackets): 05 - N.Jones (mid), S. Buckley (mid/flanker), Bartram (flanker/mid) 06 - Frawley (kp), Petterd (flank), Garland (flank), Weetra (flank) 07 - Morton (flank), Grimes (flank), Maric (flank), Cheney (flank), McNamara (flank), Martin (ruck), Woenemirri (flank), Valenti (mid) 08 - Watts (kp/flank), Blease (flank), Strauss (flank), Bennell (flank), Jetta (flank), Bail (mid/flank), Jurrah (flank), McKenzie (mid) 09 - Scully (mid), Trengove (mid), Gysberts (mid), Tapscott (flank), Gawn (ruck), Fitzpatrick (ruck/kp), Joel MacDonald (flank), Newton (kp), 10 - Cook (kp), Howe (flank), Davis (kp), McDonald (kp), Nicholson (flank), Evans (flank), 11 - Taggert (mid), Tynan (flank), Sellar (flank/kp), Sheahan (flank), Couch (mid), Magner (mid) 12 - Toumpas (flank), Viney (mid), Kent (flank), M. Jones (mid), Terlich (flank), Stark (flank), Clisby (mid), Hogan (kp) 13 - Salem (flank), JKH (flank), Hunt (flank), Harmes (mid), King (ruck), Geourgiou (flank) 14- Petracca (mid), Brayshaw (mid), Neal-Bullen (mid), Stretch (flank), Oscar McD (kp), vandenBerg (mid), White (flank) The thing that stands out to me looking at this list of names is the bizarre oversupply of flankers that we've drafted into this club over the years. Obviously there were hopes that some of these players would eventually turn into AFL midfielders (e.g. Jack Grimes, Cale Morton, Sam Blease) but clearly player development at the MFC has not been up to snuff. When you look at who runs through our midfield in 2015, besides captain Jones, Father/son Jack Viney, and 1st year Brayshaw, it's a moneyball list of stop-gaps and who's who from other clubs: Lumumba, Garlett, Cross, Vince, Tyson, Newton, Michie. While I admire them all and cheer them on always, they are a rag-tag bunch of discards and wantaways from other clubs, some of which couldn't get a look in at the more successful clubs. I guess its not a really big surprise why our team has been so bad. The core of a good midfield has to develop and grow together over a number of years, think Judd, Cousins, Kerr, Cox. What about Voss, Lappin, Black, Ackermanis. Or Lewis, Mitchell, Hodge. Try on Ablett Jr, Kelly, Bartel, Johnson and now the competition gold standard: Mundy, Fyfe, Barlow, Hill, We haven't had the continuity and development of these other top AFL midfields. The only one who's been there forever is Nathan Jones, nobody else has stepped up to the mark to join him which is a sad indictment of our drafting and development (and of course bad luck). The drafting false dawns that have blown up in our face, whether it was down to bad recruiting, bad luck or a combination of the two is amazing. Here I'm talking about the rebuild years between 07-09 that completely screwed our list forcing us into the infamous rebuild of the rebuild. 2007 - 3 picks inside the top 25 we take Cale Morton (a skinny running player, supposedly with good skills but he was not properly developed + quesitonable attitude = epic fail), Grimes (cruelled by injury early on but then completely failed to develop into an AFL mid), Addam Maric (a forward pocket). 2008 - another 3 picks inside the top 25 and we take Jack Watts (a skinny tall player who is tried in every position on the ground but cannot make any one of them his own), Blease (a selfish outside mid who constantly battled injury), and Strauss (a skilled flanker that was cruelled by injury). 2009 - should have seen us finally get it right with this time 4 picks inside the top 25 including a priority pick at #1. We end up with Tom Scully (an undersized outside midfielder who has done nothing at AFL level at both MFC and GWS), Trengove (a promising midfielder now cruelled by injury), Gysberts (another gymnasiophobic midfielder and ultimately a dismal failure), and Luke Tapscott (a flanker cruelled by injury). There was another hiccup with the drafting of Toumpas instead of Wines in 2012 which has set our development as a competitive list back by a year but that topic has been done to death so I will not add further to that. Man, how it does anger me though. The penny seems to have finally dropped since Jackson/Roos and their recruiting team have taken the reins. 2013 we took Christian Salem (but also picked up a virtual draftee in Tyson). Salem has me puzzled, I would have thought this kid had midfield written all over him, but I'm a little dismayed that he hasn't spent many minutes in there to this point. I truly hope that he will become a midfielder eventually, he ticks all the boxes, skilled, aggressive, committed. I wait in hope for him. Tyson was great last year but has gone backwards this year unfortunately, wish we knew why, surely he's carrying something. And now this years we're addressing that gaping hole in our developing list having drafted 4 potential midfielders in Petracca, Brayshaw and Neal-Bullen, and vandenBerg plus Stretch as a potential outside mid/winger. Unfortunately two of these guys have already suffered injury woes but hopefully Neal-Bullen's is only a minor setback. If we can hang onto these guys and develop them properly I can honestly see our future, dare I say it, premiership winning midfield consisting of the likes of Tyson, Salem, Petracca, Brayshaw, and Viney. Add to this list one or two players each year through development of our current list (e.g. Kent, ANB, vanders, Stretch), shrewd trading (in the mold of the Tyson/Salem trade), and competent drafting and we can raise the level of competition for spots in that 3rd world midfield of ours. There's going to be a hell of a lot responsibility on Brendan McCartney's shoulders to get this part right and for Goodwin to hit the ground running 2017, but I'm feeling optimistic. I think above all else, we need a change in luck. We sure as hell haven't had much of that over the past 10 years. Go the mighty Demons!!!