Yes but I bet your eyes lit up at the title Elwood.

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"Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot about puppies." - Gene Hill

AA doesn't necessarily mean you're going onto a senior list. Look at Kirkby and Grundy last year. Grundy lasted until the 3rd Rd of the rookie draft after being touted as a possible top-10 draftee! Kirkby was rookied as well in the same situation.

Yeah, we've had some good late picks, but a fair few bad decisions when it comes to early picks. Which is why we're not doing too great. Had that been reversed - good early picks, bad and hence inconsequential late picks - we'd probably be a fair bit better. But then we wouldn't have Fisher or Thornton.

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Cer 'ch 'n alluog Blues

We desperately need quality on our list and whilst it may be heretical to say so maybe we needed to have a worse season last year and perhaps an ordinary one this year to ensure we get that quality on our list .Look at stkilda and kangas who seem to have had the most first round picks

Having said we have done brilliantly in the circumstances given the AFL TOOK away picks that would have got us wells and godard as well as opportunity in preseason draft to get best uncontracted player

We cheated and deserved to get punished no question but penalty too harsh in terms of picks lost
Not sure that our present position is all to do with the seagull -plenty of other clubs have been wrong about first round selections
Also with youngest list in AFL it isnt all doom and gloom in any case

I echo Franks thoughts and reiterate.. the really good players will again be in the top 5. (That usually includes leaders too)So if our season is disappointing its not the end of the world.
There is no substitute for class.. no matter how many battlers we have on the field slogging their guts out .
We need a good mix of the two.

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See where you are coming from Frankie but if we had won the Fremantle & Collingwood games as we should have I doubt we would be having this discussion. While for purely pragmatic reasons it would have been better for us not to have such a great season last year I for one was just glad to see the team regain its spirit.

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"Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot about puppies." - Gene Hill

BB, the fact is we didnt.

We really shouldnt gloss over our problems.
Were doing very well but we have some serious inadequecies.
Skill is one of those.. too few players hitting targets and kicking through the big sticks.

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We may have found some gems frank but not near enough. I think if you were to list our current top 10-15 players you would find only a few who were genuine draft picks (as opposed to father/son or trades) (maybe Houlihan, fev and campo). I'm guessing most other clubs would have a much more impressive list. Our drafting and many shocking trading errors still make me angry and mean our medium term future is not that rosy. Everyone knows drafting is hard. You won't get a star every time, but to be successful you have to be better at drafting than everyone else. I would suggest our drafting for the entire period of the draft has been amongst the worst in the AFL. Let's hope they got it right this year. At least we didn't trade picks for guns like Devonport or O'Reilly. And the thing about the 2000 draft - if it was weak why trade to get picks and then in the next draft why trade away picks for Murphy and Mckernan and therefore miss out on the likes of James Kelly, Matt McGuire, Mark Seaby etc.

As always it was about short term gain and not planning. Parkin is the first to admit he had no knowledge of the kids.
It was the Elliott "Carlton never rebuilds"
Hamill left so we got #4.
Murphy had done a knee.. so the thinking was lets use this year to get some kids after trading of a heap of picks prior for short term gain.
We didnt really want #4 .. we wanted Hamill.. but we had to take it.

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We took players thinking we were still at the top and only needed to top up rather than take the best kids. Elliott is to blame and Parkin and Brittain deserve a huge serve for not having a policy of taking the best available kids. Sheedy use to shake his head when he heard we were trading away first round picks for hasbeens, who are only good if you're side pushing for a flag not one on the path to it's first spoon!

Hear Hear
Exceptional talent is god given, but skill can be worked on & honed. If we can't hit a target or kick straight at goal, surely it is something that requires more practise. The players already have some talent as they have made the big league, but as far as I'm concerned, if you consistanly miss the target, you're being lazy & not training the skill enough.

I dont want to suggest that I support all our drafting and trading.Our trade record before dennis took over was very ordinary.For example every time mansfield bombed up in the air one of those left footers I reflected on those dumb trades.Mckernan cost us too much as did OReilly.The trades exacerbated the whole situation because they usually involved us losing early picks
Parko was a good coach for the here and now but not for the future.In fact the whole administration at Carlton were like it as we found out much to our chagrin a number of years later.
Having said that vance and massie picks in retrospect were poor but the seagull seemed better generally in picking up the hidden gems

It took us a very long time to recognise that your next champions were produced through the draft not by trading and in a sense we are now suffering from not recognising that early enough.

Whilst I will never advocate us not doing our best or winning games and advancing up the ladder a couple of seasons near the bottom seem to be the recipe for the ultimate success.

Frank, I always read your posts but I just had to stop on that last bit. Who at Port was an early draft pick? They have been spectacular in picking solid players from other clubs and getting them to fill a role, in much the same way Pagan is asking certain players at Carlton to do. Bishop came cheap, Pickett was for a #15, Carr was early... but who else? Compare them to the Saints and the Shockers, the Saints may get there in the end but not yet. The Dockers despite all their early picks are nowhere near it. I'd take a great coach and gameplan any day. yes we're paying for horrible recruiting, and more importantly, horrible lack of planning, now (and recently), but I really don't see your recommendation as the recipe.

Molsey,

Port got a lot of their very talented players through zone selections when they entered the comp (Including W Tredrea)

You could build a team around him

Pagan didn't become the coach he is by being a stupid man. Just give it time as the blues re-build. I'm sure Pagan won't allow anymore Mansfield, McGuane, O'Reilly, Devenport, Charles, Vance, Nelson, Massie, McKernan ect ect deals to go ahead while he's there. Not every pick going forward will end up correct, but I'm backing him to get it right more often than not. The coach is our no.1 asset & I'm confident we can become a force on the field again without resorting to tanking games for early draft picks

Port are a different case in that they are the last team to 'beat' the draft, being the last to enter the comp and while they didn't get anything like the armchair ride of the West Coast they had a lot of predraft picks that enabled them to set up a side. This included guys like Tredrea (a #1 in any year) Peter Burgoyne, Francou Wilson Dew, lade James . Chad Cornes was a #9 pick (the year we got Massie with #7) but Port haven't been in the draft long enough to make a judgement tho their draft record is not great and I think their success was built around the priority picks they had when they started -

Yes, I understand that Effes. The Tredrea one is a spectactular example of someone becoming a lot more than they were supposed to be though. At the time, he was a wingman, a good solid prospect. But what he has become is the stroke of luck (and hard work of course) that has been a factor in their premiership. Francou was passed on by other teams! My point was that Port didn't win because of draft picks. What other key players did they get from the zone, other than Francou and Tredrea? Roger James?

Take the Bears, 2 of their greats have come from the Qld zone selections, Aker and Voss, but Black was #31, Michael was a low trade / Molloy, Brad Scott was a low trade. Leppitsch & Lappin were very early.

To win a premiership you need alot more than just early draft picks. The recipe for success does not require constant and horrible failure.

Steven Salopek, who'd I love Carlton to pinch from Port as he'd go nicely with a Nick Stevens.

Agreed, but he didn't play a role in the premiership!

why do u think many of the past no.1 picks have been duds....or at least not what everyone expected??

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R A D I C A L B R O T H E R S

Inspired by the One-Minute Sculptures of Erwin Wurm

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You overlook the fitzroy factor though - the merge helped them immensely in terms of players gained - lynch (was always a gun before he went up and got chronic fatigue), chris johnson, jarrod malloy.

Also - M. Primus - did the lions get a pick or something because he didnt want to go to brisbane or something like that? (seem to recall it but not sure)

oh and jamie charman was a qld concession pick btw