Rumour Bluemour Discussion XXXV - 'Loopy' Season has begun

[Wickzki]

Haha, what was SOS thinking?

That he ****ed up the last time he didn't draft one of his son's best friends.

 

[Numero 31]

Ask Melbourne fans how they’re going now

Whenever they feel down about current events there, they can stream the 2021 GF on Kayo. We have to blow the dust off the VHS machine in storage in the garage.

 

[El Topo]

You’re so right. People on here get upset at the thought of a player being traded. It’s a sport and trades happen. Who the **** cares if someone people have up on their wall leaves. Especially if we get something great in return.

GWS get slaughtered each and every year of great player and look at them. They turn a player leaving into picks or trades and do well. Rinse and repeat.

I do find it’s mainly the younger people on here who through a hissy or thumbs down to someone having a think tank moment of a player being traded. It’s like it’s the end of the world in that moment for way too many on here.

I’m ok with anyone leaving our club as long as we better ourselves in the future.

It's because shit clubs fixate on individuals and nobody under 30 has experienced us as anything but that

 

[Blue_Fusion]

It's because shit clubs fixate on individuals and nobody under 30 has experienced us as anything but that

If we didn't trade Gibbs (and we all know how many didn't want to do that...) we probably wouldn't have TDK right now...

 

[Blue_Fusion]

Revisiting SOS's failed selections at the draft has absolutely no bearing on this year's draft...

You could go through every club's draft history and chances are you'll find a similar list of failed selections maybe apart from a select few...

 

[bradfisher14]

It is quite frankly unacceptable that it's Thursday afternoon and we haven't had a single post in the no discussion thread.

 

[Jatz]

That's a depressing walk down memory lane...

 

[gbatman]

SOS had his failures. I have known our midfield has problems for 3 seasons now. What has Austin done to fix that?

If it's the coach thinking he has a team and midfield good enough to win a flag he is as bad as Ratten was. That was one of the things that brought him undone IMO.

Is the coach not directing the recruiting team well enough or is it the recruiting team aren't that good?

 

[ctwenty1]

Revisiting SOS's failed selections at the draft has absolutely no bearing on this year's draft...

You could go through every club's draft history and chances are you'll find a similar list of failed selections maybe apart from a select few...

no one gets 100% right, or even 90%

 

[Beyond Blue]

I am still sticking with this

On Pixel 7a using BigFooty.com mobile app

I am going to play Nostradamus.

Melbourne deny they will trade him.

They start getting linked with high value players all over the comp. Mac Andrew, Max King, Ben King etc.

Finals ramps up, and the noise around Trac dies down.

Brownlow night, he doesn't show, teammates look awkward when he gets votes.

Day or so after GF, Melbourne says they will have chats, but intend to keep Christian.

Will they, won't they for the whole of trade week.

Big deal lands on the last day or so where Christian gets traded and Melbourne land a target or two as well as draft picks.

On Pixel 7a using BigFooty.com mobile app

Whilst I agree with this the swing factor may be what happened with Roffey since. Maybe one of Petracca’s demands to stay was that she resigned OR was she his ally and with her departure he reverts to his original position of wanting to leave.

Either way if Melbourne are prepared to deal with us on the basis the trade cost is a first round draft pick and Cerra AND we have the cap space to fit him in without losing any of Cripps, Walsh, Harry, Charlie and TDK, then Austin should be going hard for him.

 

[Stamos]

I wonder what the weakest areas of our development are?

Do we give less opportunity to young players to play senior football? Leave them in the VFL despite decent form.

Do we not give young players good opportunities when playing senior football? Play players in wrong positions. Not give midfield types enough midfield minutes. Lock young players into negative roles.

Have a poor VFL side which struggles to play to a good standard and struggled to generate games where some players may find it difficult to perform?

So far this is a yes.

Do we not review footage and work on specific drills? Do we not watch footage of good opposition players and good senior players of our own and attend games where opposition players are playing to study them? For example, if I was Binns I would be getting to plenty of Collingwood games to watch Sidebottom before he retires or regresses to study how he plays.
If footy was your job and you did it full time, I think you would put a lot of time into development. Study the game a lot more. I wonder how much study AFL players put in? I would be picking out elite players I want to model my game on and get to as many games to watch them as possible. Same for our coaches and list managers. Get to as many games as possible where the top teams are involved to analyse them. Identify their strengths and fundamentals and apply that to our own team. Identify important traits so recruiters get an eye for what to look for. Chasing, tackling, closing speed and agility haven't been when we have recruited midfielders, maybe if our people studied the game more this may not have been missed. And I get that it's hard to do this and attend U18 games as well.

Development is not just for players but for our staff as well.

I think there is no doubt we could develop our players more and that is outside of running drills and giving a little feedback.

But we also must be careful not to overcoach. You often see sides win a lot of games when the coach changes. A lot of that is because players are allowed to play instinctively more. I get the feeling we are overcoaching a fair bit. There is a fine line there.

Our group has been there long enough now where we should be at minimum, getting on top of things. I think we are trying but perhaps aren't doing a great job of it just yet.

I'm going to guess, due to mixture of outcomes and that I've never heard any of our coaches emphasise it in the way that I have heard from other coaches, that we don't focus on the basics enough. Fundamentals of football.
We have enough talent on the list, and are capable of the extraordinary.
But **** we stuff up the simplest things over and over. In a way that some of the other successful clubs don't.

I'd also assume that part of it is that until pretty recently, we have been a poorly run club.
When we finally started to get our shit together, there was a mix of covid, and the Footy Department Cap cuts, the diabolical Teague Reign, Dan O'Keefe moving to the country so Power became mores stretched etc.

 

[PrendersBigEngine]

A player who averages 10 possessions and a goal a game in the VFL, can’t get a game at his club is Papley lite?

Papley Zero?

 

[Stamos]

That has so much more to do with the fact that their club is being ran like an absolute shit show off the field than one poor season on it.

Yes, but the question was would you take 1 guaranteed flag if it meant you were no chance of winning more than 1.

Dees have underachieved since 2021.
Which, it has to be remembered, was a covid flag won in Perth, and the 2 supporters who got to actually see it went to jail. So it's in the books, but it also doesn't count as much.

I would say that if we can only get 1 flag with our current list, we have sorely underachieved.
Of course, you'd take underachieving with 1 rather than none, but I'd still be extremely disappointed.

We underachieved to only have 1 flag from 93-01. But it didn't hurt as much at the time because we had no idea the pain that was to come and that we'd be stuck on 16 29 years later.

 

[FlowersByIrene]

Macreadie went from being the (very) early consensus top pick in that draft to a big time slider to out of the league really quickly.

A case of being a man among boys early on and his body not being up for it?

Yep, was considered a "top prospect" in 2015

LIVE: Top draft prospects head for the 'G

Watch from 9.55am as the top prospects get their chance on the 'G

www.afl.com.au

 

[Bamboo Harvester]

SOS had his failures. I have known our midfield has problems for 3 seasons now. What has Austin done to fix that?

SOS couldn't even assemble a midfield in his entire time at the helm!!! When he left we had Cripps and Walsh and that's it....and even then, he inherited Cripps and had the #1 pick to land Walsh.

What has Austin done to fix it? He brought Cez and George in for starters, as well as Zach who was earmarked as a mid but unfortunately hasn't worked out. He brought Billy in to add more speed into it, as well as Lord as the inside/out mid. Elijah as the forward/mid for the icing on the cake.

Not sure what much more he could have done to fix it....

 

[Gethelred]

But quicker

Where can I sign?

 

[FlowersByIrene]

What a sad obituary of past players. Eek we’ve burnt a lot of picks with no return.

I wouldn't say it's that unusual.

Let's take Collingwood, where they've failed on the following:

2013 - Matthew Scharenberg, Nathan Freeman, Jonathan Marsh, Sam Dwyer
2014 - Matthew Goodyear
2015 - Brayden Sier, Tom Phillips, Ruper Wills, Ben Crocker
2016 - Sam McLarty, Callum Brown, Kale Kirby
2017 - Jaidyn Stephenson, Tyler Brown
2018 - Will Kelly
2019 - Jay Rantall, Trent Bianco, Trey Ruscoe

The above is just taken from the National Draft each year.

They have had fewer top end busts than us, with 2014 being the year they hit on DeGoey and Moore for their top picks, but they've also had a lot less top picks. Outside that 2014 year, they didn't really have any top picks and the few they did (Scharneberg, Freeman and Stpehenson) were all busts.

I think drafting is really really hard.

 

[bradfisher14]

I wouldn't say it's that unusual.

Let's take Collingwood, where they've failed on the following:

2013 - Matthew Scharenberg, Nathan Freeman, Jonathan Marsh, Sam Dwyer
2014 - Matthew Goodyear
2015 - Brayden Sier, Tom Phillips, Ruper Wills, Ben Crocker
2016 - Sam McLarty, Callum Brown, Kale Kirby
2017 - Jaidyn Stephenson, Tyler Brown
2018 - Will Kelly
2019 - Jay Rantall, Trent Bianco, Trey Ruscoe

The above is just taken from the National Draft each year.

They have had fewer top end busts that us, with 2014 being the year they hit on DeGoey and Moore for their top picks. But outside that, they didn't really have any top picks and the few they did (Scharneberg, Freeman and Stpehenson) were all busts.

I think drafting is really really hard.

The Collingwood list of failed picks is nowhere near as long or spectacular as ours. Some of the players in your list were valuable contributors in years where they made prelims and grand finals. Whereas most of our busts couldn't even cut it at VFL level.

 

[mochacinolatte]

That he ****ed up the last time he didn't draft one of his son's best friends.

Pretty sure David Cuningham was one of Jack's good friends going through the junior ranks.

 

[yibbida]

Is the coach not directing the recruiting team

Is that even the Coach's job? Doesn't the Football Department handle that sort of thing?

 

[Wickzki]

Pretty sure David Cuningham was one of Jack's good friends going through the junior ranks.

Yeah but Dan Houston is his best mate.

The story goes that after being drafted to Carlton Jack literally begged SOS to draft Dan to the Blues. SOS refused.

 

[Blue Pulse]

Really all the list Team need to be able to do is pick some quality flankers and the coach should barely have to lift a thumb. Instead we're stuck with some seriously ordinary individuals on the field each week and make playing footy look like pushing s*** up a hill

I feel they believed they had them in Cunningham and Martin and, well you know the rest

 

[Soapy V]

Dude was a national athlete and small-town king all through his teens without even training properly. Could not handle a high-pressure, competitive environment where you had to work hard to succeed.

Not true

 

[BringFevBack2021]

pls give rumour

 

[Wickzki]

Dude was a national athlete and small-town king all through his teens without even training properly. Could not handle a high-pressure, competitive environment where you had to work hard to succeed.

Soapy V - saw your post. I got you here. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

From all reports LOB was a hard track worker.

The biggest problem that LOB had was that his metabolism prevented him from putting on the type of positive weight required at the AFL level.

His delisting had nothing to do with a lack of work ethic or an unwillingness to adapt to professional football. Had it been he probably wouldn't have been given the second chance following the delisting.