While I agree (and Hird played about 6 years of seniors before becoming a mid), Watson was an u18 mid , who became a VFL forward before becoming an AFL mid.
What constitutes drafting midfielders is one of my favourite annual list management discussions. So much talking at cross purposes.
Just draft taranto next time tbh.
ALL YOUR HALFBACK FLANKER ARE BELONG TO US.
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The guy with the rubbish haircut?
Seen cam rayners?
ā ā ā ā ā ā kids today, what are they thinking?
Seen Parish?
I might be remembering that wrong, but I thought he played as a forward at U18 level.
Cam deliberately got the dustin martin mess.
Obviously you initially wanted to push a far more developmental approach, and youāve consistently argued that across the year. Iām curious, how high do we need to finish for you to decide you were wrong? As in, not that youāre necessarily wrong now (open to debate, and Iāve obviously argued the other side), or will be, but what level would you say, āok, I definitively was wrongā? Obviously, if we win a premiership 
everyone is going to agree that Worsfold is fantastic, Dodoro should be feted, and that they played the season out perfectly. I donāt expect us to win a premiership.
But if we finish top 6, have won a final and got that experience into the team (both a final win and loss), would you then say the blend had been right? If we got the final eight but lost the first week? As I said, Iām curious at where you see the level of success being worth the lesser focus (in your view) on development.
Iām assuming if we miss the eight you will believe you were completely correct, and ill-timed push this year hurt us for next year. We can have that debate if it happens - hopefully it wonāt!
Good debate.
But we have not had a winning culture for a long time.
Any approach that doesnāt maximise winning and creating a winning culture to break over a decade of mediocrity would be misdirected in my opinion.
At some point the list and the young talent good enough to be selected need to learn how to win.
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I donāt necessarily think thereās any point at which I think it was right to give Myers as many weeks as he had in his first stint, or Howlett any games at all in the forward line, or Dea on Jack Watts. Regardless of youth v experience, there was some bad shoe-horning going on, that we all guessed wouldnāt work. You can get the big picture right and still get things wrong along the way, which I think is the case here.
Would/could Langford be further along if theyād set him as a mid from round 1, instead of a forward?
Would/could McKenna have been further along if heād been played instead of Stants right at the start of the year?
Would/could we have done better with Greenās spot the first time he was out, that would/could have been paying dividends now?
Unknowable questions.
The big thing I did get wrong was Bellchambers and Zaha, to a lesser extent Myers too. Those 3,along with Hooker and Hurley, make the senior experienced group look much safer post Kelly/BJ/Jobe.
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Anyone who reckons Ben Howlett as a forward pocket is an indicator of a superior culture needs their head read IMO.
We are into Hooper, not Lever.
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liked cos i want to believe.
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I really do hope we can pick up 1 or 2 of Kelly, Martin, Hopper, Jones or absolutely nail our first or second round picks on a midfielder this year because we still have a huge reliance on Jobe and Goddard. Jobe is still our main extractor while Goddard is 1/2 of our āgo-to ball-using duoā with Zerret. 2 key players not easily replaced.
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You lost me here!!!
I canāt see what, other than height, McGrath lacks as a mid prospect. Hard, determined, clean, fast, smart, skilful, accountable. I think heād actually make our midfield better (balanced) if he went in there right now.
To write anyone off because they started in a different position is to write off 7 of the past 11 Brownlow medallists - Dangerfield, Fyfe, GAJ x 2, Swan, Watson, Goodes. Not to mention regular vote getters like Luke Parker, Kieran Jack, David Mundy, Heppell, Brent Harvey, Dustin Martin, Hodge, and a host of others.
Itās one of the most mindless āopinionsā on this joint.
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Interesting. But I suppose I didnāt really mean to get into the nitty gritty. Even if we win a premiership this year, Iām sure there will be things I would have thought could have been done better, and I assume youāre the same! 
But I meant more, the general philosophy which the club appears to have implemented of going for finals ASAP, rather than focusing on development. Is there a ladder outcome you would think, the club was right to do that?
I suppose for me, the two elements will be how I think weāre tracking for 2018 & 2019, and if I think the run hurt us, and the experience of finals. As Iāve harped on elsewhere, the team is still very inexperienced, if not always young. So getting more games under our belts, especially multiple finals (including a finalās win), would IMO be a big thing for our development. Iām not sure, but I suspect other than Goddard and Kelly we probably donāt have a single other player who is familiar with winning a final. So I do see that as an important development step. I also see it as potentially important in luring player(s) to us, that they think weāre on the way up.
But thatās me. I was curious over you.
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