Re: David Astbury our third pick
Tigerbob said:
But the way you are talking you place the term as "development" as a bad thing.
You said you don't trust any of them, did you not get impressed by the way Vickery and Post played in a disastrous season? Why not trust them coming good. As per usual you contradict yourself in the one post.
Your looking at this as you usually do. With tainted glasses.
I am saying, the talls Francis have taken have been good. He hasn't been helped by the selections he has been given and traded away, but I think the quality of our talls is very good. Very good.
Mate call it defensive, call it whatever you want, the fact remains someone needs to post positive, factual stuff about these players, and the fact remains you don't have access to a) watch these kids as juniors frequently, and b) don't get to watch them develop at Coburg. So in saying all that, I will stand against your stance as I have a) seen these kids as juniors, and b) watch every Coburg game to see them develop. Coburg like Richmond was a disaster zone last season, I watched for how they reacted, their skill improvement, and many more factors. It was no surprise to see Rance, Post and Vickery play seniors and the delistings were of no surprise.
I rate Riewoldt, Vickery, Post, Gourdis, Astbury, Griffiths and Rance higher than you do. Call it defensive but I think the quality is there with these guys.
when i said i dont trust any of them i was speaking about cameron, jackson and the footy dept.i thought that would be plain.
your not the only one who has high hopes for all those you mentioned.its not all gloom and doom im just being realistic.
apart from jack who i do rate and have placed in the made it category or will make it category, i have placed the rest in development where they belong.
those i dont rate at all i have stated so.
i ask again how many definate long term propisitions do we have. how many do we need. logic says not all of those 7 you mention are going to make it the percentages tell us this.
taking an average and working to the percentages im allowing for 3 of those 7 to fail. if they do where are we at.when planning this is where im coming from.we have to allow for misses even if they dont happen.
you do have it over me when we talk recruiting etc ive never stated any different. but list structure is something we can all look at for ourselves.
i will say again all i have done is follow what has made most other clubs successful and applied it to us.
i keep on saying im aiming at 16 talls who are either established decent afl players or players of whom i can reasonably say will be long term players. atm looking at the long term we have 1 jack who is a definate long termer. imo we dont have a decent established afl tall they are either past it or just not good enough.
imo there is another two who i am tempted to place in the long term definates post and vickery who look good. but im going to let them prove themselves first after all they have had just one yr.. the rest are purely development who give me varying degrees of optimism.
i was a big wrap for rance but i have concerns now re skills. dave gourdis who i saw a bit of as a junior cant kick. griffiths who you like and think already made it fair enough im hoping he makes it as well all i have done is go with players i have seen a bit of ie black over griffiths.i still went bastinac at 19 even though i scream about talls.
ya know you have named just 7 talls you could probably throw thursfield in there but i have little faith any of the remaining talls will be around for to long. i still maintain we need to load up with talls .we dont have any long term established talls apart from jack you clearly disagree.
if we take two talls a yr for the next 3 yrs at picks 19 and 35 say. the percentages tell us one is likely to fail each yr. if we take 4 talls late its likely 3 will fail you want to build a list from what we have now to 16 decent players the work involved and the numbers required a re scary. we will be in exactly the same boat we are in now because we will have our share of misses. you cant plan ahead on the basis every pick we take will make it. common sense says it wont happen, the numbers at every other club says it wont happen.
im not complaining about early picks being used on talls im all for it when practicle. all im calling for is we also target a few late nd psd and rookie.we delisted 7 talls from a shallow list and the numbers will go backwards this yr thats not list management though i will cut some slack with richos situation they clearly wanted him to go around again.
this is the last time im sick to death of this anyway but heres our list of talls.
simmonds - last yr.
graham - just not up to it.
mcguane - not good enough.
post - okay long term keeper i just contradicted myself.
vickery - long term keeper.
riewoldt - long term keeper.
rance - 50/50 imo. would not have been taken by us this yr kicking.
gourdis - 40/60 but as you say a long term project. would not have been taken this yr by us kicking.
astbury - first yr development who can say.
griffiths - first yr development who can say.
browne - project development like you i like this kid what i have seen.
thursfield - make or break yr no certainty ask me at the end of 2010.
lets just say we do well with our picks and only two of our tall picks over the last 4 or 5 yrs fail, throw in simmo muscles and gus thats 5 we are down to 7. lets say we take 4 talls rookie psd drafts we can maybe count on 1 making it. this is where im coming from i dont want to be negative but based on what happens at most other clubs this is the reality.
i put them where they should be considering they have only been around 12 months and the time frame is way to early to make a call, thought i explained that as well.wait a min i did. 
