They don't always work but there are just as many that do.

Pox article. I just posted this on CSC...

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Cer 'ch 'n alluog Blues

Too many footy journos and nothing to write about at this time of year.

He must have done 10 minutes research and 15 minutes of year 10 thinking to collect this weeks pay check.

Piss poor.

Wasn't French picked up in the 2002 draft? and pick 18 was subsequently lost anyways as part of the penalties.

In any case Barney has been a good pick up!!

Fails to mention the main reasons for the retreads ... culture change and experienced bodies.

I agree with it

Take away Nick Stevens, and Pagan's recruiting while at Carlton is appalling. Absolute crap. There's no bloody benefit in drafting a bunch of guys who are delisted 2 years later from a wooden spoon year. NONE!

Pagan's recruiting = shit

BIG BODIES AND CULTURE??? WE BLOODY FINISHED LAST AND HAVE ABOUT AS MUCH TEAM COHESION AS VAN HALEN!!!

Pagan is done little to help our list. If anything he's set us back a season by drafting absolute cannon fodder.

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Love Cricket? Love me

HEY! That's out of line Tyrants!

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The great are great to us only because we are on our knees. Let us arise.
--Robert Collier

Probably correct in the end... but he had to gamble on retreds or gamble on a lot of late picks making it...he couldnt win either way if you are being fair..was also hamstrung trying to attract readymade talent due to excessive contracts from senior players and Jack who had sent the club broke..
Nick Stevens was a no brainer

Are you then suggesting Pagan has failed..if so what would you suggest we do with Denis...

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"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen

Leave Van Halen out of this.

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"One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds." - Frank Zappa

We made a conscious decision to go with recycled players.
We could have taken picks instead and gone with kids.

Does anyone really think we would have won less than 4 games this year without Bannister, Bowyer, Teague etc?

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

I was going to put a post about this today

French Rating 6; has done ok and shows plenty of ticker
Martyn rating 1; nothing needed to be said
Bannister rating 3; good first year shit second .If he stays will play on a back flank.Will be exposed by opposition putting a quicker player on him.
Bowyer rating 1 7 games ordinary lacked pace .
Clarke rating 1 Played 1 good game ironically against the cats in round 2 2004
Harford rating 3 good superannuation year 2004.Best place to play him was a roaming forward because of his skill.Played in defence .Bad move DP
Johnson rating 5 Unlucky to some degree.Other players of similar ilk younger and more favoured
Cory McGrath rating 4 overrated by the club.Good second half on Bucks against filth probably saved his bacon and he won the womens award whatever the @#$%&! that is.
Diggers Morrell rating 4 Good year in defence 2004.Too slow and ordinary 2005 in seniors.
Ricky Mott rating 0 Will not be fitness adviser of any club in the near future.
Heath Scotland Rating 6 Probably the best of a bad lot.Liked the way he bounced back in season 2005.Can play
Nick Stevens rating 6.5 Harsh.Maybe but a believe in big games or crucial stages of games goes missing too easily.
David Teague rating 6 Would of been 9 at the start of the year.Opposition clubs now isolate him near goals and expose his lack of
height and pace.The Melbourne game basically sapped his confidence with Robbo going ballistic.Pagan has a problem as to where to play him in 2006.
Adrian Deluca rating 3 needs to toughen up and improve his aerobic capacity.Potential is a dirty word in footy sometimes.
Stephen Kenna rating 0 pocket rocket who had a severe backfire.Only quality survives at this level when you are around 170cm.
Callum Chambers rating 2 Fumbles too much.A little too slow.
Longmuir.rating 2 Just doesnt do enough
Saddington ?????????? Average score 54/17=3.18
I think the article has merit.

Tad generous with this one k

it has merit according to your opinion - but for a factual report it does nothing but give an opinion. Now this article is not alone (how many news reports actually bother withj facts any more, or logic, or unbias reporting ... I could go on!) but it shits me people taker this as how an article should be written. I'd prefer he did a bit of research, a bit of reasoning, a bit of connecting (between circumstances, etc) and then tried to write a reasoned, balanced article.

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

I like the article because it shows that the days of Terry Daniher struggling at one club then starring for a second club are over .It also highlights the element of necessity in relation to the position the blues were in around 2003.
Therefore if a club delists a player because he dont cut the mustard , why would a second club give him a go.

With all the stats of the recycled players in front of them,why then do we give up a young kid up for a 26 year old who has had a knee reconstruction who struggled to get a game in 2005.

In short the article seems to give the impression that some idiots never learn from their own mistakes.

Players are more heavily scrutinised than ever before.If it wasnt for Elliott most of these guys wouldn't have got a second opportunity.

The "recycled" were very successful......Just depends on how you measure it.

It's a numbers game with the recycled....a few may work out..but mmost won't.

WE DIDN'T DO IT becuase we thought they'ld be stars. We did it because we had a huge gaping hole and a few lay abouts that had to be goptten rid of.

Are people seriously suggesting that in 2003 without picks we should have kept drafting through round 9, 10, 11, 12 etc.??

Forget 2004, we would have been murdered (gee but maybe uncovered a jewel?)
Forget record membership, forget Optus and Dan Murphy as major sponsors, and probably by now Kade Simpson would be having shoulder recos and Hartlett a knee reco

(BTW - good management of youngsters there Saints)

So in all....I think we've done quite well out of it

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“Every single element of the Club has to be the best in the league, meticulously and methodically, and only by doing this will we be elite and challenge for number 17.”
Greg Lee

I think that if we had used our draft picks - late as they were - in 02 and 03 instead of trading them for recycled hacks we would have finished last in 2003 (only avoided the spoon by half a win withhe hacks) and last in 2004. So we would have had three consecutive spoons, still have Stevens, but would have:

Cooney instead of Walker
Delidio and Roughead instead of Russell and Hartlett

We probably would have done alright in 05 but we'd probably still have pick 6-8 this year.

... except if the above had happend the club would have gone insolvent and folded before now - or so the financial doomsayers allege - or would it?.....

edit - so that would have been 3 spoons in 4 years. Since we're about 70% likely to win the spoon next year anway, we will probably end up with 3 in 5 years. Not sure if that's really any better.

Good points but im sure Pagan tried to avoid the wooden spoon. I dont want to finish last again next year....

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"Dont count the games, make the games count"

Me either. Finishing last this year was probably more important given the alleged depth of next years draft.

But please can we just end the whole Martyn thing. Yes it sounds like a stupid thing to do but he was Pick 85! How extremely lucky would we have had to have been to pick someone so late instead of Martyn and have them turn into a good player?

The article is too one-sided; all about what we got but nothing about

a) what we had
b) what we gave

I like everyones theory about coming last and scouping the pool but you don't know that that would have happened. You cant say that we would have had those players without the trades; there's way too many other incidents that could happen.

Its all good for so many of you to criticise the club for picking these players up, but please tell us who they should've picked instead?

The only disappointing aspect in my view of picking the rejects instead of kids was that we some how won 10 games in 04.....imagine if we had picked up Deledio + one of Tambling/Roughead/Franklin/Griffen. Its interesting to see who will remember the 10 wins in 5 years time when we see the top 5 from 04 draft reaching their potential

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"You are being watched. The government has a secret system. A machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it." - Finch