Mitch Thorp

[blue shark]

Bond isnt the only issue, the coaching panel needs to improve the forward structures, Silvagni needs game time, or let go, and Mellington wasted away in the wafl.
With Mello, some games may have helped to get a trade done.
Last year we waited for the second round for a Tall, with every other club before us taking the rest, history may repeat, and Thorp is the only option available.
We have a top four midfield, but our ageing Talls are a genuine worry, and now our squad contains many
players coming back from injury, or are injury prone.

 

[Silent Alarm]

Just

Just looked at his highlights, looks like a key position forward to me - quite clearly. Not sure which highlights package you were looking at.

Going off highlights packages is barely a solid argument, though.

This is going to sound like I'm being confrontational but I'm genuinely interested;

How would you handle the KPF issue differently?

Look, I'd be really bold. It's the biggest gap in the side. Pav is, what, 31? He'll play 12 to 18 games this season, realistically. Taberner is too skinny and can't assert himself in games, which isn't his fault. Mayne isn't a power forward and you can't have small forwards as marking targets.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Quietly. But I wouldn't be opposed to Barlow and someone else for Jack Darling. Mundy and Fyfe are untouchable. I love Barlow. Absolutely love the bloke. It'd be hard to see him go, especially to the Eagles, but I reckon Darling is what we need. A hugely unpopular opinion but it's the boldest thing we can do.

The thing I don't get is that we'll essentially throw out first and second round picks on speculative outside players and 24 year olds playing in Tasmania, but we won't be just as brazen and go hard for someone else.

But the Barlow trade will never happen and I understand the inevitability of people having a go.

 

[go_the_dockers]

Yeh, I know the talk was for Thorp with a second round or later pick but what I was motioning toward was that its likely we'd grab a tall mid early on, hence negating any need for Thorp fullstop. I dunno, I just don't think he quite 'fits' either role from what I've seen and heard. Potential endurance issues to fit our game plan as a runner and lack of one-on-one nous to be a true KP ... Just my opinion

Just


Just looked at his highlights, looks like a key position forward to me - quite clearly. Not sure which highlights package you were looking at.

Looking at these highlights I would say that he doesn't out wrestle his opponent, and will not take big pack marks. What we can expect from him is great endurance, 2nd and 3rd efforts, will place his body between the ball between the ball and his opponent allowing for an fairly easy mark, reads the play very well and has a fairly good kick (both for goal and too a team mate. ) I am expecting his leading patterns will be good both for creating space, forcing a defender to cover him and providing a forward target which should prevent Pav from being double teamed.

In the TSL he played through the midfield as well as forward, and in the AFL (should he get picked) the role that he is most suited to is similar to how Justin Westoff plays or how Matthew Richardson played in his last 2-3 years.

 

[estibador]

We're looking more and more like St Kilda and their flag tilt every off-season.

St Kilda's main problem is that they kept wasting their draft picks on crabs (18yo crabs I mean). People criticise Lyon for not developing any yoof but none of those kids went to other clubs and came good. Lyon didn't play them because they were shit and no other clubs picked them up because they could see they were shit. As we've seen with Michie if a kid is any good and isn't getting a game other clubs will be interested.

If our recruiters can keep nailing a few good kids every draft I'm confident we won't see a repeat of the Saints situation even if we do continue to to target a few mature bodies.

Having said that, a 2nd round pick is more than I was hoping to spend on Thorpe, I had that one earmarked for one of the 2nd tier young talls in the draft. Happy to go Thorpe with our 3rd pick though.

But at the end of the day I've only watched a few highlights videos of any of these guys, so I'll always defer to the (hopefully) superior knowledge of our recruiters.

 

[estibador]

Silent Alarm the only way clubs let players like Darling go is if they are absolutely raping the other party in a trade.

It's just not realistic to suggest trades like that and still expect to keep the core of our GF team together.

 

[UFO Tatsu]

If Thorp has cleaned up his act how is it he's tearing this board apart?

pre-season madness but i prefer a "potential" player tearing the board up rather than a current player

 

[nurries]

St Kilda's main problem is that they kept wasting their draft picks on crabs (18yo crabs I mean). People criticise Lyon for not developing any yoof but none of those kids went to other clubs and came good. Lyon didn't play them because they were shit and no other clubs picked them up because they could see they were shit. As we've seen with Michie if a kid is any good and isn't getting a game other clubs will be interested.

If our recruiters can keep nailing a few good kids every draft I'm confident we won't see a repeat of the Saints situation even if we do continue to to target a few mature bodies.

Having said that, a 2nd round pick is more than I was hoping to spend on Thorpe, I had that one earmarked for one of the 2nd tier young talls in the draft. Happy to go Thorpe with our 3rd pick though.

But at the end of the day I've only watched a few highlights videos of any of these guys, so I'll always defer to the (hopefully) superior knowledge of our recruiters.

Yep and the Saints couldnt identify little gems like Neale and Sutcliffe in the 50's and 60's like our recruiters do. Our late draft recruiting has been pretty good recently.

 

[blue shark]

Silent Alarm, we wont get Darling, why not just nominate Hourigan, and develop our own?
What is the point of weakening our midfield, Bond just needs to show some guts and draft a few.
Hourigan has a similar story to Jakovich, Darling, and will play next year.

 

[Taylor]

But the Barlow trade will never happen and I understand the inevitability of people having a go.

I agree with you. It's too late for us to develop a replacement for Pavlich and still consider ourselves premiership contenders. The price of a big player was always going to be high, the price we pay now is that we keep our players but we take a chance that our forward line is stocked with a crippled pick #2 who may have played less games than his jumper number and a country league star with an AFL record I expect Dayle Garlett could have had this year if he was picked.

This current plan is high risk but I'd argue that we have no choice but to take the mature tall in this draft. We don't have time for Taberner to assert himself, we can't rely on Gumbleton until he has shown he can compete at AFL level for a season. We are past the trade period, we are rolling down the hill and might be without Pav, McPharlin and Sandilands at the end of this season with nobody to replace.

 

[Kram]

Football games these days especially big ones like finals are won and lost in the midfield, the last thing they should do is trade someone like Barlow.

 

[Lach72]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Quietly. But I wouldn't be opposed to Barlow and someone else for Jack Darling. Mundy and Fyfe are untouchable. I love Barlow. Absolutely love the bloke. It'd be hard to see him go, especially to the Eagles, but I reckon Darling is what we need. A hugely unpopular opinion but it's the boldest thing we can do.
.

Did I miss the memo where there was a change in the English language meaning of the word bold? and bold now means "completely idiotic"?

 

[mayne iac]

Going off highlights packages is barely a solid argument, though.




Look, I'd be really bold. It's the biggest gap in the side. Pav is, what, 31? He'll play 12 to 18 games this season, realistically. Taberner is too skinny and can't assert himself in games, which isn't his fault. Mayne isn't a power forward and you can't have small forwards as marking targets.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Quietly. But I wouldn't be opposed to Barlow and someone else for Jack Darling. Mundy and Fyfe are untouchable. I love Barlow. Absolutely love the bloke. It'd be hard to see him go, especially to the Eagles, but I reckon Darling is what we need. A hugely unpopular opinion but it's the boldest thing we can do.

The thing I don't get is that we'll essentially throw out first and second round picks on speculative outside players and 24 year olds playing in Tasmania, but we won't be just as brazen and go hard for someone else.

But the Barlow trade will never happen and I understand the inevitability of people having a go.

Err, I was responding to someone re the highlights....
inevitable

 

[go_the_dockers]

pre-season madness but i prefer a "potential" player tearing the board up rather than a current player

My attempt of a joke.

 

[mayne iac]

I think he'd be a good get anyways, Jack Darling bwahaha






inevitable

 

[Wigarus]

At the end of the day if Thorpe is really the great white hope that so many on this board suggest he is then we will have to use an early pick on him. Tom Lee went for a first round pick last year ffs. If we pick him up with our second pick then the club obviously values him that highly and I would think that they have enough runs on the board to back them in to do their jobs.


And jesus christ Silent Alarm , why don't you have a look at the games we have played without Barlow before suggesting something so dumb. And as much as you have a giant boner for Michie he wasn't good enough to replace Barlow and I don't think we have a player on the list that could take his spot. If he clears up his set shots he'll be in the top 20 mids in the comp.

 

[Outshined]

I hardly see how we're becoming like St Kilda by religiously holding on to our first rounder and also drafting quality fairly regularly.

We are like them in the sense that we could be one puzzle piece away from a flag.

 

[glasto2010]

If Carlton were able to grab McCarthy with their first pick, would they still have a need for Thorp? Would Thorp then be able to slip to our third pick?


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[blue shark]

If Carlton were able to grab McCarthy with their first pick, would they still have a need for Thorp? Would Thorp then be able to slip to our third pick?


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Carlton are in the same boat as us, and have taken a mid/forward via free agency, and are lacking Tall forward options. White is injury prone, Betts is gone, so i can see them going hard at forwards.

 

[Silent Alarm]

Yep and the Saints couldnt identify little gems like Neale and Sutcliffe in the 50's and 60's like our recruiters do. Our late draft recruiting has been pretty good recently.

What about early round spuds who panic when they get the footy? Or early round picks who simply have bigger issues in life than being a good footballer? Freo's drafting team is completely overrated on here. They've done very very well, but it's been far from the flawlessness that most people seem to rate them with.

 

[Nickos66]

What about early round spuds who panic when they get the footy? Or early round picks who simply have bigger issues in life than being a good footballer? Freo's drafting team is completely overrated on here. They've done very very well, but it's been far from the flawlessness that most people seem to rate them with.

From the bigger picture - Freo's drafting team has put us in the frame of premiership contention. No team is safe from draft hindsight scrutiny, however the team results speak for themselves in the grand scheme of things. Sorry to generalise but I'm not usually one for arguing semantics.

 

[blue shark]

What about early round spuds who panic when they get the footy? Or early round picks who simply have bigger issues in life than being a good footballer? Freo's drafting team is completely overrated on here. They've done very very well, but it's been far from the flawlessness that most people seem to rate them with.

Lets wait till this draft is over next week, then we can debate our draft management.

 

[caterina]

Geez what's so terrible about our drafting? Lloyd and his drafting team is doing well comparatively. I've been as critical as anyone of Bond's ability at the trade table, but at least he has enough strategic sense to give Lloyd a few decent picks each year to work with.

 

[Bender571]

What about early round spuds who panic when they get the footy? Or early round picks who simply have bigger issues in life than being a good footballer?

You need to move on, Sheridan got games ahead of Michie because they play different positions.

They've done very very well, but it's been far from the flawlessness that most people seem to rate them with.

Find one post that says they've been flawless.

 

[mayne iac]

They're average but have done very very well. Jeepers.

"They've done very very well, but it's been far from the flawlessness that most people seem to rate them with."

If you think that any one on this board thinks that our recruiting has been that......

 

[Paracleet]

They're average but have done very very well. Jeepers.

It's a bold statement (by the new definition)