The Hun is reporting Garlett is set to be looked over again in the rookie draft as Essendon have apparently gone cold on him. Seems talent to burn is just not enough to be picked up as a rookie but NSW rookies and Fijian players and players like Doogs and Tommy Gun who had no knees are worth taking a risk on. He is being treated like a war criminal, surely he is no more risk than Thorne, GOK or Boumann. Surely the club could bank on supporting such a talent and using our culture to help him reach his potential. Given its a 28 year old, and a guy with no knees as likely last spot potentials, we could do a lot worse than take a calculated risk on the last spot. I mean we could even promote Jong and rookie him and risk even less, what are we really risking, our club is bigger than one player and what he may or may not do and so what if he can't be turned around - we cut him loose like others in recent years... the truth is we have selected worse and dealt with a talent being unconscious with drugs on him and we have supported him not castigated him or dumped him. i know I am wasting my breath but we are going to go the safe and predictable option rather than be more aggressive in filing the last spot. So just get Prismall and let it be over already.
End of rant.
Rocket Science: the epitaph for the Beveridge era - whenever it ends - reading 'Here lies a team that could beat anyone on its day, but seldom did when it mattered most'. 15/7/2023
18 months ago Eades no dickhead policy was very much the foundation of the clubs recruiting and I know guys like BAD was right behind it.
McCartneys mantra of recruiting good young men should be listened to as well and hopefully supported by our fans
I dont know Garlett in the slightest and he probably just needs to mature but he is clearly a risk too big take unless Essendon are intentionally trying to scare off other clubs.
Im not uncomfortable with our position but I would prefer we dont take Prismal.
I agree with you to a point, but we had the Libba situation and surely young people are allowed to make mistakes.There's been Angwin types but there has also been stories of young people maturing in the right environment.Seems from the outside that Dayle needs to leave Perth to prosper. Young Walters at Freo is a prime example of someone who got back on track after nearly ruining his own career.
Personally I would like to see Austin promoted and another rookie selected instead. He played some good games last year and with an injury or two to key position players we just might need him. If he has a good pre season he might even play in the early round(s) and move ahead of a few players.
Western Bulldogs Football Club "Where it's cool to drool"
Essendon may be intent on selecting him but as a surprise instead of a guarantee, and are deflecting his chances in the media the hope it might play on his head mentally.
I don't know enough about Garlett's attitude to speak with authority but I'm yet to be convinced that there is no Club prepared to back in its system to shape him from this PSD or rookie draft.
Maybe not ours, but I would see a Club with both a strong football operations team and strong leadership group taking it on or one that believe's they have.
Everyone let Darling slip through last season. This should at least be a very recent lesson of the price one can pay for being too risk averse or taking too seriously a questionable character at such a young impressionable age.
I am surprised that West Coast aren't tempted given the success they've had with Darling this season.
People can and do change in the right environment and circumstances.
The situation that Garlett finds himself in did spark my memory of a fine article written by Glenn McFarlane mid season about StevieJ's travels. This is just a partial extract taken from it.
STEVE Johnson's face was pale, almost alabaster white.
That's the thing that sticks in the memory of Frank Costa from that January day in 2007 when, in Geelong's training room deep beneath the Kardinia Park grandstand, the then 23-year-old forward faced the music.
And the Geelong Football Club changed immeasurably.
Standing before Johnson was the entire Cats playing group. Standing near him was a sprinkling of senior officials, including then president
Costa and chief executive Brian Cook, there to hear what the newly formed leadership team had in store for Johnson, who had transgressed one time too many.
Standing beside Johnson was new captain Tom Harley, who cut the air with a blunt honesty that would set a new standard for the football club.
It wasn't just because Johnson had been arrested for being drunk in a public place - albeit when police found him asleep in the backyard of what he thought was a mate's house (the mate had actually moved) - in his hometown of Wangaratta on Christmas Eve 2006.
It was also for not telling the club about it before details became public about a week after the incident.
The penalties included being banished from the senior group and sent to the VFL team to train, an alcohol ban for the remainder of the 2007 season and being ineligible for senior selection until Round 6.
In essence, Harley told his good friend Johnson that it was the club's way or the Princes Highway.
"I can tell you after it was all handed down, I was livid and Steve was livid," Harley recalled this week.
"At no stage did the leadership group consider this to be a watershed moment for the club. To us, it was all about Steve's wellbeing as a person.
"We didn't want Steve to be the guy perched in the corner of a pub in Wangaratta saying, 'I could have been this' or 'I could have been that'.
"It was about the individual first, the fact that we were able to get some football outcomes out of it as well, that was a bit of a bonus."
Five years and six months on from the moment that shaped Steve Johnson's AFL career - and, to a degree, his life - those bonuses are still coming.
Whether it was intended or not, that moment is now seen as a defining point in Geelong's modern history.
The club that had not won a premiership in 44 years leading into the 2007 season has now won three of the past five.
And the one-time problem child has become the poster boy for what some "tough love" can transform.
The irony is that Johnson, 29 on Wednesday, is now one of the players who sit in judgment on teammates who get into trouble.
Voted into the leadership group by his peers in the pre-season - after being an invited guest last year - Johnson was one of those who had to devise sanctions for teammate Jesse Stringer, who was recently banned from senior football for the rest of the year for an alleged assault on a young woman.
"He's got a fair bit of empathy for situations like that," Geelong football manager Neil Balme said. "It just shows how far he has come."
Harley agrees: "Steve has done some great things over the past five years. But I think his greatest achievement has been the way he has risen through the player ranks in terms of his standing in the club. He has probably gone from his own admission ranked 35 out of whatever to the top half-dozen players."
Link To the full article
Last edited by Doc26; 10-12-2012 at 12:25 PM.
The upside of promoting Austin is that he can play at HF if we need him to, keen to make a contest and doesn't give away cheap frees , solid overhead and clean off the ground
.
I'm sure clubs are having a strong look at him but so many clubs are very mindful of losing sponsors its certainly raised the focus of recruiting 'good young men' or having a 'no dickheads' policy.
I see both sides of the argument here because we have a highly talented youngster that has somehow managed to scare off 18 clubs because he is seen as too big of a risk.
The club that picks him will probably be seen as a visionary.
Western Bulldogs Football Club "Where it's cool to drool"
Good article about what clubs may do in the PSD here:
Ultimate SuperFooty AFL 2012 pre-season and rookie draft preview
85, 92, 97, 98, 08, 09, 10... Break the curse!