zedman wrote:good luck to them..they have endured pain for 3-4 years dropping grades..how the hell else are they meant to lift themselves out of the mire?
I agree, good luck to them, if they can get away with it and its in the rules then so be it. They have had a couple of down years so I hope they get the best out of their recruits. Let it be clear that my dig is not really aimed at Glenunga, more the SAAFL for allowing it to happen. I am also not against recruitment, thats not my point, I am against MASS recruitment, the type of upheaval that see Brahma Lodge just miss relegation one year and then make a GF the year after. The type of mass recruitment that sees clubs fortunes fluctuate wildly in other words.
Phantom mentioned Ovingham, North Pines, Wingfield as examples of clubs that have been decimated by this type of culture. What happens if Bourkey gets hit by a bus or decides to move on? It would rip the heart out of the place and see them end up like the aforementioned clubs.
The way to rise out of the mire is to build a culture from the ground up. Invest in juniors. Invest in recruiting people new to the sport. Invest in developing talent and .. sensibly bring in new people to the club from elsewhere where circumstances fit. Its about sustainability over instant success.
It's probably not a popular opinion that I hold, I dare say there would be a fair few within the Mitchell Park committee that would disagree with me as well.
zedman wrote:..and MP raped HV and Kangaroo island for years..glasshouses morell..you post good material but on this one i think your off the mark slightly
We raped Happy Valley? Are you for real? The net gain of player movement between Happy Valley and Mitchell Park over the years would be pretty even and if anything would be in their favour. We have lost the Potters lads to them. They nicked Luke for a couple of years and they are always in Nat, Ben Weekley and others ears.
I chuckled a little when I saw your post because I was actually going to use the MP/HV situation as another example of what can happen when mass recruitment goes wrong. We gained a fair few (5+) players from Happy Valley in the 2008 off season and had a pretty good side in 2009, we were competitive in Div 6 that year and would have done very well in Div 7. Unfortunately they all went back to Happy Valley last year and as a result we just had the worst season on Mitchell Park's record. That mass player movement gutted our club. I'm not sure about Fitzroy's strength but I would hazard a guess that they have been severely weakened because of this.
In regards to the Kangaroo Island lads, your argument really doesn't make any sense. All of the KI lads that play for Mitchell Park live (or lived) in the area, were on the mainland for work/love and wanted to play a bit of footy as well. It's not like we poached them from their original clubs. They would literally have been unable to play footy on KI each weekend, so they played for us instead.