We’ve delisted 70 odd players in the last 10 years. Menagola was a miss, but we weren’t the first to miss. MdB and Barlow might have been nice to have around, but we have enough good veterans in the team like Mundy who probably contribute more on the field. You’d probably have to go back to Roberton for a guy who turned out to be useful, but he was partially let go on compassionate grounds.
I don’t mind if people want to bring up Menagola all the time, but can you also do me a favour and name the two-lists worth of spuds we delisted who never played again? People are very keen to remember the misses, but people were certain blokes like Michie, Broughton and Balic would come back to haunt us, and they very rarely do.
Here’s a short list of players from the last 10 years I quite liked who we delisted who I thought could have been useful AFL players: Gilmore, Ruffles Sibosado, van Berlo, Faulks, Mellington, Menegola, Smith, Duffy and Hannath. None of those players made anything of themselves at other clubs.
I hope Collins bucks the trend and forges a wonderful AFL career, but if he does that will make a couple of misses out of 70-odd. I don’t think that is a cataclysmic failure of list management. Of course, even if people accepted that, I’m sure they could say those players should have amounted to something and therefore it was a failure of development.
