We've been there. It's taken us practically almost a decade to fix up our list after the decimation of poor recruiting from the late 90s to the mid 00s.
Too many top-10 draft picks at Melbourne have vanished without a trace Jon Ralph
From: Herald Sun
April 09, 2013 ENOUGH top-10 draft picks have sunk without a trace to prove it is not the ideal measure of a club's talent.
Rising Star nominations are another imperfect science but they provide a fascinating insight into a club's talent base and list-management strategy.
Think Jordan Gysberts, good enough to rack up two Rising Star nominations in his first 11 games after standout performances for Melbourne against Geelong in 2010 (26 touches on debut), and Essendon (30 possessions) in 2011.
Yet Gysberts is a symbol of Melbourne's diabolical position, another player who franked his junior talent with early promise but is now either delisted or at another club.
The list of Rising Star nominations from all clubs in the past six seasons makes interesting reading.
Melbourne, with 12 top-20 picks since the 2006 national draft, when its rebuild began, has had clearly the most nominees in that period - 14 from 12 players (Sam Blease has also received two nominations).
Of those 12 players, half of them have left the club.
Ricky Petterd is rejuvenated at Richmond, Cale Morton is at West Coast, Liam Jurrah and Austin Wonaeamirri are gone, Gysberts is at North Melbourne and Tom Scully took the cash at Greater Western Sydney.
What happened given Morton, Petterd, Gysberts and Scully were considered the building blocks of the team of the coming decade?
They were sucked into the vortex of poor development, bad culture and poaching by expansion clubs, with all but Scully turfed in the off-season by Mark Neeld.
Think five years is not representative? Go back six seasons, and Melbourne has had a competition-high 15 players nominated, with just seven remaining.
One of its players won the Rising Star - Jared Rivers in 2004 - but he left for Geelong as a free agent in the summer for almost no compensation.
Melbourne can try all it likes, and it might drag the margin back under 100 points every second week.
But the stark reality is that the Demons' list does not have enough talent to compete, especially when the high draft picks remaining are performing like Jack Watts and Jack Trengove.
Now consider which clubs Melbourne is up against as it seeks to rebuild - sides such as GWS, which amassed eight nominations last year and has poached four Rising Star nominees in Callan Ward, 2008 winner Rhys Palmer, Phil Davis and Scully.
Or sides such as Collingwood, which has played finals for the past seven years and has 10 nominees in the past six seasons (eight remain), with more exciting recruits already on show this year.
At the other end of the spectrum, St Kilda has managed just four nominations from 2007, underlining Ross Lyon's unwillingness to play youngsters and its list-management failings.
Of the 24 players put on to the senior list between 2008-10, only five Saints remain.
Yet at least its senior players keep performing.
Melbourne is at rock bottom, with non-competitive players, a list with little talent, and a coach desperately trying to dig himself out of the hole the club has created.
http://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/too-many-top-10-draft-picks-at-melbourne-have-vanished-without-a-trace/story-fndv8pdq-1226615230694
