Congratulations

[Stegelator]

Well Done on getting Hardwick! He is A great Player! And I hope he plays for you as good as he did for us! I will miss him very much. Please take good care of him! :( :(

[Tredders#16]

Cheers mate, hope u use those two draft picks wisely!

[carb70]

I'm still not 100% happy about picking up Hardwick. For 5 years I have been listening about Port youth policy and all of a sudden we are recruiting 29 year olds. It's either Port saying that they intend winning a premiership in the next 2 season or maybe the club is too Essendon conscious for it's own good. We are Port Adelaide we should not be modeling ourselves on Essendon. Essendon have dominated the AFL for 3 seasons and only have 1 premiership to show for it.

All my Port freinds talk about how Hardwick was a good pick up and how we will get 4-5 season out of him but I find that hard to believe. If you start talking about gettting 4-5 good years of football from a 29 year old them you are starting to lose the plot. What we have lost is our 2nd and 3rd draft picks and that could hurt us in the future. For Port's sake I hope i'm wrong.

[Porthos]

Originally posted by carb70
I'm still not 100% happy about picking up Hardwick. For 5 years I have been listening about Port youth policy and all of a sudden we are recruiting 29 year olds. It's either Port saying that they intend winning a premiership in the next 2 season or maybe the club is too Essendon conscious for it's own good. We are Port Adelaide we should not be modeling ourselves on Essendon. Essendon have dominated the AFL for 3 seasons and only have 1 premiership to show for it.

All my Port freinds talk about how Hardwick was a good pick up and how we will get 4-5 season out of him but I find that hard to believe. If you start talking about gettting 4-5 good years of football from a 29 year old them you are starting to lose the plot. What we have lost is our 2nd and 3rd draft picks and that could hurt us in the future. For Port's sake I hope i'm wrong.

I think it is all about Port winning a premiership in the next three years. If we don't, then we've missed the target...

Its also about having someone to drop off from our squad in two or three years time when we're in an Essendon-type salary cap situation.....he'll be ready to retire, and we'll gratefully welcome back the money under the salary cap. We've got room right now, we should use it right now.

Hardwick was a good pickup, because he's instantly ready to add to our ready squad....we've got enough players at the minute that can be 10 year players, and we'll still pick up another one at pick #15, maybe a bonus our way at #63 & #79.

Clubs don't need to be heavily involved in the draft every year.....look at Brisbane's 99 draft......Cupido, a Father Son, and then home. I don't think they're missing much, if that first pick counts.