Are we ruthless enough?

[Pure_Ownage]

I don't disagree with you re: the zoning thing.
Carlton and Hawthorn had more productive zones. and I cannot understand why anyone would want to return to zones.
The draft is the fairest system, although I long for an uncompromised draft, but fear that I will never see one.

"I'd suggest the Hawks had a bit of assistance over the last 50 odd years starting with zoning..."

And supporters say much the same about Geelong's success from '07 to '22 with the Cats' acquisition of father and son recruits like Hawkins and the Ablett boys.

We have been through this before.
Gaz would have been lucky to be drafted at all if he didnt have that surname, his draft year at the falcons he wasn't outstanding. We have had plenty of dud father sons including your Callans, Donahue, Simpson, brownless etc etc. The best on talent was Woolnough and his body ruined him.
We havent got an inordinate benefit from FS.
Our only benefit was 6 other clubs passing on selwood due to his knee (although I have a feeling we pick boak if selwood goes earlier so swings and roundabouts) and Hawkins being pick 40 (under the now system our first pick would have gone matching hawk and we would likely not have selwood).

 

[Hinkley29]

I won't presume to know how old you are, but I can remember some very lean times, as well as some highly embarrassing Geelong loses.
I can also recall the times when opposition fans would mock Geelong as country bumpkins and suggest that we were not a serious club. Not to mention the "handbag" tag. Funny, we don't seem to hear that these days. We are now a top line professional club and opposition supporters hate The Cats for that very reason. I think that I can live with that.

But I can recall times when Geelong was unwatchable. But the thing with Hawthorn is that while they had their "droughts", if you can call them that, they bounced back quick to be a competitive club. In fact they have been able to snag a premiership in each of the last 6 decades.
I don't have a dog in the fight with respect to the Hawthorn footy club. To be completely honest, I hate them with a passion. And anyone on this forum who has had a beer with me prior to, or after a game, will be well aware of that. But yes, I would prefer to have been able to watch my team win 13 premierships and have a larger Grand Final win to loss ratio over my arch rival.

My exact quote was
“I would not swap Geelong’s results of the last 20 years with any other club in the country. Not Brisbane, not Hawthorn. Or anyone else.”

So clearly I was not referring to anything that happened before 2006.

why is that so hard for you to understand? And why would it offend you so much?

I think you can decipher by my bigfooty join date, as well as my username, that I have been following Geelong for a long time. Well before the current golden era we have enjoyed. But I honestly don’t even think about the disheartening finals losses of the 90’s, the diabolical footy we played in 1999 or the decidedly average club we were when we rattling tins to survive. Those days are so long gone that they hold no relevance to me now. I’ve got better things to do than wallow in stuff that happened more than half my lifetime ago, back when the game bore very little resemblance to how it looks today. It was almost a different sport back then.

Feel free to hang onto stuff that happened in the deep dark recesses of history, but i am not going to. To be honest, anything that happened before 2000 is no concern to me. It like comparing today’s cricketers to Bradman, Benaud and Miller - they are playing a completely different game.

 

[Cataholic]

As much as I hate them I begrudgingly respect them.

They've matched our premierships since 2006, including a 3-peat mind you,and along the way collected one by stopping us in a GF when we were deemed near certainties.

They're like the annoying younger sibling. They drive you nuts but it's kind of hard to imagine life without them.

But there is a growing satisfaction within me that they've now gone 10 years without tasting GF success.

Long may it continue.

 

[Hinkley29]

As much as I hate them I begrudgingly respect them.

They've matched our premierships since 2006, including a 3-peat mind you,and along the way collected one by stopping us in a GF when we were deemed near certainties.

They're like the annoying younger sibling. They drive you nuts but it's kind of hard to imagine life without them.

But there is a growing satisfaction within me that they've now gone 10 years without tasting GF success.

Long may it continue.

10 years without Gf success, and more importantly, multiple seasons of complete dross and actively choosing to be terrible.

In my opinion the juice is not worth the squeeze.

But that’s just my opinion and I understand that many others don’t agree.