I’m sorry but if you think that we are more likely to go backwards than forwards next year then you are allowing your natural pessimism to overrule any logical analysis. by the end of the year we were clearly better than St Kilda, Bulldogs and Port and we have the second youngest playing group in the comp. Any unbiased and unemotional predictions for 2024 would have Adelaide in the top 6, and if we happened to upgrade at the midfield and/or key back positions then this would only go higher.what's the point if you're going to ignore the key component of the discussion? And we're not contending next year, we'd need a similarly good run with injuries, which we're already behind the 8 ball with. It's more likely we go a little backwards than forward enough to be in the discussion for top 4. Foregoing a shot at another Rankine or Rachele for the sake of trading for a player to get an extra year would be crazy stupid. When we did it for Gibbs in 2017 it had merit as we had every reason to think we'd be around the top 4 again. Even then, if he was coming to FA the next year, you'd have to wonder whether it would be worth pulling the trigger just to have him for 2018.





