Well, the obvious example is Brodie Grundy. If Chris Scott wanted a ruckman badly enough, we could have easily taken him in the 2012 draft.
Some young players have been given plenty of opportunities. Some have gone from being golden children to whipping boys. Let's take the 2011 draft for example:
- Hamling: delisted without playing a game. Given a lifeline by the Bulldogs and looks a certainty to play in the finals for them this year.
- Kersten: expected to be the next big thing and the steal of the draft while he battled injuries in his first few seasons. When he finally debuted, he started with a bang, but has stagnated badly since then. Very difficult to find a spot in next year's team for him.
- Murdoch: one of the 'golden children' and along with Kersten was considered an absolute steal at the time. He looks to be paying moderate dividends now.
- McCarthy: another 'golden child' that people rave about and who seems to be considered an automatic inclusion when he's fit. I haven't really seen it; I think people on here like him because he's a scrapper, but he needs to add a lot of polish to his game to be an effective small forward at the top level.
- Stephenson: cheap, quick stopgap ruckman.
- Bews: starved of opportunities in 2014, when he was looking like our most promising small defender. Dropped twice in the back half of 2015, when he should be persisted with.
You must of missed what I said about ruckman , this is something that should be taken up more with Wells and Hocking than Scott .Do you honestly think that Scott was told here is outstanding young ruckman and his response was no I am not interested ? Give me a break , wells simply didn't spot Grundy who was passed up by almost every other team.
Not 1 of those points really concern me .You seems to think that all players should be given equal opportunity , this is nothing more than a fantasy .Players with certain attributes are going to get given more opportunity than others .Murdoch is the example , his size and athletic ability are something that just cant be taught , sure he might not make it but hes going to get more opportunity than others.
Something else to keep in mind is that the club is in much much better position to make a judgement than any of us , to be honest we really shouldn't be questioning them. They know fast they are over 20 meters ,100 meters,200 meters,400,meters,2km ,their endurance level ,their jumping height, their agility,their coordination ,their lateral vision,their pushing strength,their pulling strength,their lower body strength and more.
Just because Hamling play for the bulldogs who by the way have done nothing so far ,doesn't mean he's a good player .Sides can make the finals with 16 good players and 6 ordinary players in the side.