shintemaster
Brownlow Medallist
Reading up on our apparent movements regarding Kelly, Martin, Fyfe and Heeney last year has had me pondering a few things over the last couple of days and I thought it was worth putting them in a new thread. I'll try to be succinct however irrespective of whether we land any or all of the first 3 names on that list I thought the list management team and the club in general deserved a bit of credit for what these moves indicate about us.
1 - We clearly have not been overpaying our list over the last few years on the whole to be left with this amount of room. While we didn't quite get that 5th flag both our drafting and payment structure would indicate that we haven't been reckless, just dogged in pursuit of this.
2 - Arguably if you look at raw payment figures we didn't internally rate our list as amongst the top few in the league over this time either. We gave some stalwarts a chance at pinching it but the resources into the players indicate that we were off the mark. Clearly there is more to football than the $ out the door but it is not an insignificant factor.
3 - There is also arguably a message in all this on what we feel is reasonable to expect from Brad Scott out of the list. There is an argument that a team that was able to obtain the players necessary or develop them to take up more of this cap could have been that tiny bit more competitive in the last 3 seasons.
I don't mean this to be an across the board excuse for not being able to get the wins necessary. End of the day football is about wins and premierships - at least on field - however I do think that the movements we've been making indicate a level of respect for both the club and Brad holding a genuine long term view. We rolled the dice to pinch a flag we felt obtainable, but we don't appear to have mortgaged the future to do so. Whether the next one comes with Brad - or indeed any of the current admin and players, I think they deserve a fair bit of credit for managing a tight list. There are clubs out there that are paying significantly more to poorer performing teams that don't have the room we do to make these plays. There are more things to take from this but the above is the heart of it IMO.
There's some guts in this club yet.
1 - We clearly have not been overpaying our list over the last few years on the whole to be left with this amount of room. While we didn't quite get that 5th flag both our drafting and payment structure would indicate that we haven't been reckless, just dogged in pursuit of this.
2 - Arguably if you look at raw payment figures we didn't internally rate our list as amongst the top few in the league over this time either. We gave some stalwarts a chance at pinching it but the resources into the players indicate that we were off the mark. Clearly there is more to football than the $ out the door but it is not an insignificant factor.
3 - There is also arguably a message in all this on what we feel is reasonable to expect from Brad Scott out of the list. There is an argument that a team that was able to obtain the players necessary or develop them to take up more of this cap could have been that tiny bit more competitive in the last 3 seasons.
I don't mean this to be an across the board excuse for not being able to get the wins necessary. End of the day football is about wins and premierships - at least on field - however I do think that the movements we've been making indicate a level of respect for both the club and Brad holding a genuine long term view. We rolled the dice to pinch a flag we felt obtainable, but we don't appear to have mortgaged the future to do so. Whether the next one comes with Brad - or indeed any of the current admin and players, I think they deserve a fair bit of credit for managing a tight list. There are clubs out there that are paying significantly more to poorer performing teams that don't have the room we do to make these plays. There are more things to take from this but the above is the heart of it IMO.
There's some guts in this club yet.
