The sides that have had prolonged periods of success in recent times haven't gone and chased big $$$ players . West Coast , Briabane , Geelong and even back to Hawthorn .
The reason why not to go after a big name isn't based on whether we have a player good enough and likely to bet be as good , it's about what it costs to get them . Getting a daisy Thomas would mean the lose of a couple like Conca , O'hanlon , Ellis .
No thanks we have the outside game breakers and unfortunately at the moment they are being used inside and being sat by the opposition .
I agree we need to generate more pace around the midfield , however IMO it will came at the expense of players like Tuck , Jackson , Grigg being replaced by the Vlaustin, Arnott , Williams , O'hanlon types and we might see it by seasons end .
If losing Conca/Ellis (Not so much O'Hanlon) was the price for obtaining Thomas, then I would be against it. However, as none of us are in a position to judge our salary cap issues, we can't go off making assumptions like that. There have been cases where bringing in a big fish hasn't brought about a salary mess. I doubt Essendon are going to have to kick off Heppell, Kavanagh, Carlisle etc for bringing in Goddard. They calculated the reward and risk of bringing Brendan into the club and they pulled a big fish successfully.
The sad truth, is that we do not have any outside line-breakers other than Deledio. Edwards is quick, but he hardly uses his pace to break lines. Martin sometimes incorporates it into his game, but you couldn't call it a feature. Tuck and Jackson are inside players. Thus when there time is up, they will be replaced by inside players, not line-breakers. The players you have mentioned are all inside types, other than O'Hanlon, who by all means is NOT a line-breaker. They aren't the ones who we will use to inject pace into our team.
The club has said for a while that they are building up a war chest and will target a big fish. For me we have two needs, a CHF (Not convinced by Vickery yet.) and a fast outside midfielder. We have decent young depth for that key-forward role in Elton, Griff and Astbury, so there isn't much worry there. The problem is that outside midfielder, and Thomas would be that perfect fit. He's an athlete, can play outside and also win his ball. He has X Factor and game-winning ability and can have a huge impact up forward.














