Do you remember?

[Arcassius]

Years ago, when the club was looking to rebuild - it made the decision to do so by building the team around 3 players that formed the spine. Pavlich, Sandilands, McPharlin. Those three were sancrosanct, and everyone else was on the table. Fast forward, and the plan came close in 2013 but didn't deliver in the end.

Now we have 6 and 7 year commitments for Cox (25-31), Swaggy (25-32), Jackson (22-28), and Jye (20-27). Again, focused on the spine. What are your thoughts on the strategy?

 

[Gimme the Fyfe]

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

I had a dream that we won the Granny with Amiss was best on ground, converting a goal each time the ball went in his direction - the uncharacteristically reliable full forward we've always wanted.

 

[Jezzitizle]

Years ago, when the club was looking to rebuild - it made the decision to do so by building the team around 3 players that formed the spine. Pavlich, Sandilands, McPharlin. Those three were sancrosanct, and everyone else was on the table. Fast forward, and the plan came close in 2013 but didn't deliver in the end.

Now we have 6 and 7 year commitments for Cox (25-31), Swaggy (25-32), Jackson (22-28), and Jye (20-27). Again, focused on the spine. What are your thoughts on the strategy?

Not sure it’s a spine centric strategy, more a case of signing up the best young players long term, and having a group have a crack together.

Having a good spine is part of the strategy but so is a gun midfield.

But it is the right strategy, last thing we need is to be continually losing gun players when trying to contend, and long term deals will dissuade other clubs from having a crack because we would extort them.

There is a risk players will perform below their contract or become injury riddled, but it is the right risk to take.

Tassie on the horizon is likely an influential factor also.

Really the question will be have the club picked the best players,
developed them to the max, and created a winning environment.

 

[Arcassius]

Not sure it’s a spine centric strategy, more a case of signing up the best young players long term, and having a group have a crack together.

Having a good spine is part of the strategy but so is a gun midfield.

But it is the right strategy, last thing we need is to be continually losing gun players when trying to contend, and long term deals will dissuade other clubs from having a crack because we would extort them.

There is a risk players will perform below their contract or become injury riddled, but it is the right risk to take.

Tassie on the horizon is likely an influential factor also.

Really the question will be have the club picked the best players,
developed them to the max, and created a winning environment.

I agree with this

There would be a level of confidence in the playing group that the upper management is backing them in to get it done, and be the players to get it done. Makes the environment more certain, and reduces the ruptures that happen when a player makes the decision to leave.

It's a big risk - an all or nothing risk. If we have long term injuries we could * ourselves in a big way with this strategy. It does mean that if this crop doesn't work out - we'll bottom out in 2025 and do a full rebuild again

 

[pK75]

Years ago, when the club was looking to rebuild - it made the decision to do so by building the team around 3 players that formed the spine. Pavlich, Sandilands, McPharlin. Those three were sancrosanct, and everyone else was on the table. Fast forward, and the plan came close in 2013 but didn't deliver in the end.

Now we have 6 and 7 year commitments for Cox (25-31), Swaggy (25-32), Jackson (22-28), and Jye (20-27). Again, focused on the spine. What are your thoughts on the strategy?

Not sure I agree with this statement. Sure those 3 ended up being the nucleus, but we spent a fair amount of draft and salary capital on the midfield, drafting Hase, trading in Bell & Headland.

McPharlin was the steak knives in the Croad trade.

The fact those three outlasted the rest doesn’t mean they were “sacrosanct”.

Fast forward to our current team, and the midfield is where we focused our draft capital with Brayshaw, Young and Serong all being top 10 picks (Erasmus if he makes it as well)
Jackson is a unicorn so not sure if you say he’s an investment in Ruck, Forward or Mid.
Amiss is our only other top 10 pick.

 

[Arcassius]

Not sure I agree with this statement. Sure those 3 ended up being the nucleus, but we spent a fair amount of draft and salary capital on the midfield, drafting Hase, trading in Bell & Headland.

McPharlin was the steak knives in the Croad trade.

The fact those three outlasted the rest doesn’t mean they were “sacrosanct”.

Fast forward to our current team, and the midfield is where we focused our draft capital with Brayshaw, Young and Serong all being top 10 picks (Erasmus if he makes it as well)
Jackson is a unicorn so not sure if you say he’s an investment in Ruck, Forward or Mid.
Amiss is our only other top 10 pick.

There was an article a while back with the club talking about their strategy and building around those three players - from memory it was talking about the rebuild around 2008, and the article was written somewhere in the 2010-2013 bracket. Some of the older heads might remember it

 

[Fat Nyfe]

It’s a good strategy. The reason we got our act together so quickly from 2008-2010 was because we had an elite spine of McPharlin, Sandi, Pav already in place. Add in a smattering of talented youngsters, natural development of guys already there like Mundy, and a competent coaching team and bang regular finals, enough to give ourselves a chance for a premiership.

With this spine, assuming Amiss doesn’t skip a beat in his development as the youngest of them, there’s no reason we can’t do the same over the next 5-6 years. There’s arguably more talent at the club now in other areas of the ground. Whether we win a flag or not I don’t know but we should be able to play regular finals and recover from any hiccups (like 2023) quickly due to those guys being locked in, reliable and elite talents already.

 

[CapitalA]

Not sure I agree with this statement. Sure those 3 ended up being the nucleus, but we spent a fair amount of draft and salary capital on the midfield, drafting Hase, trading in Bell & Headland.

McPharlin was the steak knives in the Croad trade.

The fact those three outlasted the rest doesn’t mean they were “sacrosanct”.

Fast forward to our current team, and the midfield is where we focused our draft capital with Brayshaw, Young and Serong all being top 10 picks (Erasmus if he makes it as well)
Jackson is a unicorn so not sure if you say he’s an investment in Ruck, Forward or Mid.
Amiss is our only other top 10 pick.

Being top 10 picks doesn't necessarily mean you are building around them- Sandilands was a rookie pick. So Darcy being a pick in the 30's doesn't exclude him from being the nucleus of the spine nor Pearce and Cox in defence.

 

[stax on the mull]

I can see some kind of parallel in hindsight, but at the start of the 2010 season Pav was out of contract and didn't sign on for another 4 years until September of 2010, so it could have been a different story if we didn't make the finals that year.

Then Mundy who was also out of contract signed a 4 year deal at the end of the 2010 season. It was partly facilitated by the departure of Tarrant.

Sandilands had signed a long term deal in 2009, adding 3 more years to a deal that was going to end in 2010.

It seems like there were several players coming out of contract at the end of 2010 as McPharlin also signed up for another 2 years in October 2010, and Stephen Hill

32

Stephen Hill

Age

33

Ht

183cm

Wt

82kg

Pos.

Def

Career

Season

Last 5

D

19.5

5star

K

11.7

4star

HB

7.8

5star

M

3.0

3star

T

2.9

4star

MG

223.5

3star

D

13.5

3star

K

8.8

4star

HB

4.8

3star

M

4.8

4star

T

0.8

1star

MG

223.5

3star

D

11.2

3star

K

5.4

2star

HB

5.8

4star

M

2.2

3star

T

2.8

5star

too, going into his 2nd contract after being taken in the 2008 draft.

 

[pK75]

Being top 10 picks doesn't necessarily mean you are building around them- Sandilands was a rookie pick. So Darcy being a pick in the 30's doesn't exclude him from being the nucleus of the spine nor Pearce and Cox in defence.

Agree, Darcy, Cox, Amiss and Jackson is a great spine to build around, I just think in 2016 when we Drafted Darcy and Cox it was more out of necessity than a grand strategy, McPharlin had retired, Dawson and MJ were gettin older as was Sandi. We still had Fyfe, Neale and Mundy in the midfield