And we need to be very careful about managing our ruck stocks now so we dont end up back there.There is plenty we could have done. Only the non thinking give up.
In October 2015 we sit down and ask what if Ryder gets 2 years - ASADA had already appealed to CAS? What if Lobbe also picks up an injury like he has in the past for every year apart from 2014? What is our insurance policy/policies??
We then should have taken out an insurance policy, you know like WCE did when they offered a 300+ game Petrie a rookie contract at the end of 2016 after Nick Nat did his knee in the last game in 2016 and was going to miss all of 2017.
They already had Lycett, Jonathon Giles and young forward/ruck Fraser McInnes. So not only did they get insurance in Petrie they double insured and got Nathan Vardy for the main list. Who were their ruckmen come finals 2017?? Lycett and Giles? No it was Vardy and Petrie. Lycett got injured in 2017 and only played 1 game - he had a history of injuries. Did they use their CHB Jeremy McGovern to ruck for 16-18 games?
So either by a trade, or by the national draft, or by the preseason draft, or by the rookie draft, we could have picked up an insurance ruckman to be an insurance ruckman just like a Petrie, who was on a 1 year deal. Sure he would have got paid more than a standard rookie, but he got a 1 year deal. They cut him at the end of 2017.
So we lacked the intellectual horse power to do what if scenarios. That's why we weren't going to win in 2016 without Ryder. You don't need to make a $6mil a year profit like WCE, to think and be smart rather than just hope for the best.
But no we didn't think, we didn't plan. We stupidly said it wont happen and if it does, the AFL are good blokes and will help us out, despite drafting Ryder knowing the cloud over his head.
There is no way we should be letting more than one of them go and really if we let one of the young ones go it is effectively 2 when Ryder retires.
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