List Management: Top up or Bottom out?

[scottwade]

There is one thing to remember about "bottoming-out" in the current AFL competition. There's a hair's breadth between teams 4 and 15 and being sent to the bottom is not always a choice you get to make. It can happen no matter what you do, no matter the age of your list and like Worsfold and Williams this year, you're just left scratching your head and asking "wtf went wrong?".

Exactly right.
This nonsense of Roos that we can't afford to bottom out.
Hell we may have no choice.

At the start of next season;
C Bolton 28, J. Bolton 29, Goodes 29, Hall 32, Jolly 28, Kennelly 28, Kirk 33, ROK 28, O'Loughlin 32.

9 of our best dozen players 28 or over.

It doesn't matter if we draft or trade, we are unlikely to replace those players in the next 3 or 4 years.

The talk of White, Murphy, Currie etc coming in and playing key roles is, at present nothing more than wishful thinking.

Our second best defender (Barry), our second best ruck (Everitt), our second best midfielder (Kirk; I gave Goodes the #1honour) and our two best forwards (Hall & O'loughlin) are all likely to be gone by the end of 2009.

We simply cannot replace them.