So Gibbs and Murphy are up for trade according to Caro's article.
Do not see the point in Carlton gutting its playing list. Would that not just be the more of the same from them? Violent, knee jerk that still dances around the problem. It's not like these players will land them multiple first round picks each (like Judd essentially did for WCE).
We were at the same point 5 or so years ago with not much of value on the list, struggling to attract anyone to the club and seemingly unable to buy our way into the first round of the draft. I like to think that the decision was made to build the list from the ground up which meant spending the time identifying talent and then investing in the development of the players recruited.
It doesn't have to take 5 years either. There will be plenty of good kids AFL wide, in particular at GWS, which SOS will be all over, who will be looking for an opportunity. Our VFL side on the weekend was stacked with AFL quality between the ages of 19 and 22. Fremantle seems to have an abundance of mid sized running machines as does Sydney.
I appreciate the irony of suggesting that they start an era of list building by poaching players from other AFL clubs but I see it as the same thing as taking Hibberd, Crameri, Baguley, Jenkins (who secured us some draft value and has ended up quite the player), Ambrose and Howlett as mature aged recruits.
The models based on teams full of first round picks still fall well short of being proven. The starting point has to always be building a good team for the long term first (I think we did that and it's been frustrating that we didn't get a few finals wins because of the supplements related bullshit between 2012 and 2014). There is plenty to suggest that the premierships all come from the good, consistent teams which ultimately put themselves in positions to attract the additional talent which takes them from being good to great.
There is probably one exception to the rule as the bastards are quite luck in one respect. There are rumblings that both Sheil and Treloar are on the way back to Melbourne and you'd think that SOS being at Carlton gives them a tremendous advantage. You would have to re-assess trading a Gibbs or Murphy for one of those players.