Danger is so attractive to me not simply because we are very light on for elite midfield talent in general, but because we are especially light on for the type of midfield talent that he has in spades. He is exactly the type of player that I cannot see any of our younger players becoming, with the possible exception of Caddy. I.e. a powerful and intimidating contested ball and clearance winner. Also a big body.
As for attracting him, I don't think we necessarily need to make top 4. People in footy have very short memories (we won 17 games last year but our year was essentially condemned for the last two that we lost), so it's really just vital that we finish the year off strongly, and in particular, demonstrate that we have promising youth. This last part is perhaps most important of all. If we win 14 games for the year and the only prime movers under 30 years of age are Selwood, Hawkins, Taylor and Duncan, we'll be in trouble. However if 4 or 5 of the younger guys with 30+ games to their name step up to become week-in-week-out contributors, I think it will go a long way.
And there is also the possibility that Clark and Stanley can make a genuine difference. At the very least, along with the Caddy, Guthrie et al, Clark and Stanley represent a great opportunity for the well documented demographic imbalance in our list to be rectified. And that, IMO, would go a long way to eradicating the perception that we are going down, not up.