You mean like we did in 2010. That was a clean out End of 2004 hardly.In my opinion, you only rebuild when you have failed to manage your list correctly. It's effectively the 'wipe the floor clean' and start again theory. I don't think we'll place ourselves it that position anytime soon, if ever. We learned the hard way that getting rid of your leaders and 'cultural glue' of the club to bring in youth does not work.
I still remember when we had 5 picks inside the top 20 and thought it would set us up for a flag. Not only did we stuff the drafting and ruin their development but we threw all our youth to the wolves by playing them to early without the protection of senior players.
Continuing to build beneath, is the best way to stay at the top and give your youth the opportunity to reach their full potential. If that still isn't good enough then it also gives you the chance replace them and try again all while your older core players continue to succeed on the main stage.
I think we are doing just that - refreshing the list and I also think we are doing it extremely well. I have confidence that Bolton, Baker, Balta, Short and Graham will form a strong core for us in 5+ years. I also have faith that Stack, CCJ, Ross, Naish and Dow will join them. As long as we keep finding other gems in the draft and trade in talent when the opportunity arises, I can see us continuing to make the rest of the football world jealous for many years to come
Clubs are always in rebuild just about half of every clubs list would be made up of players aged 22 and under. Every club has its share of younger players getting games our trouble is we have a whole pile entering the 30 plus bracket and not enough currently coming thru to balance it out over the next couple of seasons.
We had an abundance of mature players in 2005 the yr after we had a so called clean out. First game of that year we had eleven blokes with 100 games plus the average age was 25yr 114 days. We didnt get rid of our leaders in one mass exodus.
2005 first game of the yr We played 6 blokes aged 22 or under a 17 yr old Deledio, 18yo Jackson and 19 yo Roach the rest were 22.
To name a few mature types or leaders , Bowden 26, Johnson 27, Campbell 32, Richo 30, Simmonds 26, Gaspar 28, Hall 24, Knobel 24, Brown 27,Tivendale 25, Kellaway 29, Stafford 28, Chaffey 27, Graham 32,
Some of the blokes we cut at the end of 2004
Dragacevic hardly established and injury riddled.
D Kellaway retired in his 30's,
Blumfield gave us nothing and was a mistake to trade him in.
Fleming lol no wonder we could not win games with players like him getting regular games..
Houlihan another dud.
Fiora what a waste of such a good pick in a word dud. we would continue to make draft blunders like this.
Zantuck some liked him i thought him ordinary
Rogers retired aged 30.
Ottens he wanted out it got us two first rounders 12 and 16 which we proceeded to waste.
Two experienced retirements one high quality big man traded. the rest duds. We kept the vast majority of our leaders father time would see to them over time.
The real trouble was we did not have the players or quality and it would take an inordinate amount of time to get them.
A notable point is our better players have mostly come from the earlish parts of the nd.the glue if you like.
Cotchin, Martin, Riewoldt Edwards Rance, Bolton Vlastuin, even our good trades originally from the early part of the nd Prestia, Lynch,