A Cut Above
🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 in my lifetime 😁
Good summary.We’ve turned over small increments of the list and our drafting has been from the bottom end of the draft. We’ve done well but ultimately the list lacks depth.
In the past three years we've traded for Mitchell (currently 25), JOM (25), Impey (23), Scully (27), Scrimshaw (20) & Wingard (25). Those age numbers suggest we're planning to challenge in 1-3 years, so we still have some time up our sleeve to assemble the list as Clarko would like it before giving the flag a serious tilt.
Problem is with McEvoy (29), Smith (30), Gunston (27), Stratton (30), Bruest (28) & Shiels (28) the clock is ticking especially considering all those guys are probably banged up to various degrees from the threepeat years.
My feeling is without uncovering another couple of elite talents from the draft and bringing in a few gun Free Agents we may be stuck in the same no-man's-land Norf were in when they were making prelims but were never a serious threat. What concerns me even more is the need to fund-raise for Dingley by maximizing our appeal to sponsors might result in Kennett insisting the team remains in finals contention even if we are better served in the long term by bottoming out for a year or so. I'm not even sure we would be, but loathe the idea of on-field decisions being made for off-field reasons.
Then you need to look at the competition as a whole a gauge the relative strengths of teams who'll be contending. The weaker the field, the less work we have in front of us. That's tricky because who knows exactly how things will look in 2-3 years? Geelong for instance will be out of the picture but Brisbane will be tough and Collingwood & GWS will probably still be strong.
I think Geelong and Collingwood are a model that we are sort of following. But they have had great luck too in developing and finding players. We haven't had that luck yet.
You guys heard of Jordan De Goey? He was pick 5 in the 2014 draft. Collingwood had a s**t year and fully capitalized. Remember when West Coast finished last in 2010 even though they weren't really that bad, and used that pick to grab Andrew Gaff?Bottoming out has worked precisely...never.
There's bottoming out and there's bottoming out. Nobody's arguing we want to be anchored to the bottom for a decade like Melbourne or Carlton. That would be stupid. However if we finish bottom 8 one year (sooner than we think?) do we trade that pick for an A-grade 24 or 25 year old, or gamble it at the draft to maybe pick up a genuine superstar? Frankly I don't know the answer, it really depends where the club thinks the entire list is at.
However let's not go around telling fibs like "bottoming out never works" because you don't need to bottom out more than a year to profit immensely, which is precisely what ALL recent Premiership teams have done.
Marcus Bontempelli? Pick 4, 2013 draft.
Dustin Martin? Pick 3, 2009.
Nic Natanui? Pick 2, 2008.
Trent Cotchin? Pick 2, 2007.
Josh J. Kennedy? Pick 4, 2005.
Scott Pendlebury? Pick 5, 2005.
Luke Hodge? Pick 1, 2001.
The conversation we should be having is how do you win a Premiership WITHOUT bottoming out.
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