My perspective on the whole trade period. This is what I think might have happened
1. We had a target in place for the ruck, which we believe to be Martin - which then fell through.
2. We enquired about those KPP's we were keen on. May, Haynes, then Carlisle when the Talia shit went down. Possibly some others we are not aware of.
3. We these were rebuffed, we then looked at the draft and decided that there were potential targets in the 3 - 6 range, that would be very useful acquisitions.
4. We then chased some of these picks, but either the price was too high (from memory Melbourne wanted Dahl plus our first pick for their first last year) or they were unwilling to trade them at the time we enquired.
5. We then made a late play for Lobbe - as a potential ruck upgrade on what we have.
6. Our desire to get rid of Talia for something realistic was compounded by the AFL 'Nothing to See here policy' (although his value isnt high in any case)
7. We've then assessed the draft and determined that 2 picks in the 20's is better than one at 11 - in terms of quality and filling gaps in our list.
You can argue that we haven't gone hard enough, but IMO there were only a handful of real quality players traded - Treloar, Dangerfield, Carlisle, Bennell; with a few good players (Henderson, Yarran, Rosa, Aish, maybe a few others) and the rest were just good ordinary players or outright spuds (mostly to Carlton).
Most of these guys don't really fill a need for us (or didn't want to come here) and some we are better off without (if the rumours about Bennell and Carlisle are true).
Given the issues with low scoring, unattractive and slow moving football we were complaining about 12 months ago, I'd be backing the recruiters to help us fill the spots we have and look forward to further upward progression next year - because as we've seen, a plan and the right talent can make huge in-roads in a short period of time.