comparisons between the dogs and the saints

[SydneySainter]

They are looking amazing, don't forget though that they are one draft ahead of us (when they picked up Stringer and MacRae ) it is also handy that they managed to pick up two father son guns the year before that.

having said that though the bulldogs don't seem to be able to miss their early picks at the moment, we need to nail every early pick in a similar fashion.

Bonts is going to be something special but I'm still happy with Billings as I believe he will be a star and I know I wouldn't have taken the chance on Bonts as he really came out of nowhere in his draft year.

Given that the 2009 draft was all but a miss, the Dogs are two drafts ahead.

[mcadam05]

When they beat us in a final I will care , till then what does it matter

[sunsaint]

Good point - The Doggies have ended up with the actual Pick 1 from 2014 (Boyd) and the Performance Pick 1 (Bont).
Sure they had to lose Griffen - but I dont they will care about that in three years. Heck they are probably already over losing Griffen.

the club has been brave
A browlow medalist
A captain
and dont forget Brian Lake.

& the club has been smart
instead of giving the captainship to the best/goal kicker/pinup boy - they give it a no fuss inspirational player
and Beveridge seems to have quietly slid in without any "minor tweaks" and the players are responding

[SuperDuper]

we need McCartin to be ok in 3 years ... hopefully he does...

and we need to have a good draft next year... and in that case we will be two years behind them...
i.e. we can really move up fast in 2017 if things go ok

But... there is a chance that they simply drafted better than us... hard to tell from our side because of the time lag, so we just have to wait and see

[plugger66]

Don't forget that the Dogs started their re-build two years before us (with some father/son picks thrown in). Let's see what our playing list looks like in two years.

There seem to be some assumptions that we're doing everything wrong at the moment, but I would strongly disagree.

We only did 2 thing wrong in my opinion. We should have accepted pick 12 from Richmond for Armo and also allowed Steven to walk as a FA at the end of this year. Now I know I will be howled down and probably be given a warning from the Mods but I will not get over this anytime soon. Please note...I am not saying anything against Armo or Steven. I like both of them but I like St Kilda FC a million times more.

If we had accepted pick 12 for Armo then we could have picked up either Ellis, Weller, Lever, Garlett, Durdin, Langford or Laverde.....take your pick. These guys will be 25 when St Kilda will be in contention for a flag whereas Armo will be over 30. And as we all know, once you get to 30+ you are more injury prone.

If we had allowed Steven to walk as a FA at the end of this year then we would be getting pick 3 at worst. Steven is a very good player but I would have been happy taking my chances in November this year with pick 3 and again this player will be about 24 when the Saints are challenging whilst Steven will be 30. The other benefit would have been on our salary cap. So there you have it people, let the howling and the warnings begin.

3 things wrong. We also let you post.

[Johnny Favier]

Don't forget that the Dogs started their re-build two years before us (with some father/son picks thrown in). Let's see what our playing list looks like in two years.

There seem to be some assumptions that we're doing everything wrong at the moment, but I would strongly disagree.

We only did 2 thing wrong in my opinion. We should have accepted pick 12 from Richmond for Armo and also allowed Steven to walk as a FA at the end of this year. Now I know I will be howled down and probably be given a warning from the Mods but I will not get over this anytime soon. Please note...I am not saying anything against Armo or Steven. I like both of them but I like St Kilda FC a million times more.

If we had accepted pick 12 for Armo then we could have picked up either Ellis, Weller, Lever, Garlett, Durdin, Langford or Laverde.....take your pick. These guys will be 25 when St Kilda will be in contention for a flag whereas Armo will be over 30. And as we all know, once you get to 30+ you are more injury prone.

If we had allowed Steven to walk as a FA at the end of this year then we would be getting pick 3 at worst. Steven is a very good player but I would have been happy taking my chances in November this year with pick 3 and again this player will be about 24 when the Saints are challenging whilst Steven will be 30. The other benefit would have been on our salary cap. So there you have it people, let the howling and the warnings begin.

Look...I'm sure you're probably a very nice person in real life and of course you're entitled to your opinion, but if you think that trading out our two best midfield players for draft picks would have been a good move then sorry, all I can say is, you don't appear to have a clue of how a footy club runs.

Guys like Armo and Jack are highly respected as clubmen for their off-field contributions and leadership at training and are the very fabric of what makes a good footy club knit together. Things like that are far more valuable than possessions on a stats sheet, or how high a draft pick someone is. Andrew McQualter was a first round draft pick - say no more.

How would the newer guys feel if they saw two of our younger leaders being traded off like cattle?

This is nothing to do with sentiment and everything to do with loyalty and respect.

If you don't understand that, then I'm sorry, but you deserve all the flak you get from everyone else on this forum.