Flag tilt 5 years away?

[rct63]

500 years would be more accurate

[shmic_s]

We can turn it around quicker !

At seasons end we should have plenty of room in our salary cap to attract some decent trades and a low ladder position will enable us to pick up some talented kids in the draft .
As the year wears on Watters will introduce more of the younger talent , so by 2015 we can be up there again!

I'm a bit of an optimist, and I agree with you. 3 seasons time, will be missing 4 or all of Roo, Milne, Kosi, Lenny or Blake.
But get the games into youngsters now. Use free agency to fill some holes. And still have Fisher, Dal, Gilbert, Armo, Steven, McEvoy, Gwilt, Dempster with 60 odd more games in them too.

Teams can rise and fall quickly from season to season. Injuries, game plan changes, fitness levels, momentum and just plain old luck all playing a part IMO. But I am an optimist.

[mad saint guy]

True, but I'd hope next time around we have a more even spread, a opposed to an over-reliance on our top shelf which brought us undone in 09/10... The bottom 4-6 player will hopefully be superior in 2015 onwards to then...

In saying that, we were coming out of an era where Hamill, Gehrig, Thompson, Harves, Jones, Max etc were our core, and before we knew it they were replaced with an even better group.. It can change quickly..

But that core that gradually took over the reigns from 2005 onwards was drafted from 1999 til 2002 and didn't peak until 2009. Let's just say that our last two drafts turn out well and are the beginning of a similar cycle to what we have seen; then we can expect our next core to start making their way up the ladder in 2016 and peak around 2021. That's IF we have drafted 6-8 quality long term players over the past two years.

Unfortunately I think we are in for a long, painful rebuild. Our drafting was abysmal and negligent from 2004-2009 and we're going to pay for it. Our recruiters have picked up their act a bit in the last few years but these have been extremely compromised drafts because of the expansion teams. We've entered the drafts with picks in the 20s which are probably the equivalent of the 40s in an uncompromised draft.

[Zed]

Let's make some noise and ask them to spend big on building the smartest Recruiting dept so that we can recruit the best talent available and turn 4th round picks into 100-150 game players

[Teflon]

gee msg........that's a depressing picture you paint and whats scary is it might be accurate.

[Griggsy]

5 is ambitious but can be done as Sydney and WCE show. Eagles had decent trades (Judd - Kennedy, Masten) and drafting (Darling was a steal in the 2nd round, was predicted top 5), getting quality for leaving A graders hasn't been our forte' in recent heres.

We might do it, if we luck out in trades and drafts. I'd say FA aswell but feel the prices of some players are way too high unless you pull someone like GAJ.

5-10 is more realistic. What this is also dependant on is what the club does now, do they hang onto the middle of the table with the current stars while recruiting and being hopeful which can be a genius move or a disaster if it doesn't work. Or let it happen so the only way to go is up.

[bergholt]

Personally I think it mainly boils down to most of our youth not being good enough. Pump more games into Lynch and I doubt it would have made much difference.

Yep, great point. Similarly, Winmar playing twenty games would probably just have revealed that he didn't have the balls for AFL, for whatever reason. Same with many of the others. Possibly Armo, Jack and Geary could have played more earlier, but none of the rest seem to have enough quality for them to make the slightest bit of difference.

And anyway, there was a chance that McQualter was going to take the next step and turn into a real quality mid. He didn't, but he showed enough for another club to pick him up once we dumped him. Had to get the games into him to see if he was going to make it.

[BigMart]

But if you draft them, they need opportunity to develop....

No good rotting in the twos

If they are not good enough, it'll become obvious... Our Drafting has been woeful yes.... But has our development been any good?

[bergholt]

If they are not good enough, it'll become obvious... Our Drafting has been woeful yes.... But has our development been any good?

Fair point. And at least if you find out earlier that they're not good enough, you can dump them and get another kid in.

[dragit]

If they are not good enough, it'll become obvious... Our Drafting has been woeful yes.... But has our development been any good?

Fair point. And at least if you find out earlier that they're not good enough, you can dump them and get another kid in.

Bingo, Ledger isn't looking likely at this stage... But we need to find out this year either way, or have we already really decided on him?

Be good to see 5 games into Ross this year.

[Teflon]

If they are not good enough, it'll become obvious... Our Drafting has been woeful yes.... But has our development been any good?

Fair point. And at least if you find out earlier that they're not good enough, you can dump them and get another kid in.

Good point re finding out earlier - for mine some appear obvious and we hang on to long

I guess when a side wins 19 in a row in 2009 it's hard to find out but now we don't ga e that excuse

[BigMart]

Winning sides can change... In fact they should..... Was every player perfect that season?? There's always improvement...

There's always an eye on development...