To the top wrote:To some commenting on here, the world has moved on.
No doubt you still vote Liberal because you have always voted Liberal - without recognising that it is now the province of a raft of Christian fundamentalists with middle European backgrounds and The Institute of Public Affairs - so, as Malcolm Fraser lamented "the Liberal Party is no longer the Liberal Party" before resigning.
Same with the footy.
We now live in the world of "free agency".
And as Hawthorn, as the beneficiary to date of "free agency", have shown you attract the players you seek by offering results, results being premierships.
And Hawthorn recruit players with experience, usually from lower sides and making the re-build of those lower sides harder because they are not introducing young talent to an experienced and very capable core.
To attract the players St Kilda require we firstly need the salary cap margin to out bid.
BUT, we also have to be able to sell the journey to being a side that consistently is there during the last 4 weeks of the season and right in the mix to take the whole damn lot.
To have team photographs on the wall so, in years time, you can take your Grand-kids and show them you in a photograph.
For that journey to commence we need success to the level that gives the confidence that the journey has commenced - including that the next generation is flourishing with the interim protection offered by a core of senior players who represent the commitment to the Club and commitment to the Club's future because THAT is the culture and the confidence.
The sides currently at the top of the AFL ladder are very, very experienced, with hard, mature bodies and they hit hard, very hard especially up against young opposition - so yes we need a core of senior players to take the responsibility and protect the emerging young talent until they have the maturity and the mature bodies to give more than they receive.
With Free Agency we can maintain that experienced core - as Hawthorn do.
And, in the process, give a very good grounding at VFL level before AFL opportunity is given.
So, in today's world, it is not an option to play a team of kids to see what they have and take your eye off the need to win games of football.
Winning is central to the whole equation of AFL footy today.
We live in a different world.
You keep comparing us to Hawthorn now with 4 premierships under their belt and going for a 5th. YOu should be comparing us to Hawthorn when they started their rebuild doing exactly what we've done. Trade out some older guys with value, which also forces you down the bottom of the ladder, to get young talent in with high draft picks and then play them keeping some more mature players for big bodies and learning. But the oldies also get phased out year by year if they can't hold their place and have young turks ready to step up and you start to pick the eyes out of other teams lists to fill needs. Hawthorn have used FA as icing on their cake to stay up, but the getting up was due to the core of brilliant players they drafted and played to get them synced as a tight unit.
You seem to have this fantasy that there will be huge fishes banging our door down every year. We got Carlisle probably only because his club was treating him like a human guinea pig and Freeman who was happy to set himself up with a million for 3 years when he couldn't even play a single game for two years.
Guess what - we are playing the kids - stacks of them - and still having great wins. We beat the ladder leaders without Dempster and Fisher - that created a week of huge buzz for the club about our young talent. That is what will get FA's in through the door. Yes we coildn't back it up the next week but no surprise there.
According to your "keep all the standard bearers" logic we shouldn't have traded out Dal Santo, Goddard and McEvoy. And then we would have been stuck in mid-table mediocre and wouldn't have the cream like Paddy and Billings. We have gone down the full rebuild road so the question is where is where is the line between oldies and newbies. People think I go on about this but personally I don't think Dempster holds his place purely on merit. He's not big enough to be a KPD and as the third tall he needs to be peeling off his man quickly to help out at contests and set up play from the back and I don't think he does that. Are you saying you play him simply because he's old and sets standards? I think that is a recipe for disaster. We need the best team out there and team that is primarly focused on the future.
I'm not saying you throw all the oldies out but they have to hold their place. Thats how Hawks did it. Roo, Joey, Geary, Gilbo, Armo, Steven are all going on next year - thats a good core with quite a few of our mid age players now hitting the 100 game mark and even younger ones hitting the 50 game mark. They aren't babies. I would let one of Demps or Fish go on with Goddard going down. But if you keep both then Richo will almost certainly play both if fit and you will end up with a backline next year of Demps, Fish, Carlisle, Joey, Geary and Gilbo. That is not the backline of the future and no room for young guys like White, Rice, Mckenzie, Coughlan etc to get the senior exposure they need.
When we've one 4 flags then I'll be the first to tell the young recruits to be satisfied learning their craft in the VFL while the premiership heroes of Paddy, Billings, Acres, Dunstan, Bruce et al go for a fifth flag. But we aint Hawthorn. Stop getting ahead of yourself.
