I did get Boomer's retirement year wrong, but I disagree.Scollop wrote: ↑Sat 04 Aug 2018 1:01am First of all Nathan Brown is not a star player. Fair enough with Boomer or with Nick Riewoldt they got as much out of themselves as they could and I reckon both Saints and Kangas probably gave both players 1-2 more years than most other players would have got. As for Boomer playing this year and it being ' a fine line'...Wrong!!
Did you not realise that he finished at the end of 2016?
He and a lot of the senior players had already peaked. The North Melbourne Football club realised in 2016 that the team line up had performed as well as they coulld and it was highly unlikely that there'd be improvement in Boomer or Dal Santo or Petrie or Spud Firritto. They knew if they stuck with the same line up they were simply delaying the inevitable fall down the ladder and delaying getting valuable game time into their youth.
See this is where a good list management and footy department sees where a team wants to be in the future and makes these calls, rather than just focusing on the now.
Look at how Geelong and Hawthorn have 'pushed out' some players and even their stars over the last 5-6 years. Hodgey had 1-2 left in him. Ling, Stevie J, James Kelly, and others probably had 1-2 left in them. Go back and see the ages that these guys were pushed out of Geelong. They are the benchmark and we wouldn't do too badly following their lead in this area. The policy is thinking about the club first and thinking about sustained opportunities to rejuvinate and improve the list and keep up with the best teams.
Firstly, Geelong eased out Johnson and Kelly and co to squeeze in Dangerfield ... their aim was absolutely nothing to do with blooding kids - it was about cap space for proven stars. They were ABSOLUTELY thinking about the NOW. I agree with you though that it was good list management - you've just misdiagnosed what they were actually doing.
As Paul Roos says over and over and over again... you can still develop players in the reserves. You call me a Geelong and Hawthorn (neither of whom have won a flag since they began their transitions, BTW) and I raise you a Sydney - eight years in the finals, flags, runners up... they develop their kids in the twos and bring them in when they're ready. They let Goodes play to 36... and yes, Brown is no star anymore (though a damn good player - he's a premiership player who played on Roo, J Brown, Pavlich, Richardson)... Sydney also had non-stars as well as stars play well into their 30s... LRT, L Barry, P Kelly, Craig Bolton, Brett Kirk....
If Austin or Goddard were up to it, no doubt they'd be in the team in lieu of Brown by now.