Youth Policy

[sunsaint]

Agree. The addition of ready made players such as Begs and Ray doesn't count for anything?

This is what gets me... apart from Gtrain who didn't play... all we've lost is Banger. On the plus side, we'll get Baker back as well as Goose and X. Farren Ray adds depth and give us more than enough options to replace Harvey. So how have we gone backwards?

Ray = Harvey !
says it all.

[makaveli]

Ross Lyon and crew are planning for the future and the crop of kids

that we have drafted so far its looking great and a bright future

I love this argument, "look at what we have drafted" !!!
havent all clubs done exactly the same thing?
I agree makaveli, going into '08 I was happily confident about our prospects, we had drafted well & improved our stocks. And when Dempster went down he left a big hole. This year the team list has gone backwards, call it what you like mini rebuild etc. but the way I see it unless you are on the bottom then you have to improve every year, and list maintenance should be split between what is good for next season and some young ones. The thing you have to remember is that Hawks/Geelong will be up there for the next 2-3yrs, Crows Carlton/Tigers are coming and will be up for at least 5yrs, Ess are calling to push the eight.
I think in our circumstance 5yrs is a very long time

Our draft record has been woefull over the last couple of years (except Gilbert) and i thought we filled in the holes for this years draft

Agree. The addition of ready made players such as Begs and Ray doesn't count for anything?

This is what gets me... apart from Gtrain who didn't play... all we've lost is Banger. On the plus side, we'll get Baker back as well as Goose and X. Farren Ray adds depth and give us more than enough options to replace Harvey. So how have we gone backwards?

We have gone backwards because we havent gone forward. As I said initially I'm really happy with who we have drafted. But the list improvements we have made are not going to be the difference between us winning a prelim and not. Bakes and Goose are good inclusions but we had them both in 05 against Sydney. Ray and Begley are not going to take this team to a flag. Thats why I feel we shouldnt have focused 100% on youth.

Be it BC, be it ROK, be it Kerr... big names were around - guys who could make a BIG IMMEDIATE difference to our side were mostly ignored. BC because we didnt want to take the risk, Kerr because we didnt want to risk a high pick or reasonable player, ROK for the same reason. This was the time for our club to take a risk. A risk to have a team capable of winning in September.

We cant forget we only just snuck into fourth spot. Got absolutely smacked by the Cats. Beat the Pies (who IMO are very very overrated) and then got torn up by the Hawks. I feel we have a lot of good players... almost enough.... But we will need to see a lot of improvement from second tier players across the board. Only Jones & Eddy improving for example will not be enough.