Thought I might have a look at how the two squads of 22 compare with regards to their draft structure, i.e. how many players they have in the game that they have directly drafted and where they have come from in the draft.

Number of Players in 22 Drafted by the Club (national draft)*

Carlton 11
Geelong 14

Of those Players What Round of the Draft are They From

Carlton
1st Round: 3
2nd Round: 0
3rd Round: 4
4th Round: 2
smokies: 2

Geelong
1st Round: 2
2nd Round: 4
3rd Round: 5
4th Round: 2
smokies: 1

As you can see Carlton has nobody from the second round of the draft, whereas Geelong have a good spread. They have 11 players from the first 3 rounds playing, where we have 7.

Of the Squad of 22, Which Year Did they Come to the Club (last 10 years)

Carlton
1995: 0
1996: 1
1997: 0
1998: 3
1999: 1
2000: 1
2001: 2
2002: 3
2003: 6
2004: 2

Geelong
1995: 2
1996: 0
1997: 1
1998: 1
1999: 4
2000: 2
2001: 7
2002: 1
2003: 1
2004: 2

As you can see our draftees are mainly concentrated in the 2002-2004 range, whereas Geelong's draftees are concentrated in the 1999-2001. More experience and bigger bodies give Geelong the advantage.

* Father son picks not included.

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In other words we are a couple years behind geelong in development - as I recall it was only a couple of years ago that people were bagging geelong and there was even talk of sacking the coach at one stage (though I could be wrong of course)

Sounds good to me.... were 2 years away from being a premierhip threat.
In fact Geelong were just about there last year...so we should be in a perliminary final next year.

Can you please go over the quality of players they have and we have???
Do a head to head match up....

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Not my area of expertise

But perhaps a more accurate anaylsis of player lists should include how many games the geelong players were on 2 years ago, how they performed 2 years ago AND how they have developed since.

Most of us agree that the 50-75 games region is where most players start feeling more comfortable with AFL level footy. How many did geelong have in that region 2 years ago? How many do they have now? How many do we have now?

We have some structural weaknesses
1. Ruckman
2. Tall Key defender (assuming norman doesnt get his head right)
3. Inside midfielder
You could possibly add another outside midfielder as well.

There is no reason why we cant address those things up in 2 years through drafting and trading.
By 2007
Setanta COULD be that backup ruckman/forward (as he is showing in VFL atm)
blackwell/bentick COULD step up to be that inside midfielder
Outside midfielder COULD be Russell or picked up in the draft

The only questionable one would be the third tall defender - whether we could draft one or hartlett/waite etc could provide that option.

dont forget that by 2007 that Kouta WILL be gone
Campo wil MOST LIKLEY be gone
and Lance, Lappo and French MAY be gone

those structual weaknesses are their NOW, including all our older players on the list.

so really we will need X2 of everything to fix up those weaknesses.

which is still possible, because as you say if these young guys change that 'COULD be' to an 'IS' then we have the next 2 years of drafting and training to fill the void.

also we may get lucky and a rookie will stand up or someone already on our list (raso maybe) will surprise

Gezman
There are no guarantees that kouta will be gone (though it is likely)
There are no guarantess that campo will be gone (I would expect he will accept a reduced 2 year deal)
There are no guarantees that Lance (50:50), Lappin (unlikely) and French (50:50) will be gone

We dont need to fix up weaknessX2 so much as to improve our depth - and that relies players getting more experience as much as picking up new players.

Think back 2 years and how much certain players have improved - the thing is they will continue to improve

If you said to geelong a couple years ago that they would be near a flag without ben graham (despite his kicking bag status), most serious footy supporters would laugh at u. Rapid improvement CAN happen with only subtle changes to a list.

And with ANY player you bring in to help out structure, there they COULD do a knee in the first 5 minutes at the club - there are no guarantees with anything. Some might choose to gut themselves following each loss - I prefer to look at the bigger picture