Quote:
But failing to make a mark there when they had a glut of young midfielders was no disgrace
Exactly.
This brings up a broader view about recruiting midfielders. I think the success of the Lions has had an impact on recruiting methods throughout the AFL. There is a perception that to succeed in AFL one must have at least 4 top line midfielders and a couple more not too far behind. Given that scenario, I believe there is an overemphasis in some clubs, to building up the midfield stocks Eagles and Geelong are prime examples.
Thompson and Worsfold have deliberately gone out to develop ball magnets that can play midfield, so much so that they end up with an embarrassment of riches that result in players such as Chambers and Carazzo coming to Carlton. You can include Scotland in this list depending on how you rate the Pies midfield(going back 2 years ago before Buckley started to get injured, it was pretty handy)
The surprising thing is that other clubs are able to pick up these "second string midfielders" so cheaply, surprising given the value placed on midfielders by coaches such as Thompson and Worsfold. Another surprising thing is that the Eagles wanted Stenglein to add to their midfield(at a significant cost to them) but were willing to depart with Chambers for peanuts.
Perhaps the moral is that proven midfielders have real trading currency whereas the second stringers do not.
That being the case, enter the Genius of Pagan. rather than getting into a bidding war over players such as Judd, Ackermanis, Crawford, Kerr to name a few, which would come at a significant cost to us financially or trade wise, he instead targeted out of favor midfielders that were flying "below the radar" and as such did not come at a significant cost to us. Perhaps you can add Bannister(more a tagger) Johnson, McGrath and Longmuir to the players already mentioned.
The point being that Pagan has a belief in his ability to "find the key" that turns a player from being an also ran into a quality player.
The first that he did that to was our current favorite big Fev. No doubt he would have been lost to us forever were it not for Denis finding the key that unlocked Fevs huge talent. No wonder the older players that were shipped out after Denis's first year, were moved on, there was simply no ignition left- they had been members of one of the teams of the century and had basically been able to motivate themselves- they didn't need this old bloke with curly hair trying to motivate them did they?
So by providing a fertile nursery for midfielders all the other clubs are playing into Denis's hand. The old "cradle snatcher" (you know what I mean) will continue his annual raids, picking up the unpolished gems and slowly turning them into real players. The ultimate in "value adding" in economic terms. This is why Denis is worth everything to this club. The ability to bring players in for minimal cost and turn them into potential premiership players has so many benefits that it is hard to overstate them. Going forward with our midfield stocks full we will now be able to cherry pick a little bit . Not like Elliot did, because that was his whole strategy, but if there is a particular player that Denis wants , we will be in a position to "have a go" because we will have the picks and the salary cap room. The KPP players will assume more importance in our recruiting because the old "cradle snatcher " can go and grab another one from another club whenever he needs one.
Soon we will have the players to grab our next Premiership. Soon we will have clubs wanting to grab some of our stars to rebuild with. But Pagan will be a hard Coach to leave, more than any other AFL coach Denis will have them playing for him and the club. If they want to leave you can be sure that it will be because of a huge offer- which we all know is not how you win premierships in todays AFL football- don't we Jack?
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go get flower! 
