See Agro's post above as to why interstate clubs can win with less on-field resources.

What is the use in avoiding grief if the chances of glory are slim? It makes very little sense in sporting terms.

The whole idea that you can have a list that is too good is just a defeatist and dangerous as the idea of tanking in my book. It is almost sounds as if people think we can have Grover from Sesame Street as our (unquestioned) Recruiting Manager and still be in the running to win our fair share of AFL grand-finals. As for your penultimate paragraph; it very much depends on your definition of 'need'. We probably don’t 'need' this years #1 & #3 draft picks but we would be incredibly foolish not to ‘want’ them. I am starting to know what people meant when they said it would take us 10 years to recover from our draft penalties. We are under the mistaken impression that the object is just to ‘fall in’. To put the pieces back up as best we can and make sure we don't do it again. Our list still needs invigorating. We should be making foundations, not adding more bricks. It doesn't matter how many indignant looks you give the opposition when all you are essentially doing is copying them from a long way behind. We have suffered as a club so much of late without enough of the playing-list compensation that comes with it. Yet most of us believe we have no choice but to fight on crippled. Poppycock!

Blue Sombrero, you state that at least one interstate team benefits from hiding players in their local leagues yet you fail to connect it to the fact that Vic clubs might, in essence, need to have the higher draft picks to compensate if they are to have ultimate success. It is not about tanking to get the PP, it is about the acknowledgement that we ‘need’ more talent and that we can’t treat our future success as some sort of short - mid term 'save-face'.

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Just because I'm offended, doesn't mean I'm wrong.

we need a home ground advantage like the interstate clubs
re develop princes park NOW

Did you ever stop to consider why we had a 70% win loss ratio at Princes Park through most of the 90s (and the 80s and 70s for that matter ).

Could it be because we had the best (or close to the best list) in the competition?

Could it be because that list once it got its nose in front at 3/4 time and kicked to the Heatley Stand end during the last quarter would never in a million years be stopped.

Then consider the steaming pile of a list we have had representing this club since about 2002 - and consider why we have a win loss ratio the way we do - I dont think the win loss ratio is any different pre and post our move from Princes Park.

Give me a decent list with decent support staff and I will win you games playing on St. Kilda Beach.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

And if you include that aberation of a season 2004 - I WILL BLOODY SPEW UP!!!!!!!

my wanting to spew up the 2004 season has nothing to do about tanking.

But loading up the team with mature bodied hacks and pinching 10 wins - well for flowers sake the philosophy behind that is just as bad as tanking.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

just for the record:

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Between our dreams and actions lies this world

And your point, kingkerna, is?

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Just because I'm offended, doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Things are going according to plan boys. Yet another 'spirited' loss. Our youngsters are slowly developing. Throw in picks 1 & 3 from this years draft and we will be premiers in 2010.

Lets hope the Bombers get up tonight so that the spotlight remains to stay on the Tigers. We seem to be losing but staying under the microscope...for now.

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Walk on, Walk on,
With hope, in your heart,
And you'll never walk alone,
YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE!!!

08/02/1981 - GATE 7...Our brothers will never be forgotten!!!

Try this on for size.... Proof that early draft picks guarantee squat. It's all the other stuff that is much more important. WC, Sydney and Adelaide have all done extremely well without having to rely on 8 top 10 draft picks.

Pick - Carlton - WCE - Sydney - Adelaide
1-5: 4 - 2 - 2 - 0
6-10: 2 - 1 - 2 - 2
11-15: 2 - 3 - 1 - 2
16-20: 3 - 4 - 2 - 5
21-25: 2 - 4 - 1 - 2
26-30: 1 - 6 - 3 - 1
31-35: 1 - 1 - 2 - 3
36-40: 3 - 3 - 1 - 2
41-45: 3 - 2 - 1 - 0
46-50: 1 - 1 - 1 - 2
51-60: 1 - 3 - 6 - 3
61-70: 1 - 0 - 2 - 2
71+: 3 - 1 - 1 - 2
Rookie/PSD: 7 - 6 - 9 - 14
FS/Zone: 4 - 1 - 5 - 1
Total: 38 - 38 - 39 - 41

Assuming that FS picks and zone picks are as good as a first round to third round pick, we have a very favourable list as compared with three of the top sides in the league. Now it's all about what we do with the talent. Of course we are 3-4 years off in terms of development and age, but with the talent that we have, we should be aiming to win as many games as possible to develop the youngsters, not lose to get more picks. That won't help anyones development.

Dare I say it nytdog but each of the 3 additional clubs you mention there have, up until this year for the Eagles, retained substantial salary cap advantages over your common club.

For years the Eagles have been able to pay higher effective salaries based on Perth's (then) lower property prices; Adelaide even more so. sydney have had additional player salary allowances on top of this.

This doesn't impact on draft picks as such, but it allows greater player retention (ie Wirrpanda, Judd - until now) and the ability to attract very good but solid players to your Club on a better wage eg Stenglein to the Eagles. For the Crows, they could retain 2 of the best 10 players in the past decade in McLeod and the Roo plus support a good young list for this very reason. The Swans...well....pffft.

Draft picks is but one element for sure - economics, coaching, evenness of list are others - but it is implausible to deny that loading up with picks increases the probability of developing a better list.

ps I'm not a tanker and want the Blues to win more than 4 games this year. I just don't buy in to your analysis as an argument against it.

Where is our mid-field rotation, where is our quality ruckman on our list?

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

I thought this was a discussion of whether we needed to tank because we didn't have enough high draft picks on the list/talent to be a strong team in a few years

Your comments here are contradictory. Sydney has a higher cost of living and therefore higher salary cap. But then you say Adelaide and Perth have a lower cost of living with the same salary cap. So are you saying that the Syndey model is correct and fair? You can't have it both ways.

Molsey, we can try to find excuses about salary cap and costs of living, or we can face the facts. We now have the talent on the list - it's just a matter of time and development. Compared to WC, Sydney and Adelaide, our draft picks are favourable. So now its a matter of putting it to good use. WC, Sydney, Adelaide all proved that you don't need a bunch of high draft picks to be a successfull club. Tanking isn't going to help the blues. Draft picks aren't the magic answer. They are one component, but it's all the other stuff that matters more. And what helps you get the other stuff. MONEY! How do you make money... by winning!

Winning/money provides sponsorship, membership, supporters, facilities, coaching resources, development resources, scouting, etc.

Winning/money attracts players from other clubs, it retains players, it boosts moral and it speeds up development. Look what winning did for average players in the 1990s like Rice, Clape, Pierce, Whitehead, Franchina, Manton, Beaumont, Hogg, etc...

We all want more talent coming into the club. But advocating tanking is not the way to do it. We now have a core group of talented players. We will add to it organically through our poor finish this year. If we are at round 19-20 with 3-4 wins, then i wouldn't have a problem with putting a losing team on the field full of youngsters. At that point 2-3 more losses won't kill the club and the PP would be more valuable than those wins. But tanking at round 7/8/9 will hurt the club more than help it.

The point of the analysis is to provides some facts, instead of the subjective comments that many like to spit out... To show that WC, Adelaide and Sydney have built very successful clubs on everything else other than high draft picks. If Carlton thinks that high drafts picks are going to magically provide us with success, we're very wrong. They will help, but they are a small part of the equation.

The question is, what is more valuable to Carlton. Wins or one additional draft pick, coupled with some big losses? Because tanking means playing a team that is guaranteed to lose - which means losing by a lot. At least right now we are putting our best team on the park that's playing patches of very good footy and losing because we aren't good enough, not because we're trying to lose.

They are not contradictory at all - you are just stuck in the middle of your argument and didn't read the post. You suggested earlier that picks arent the answer, and I dont think anyone has said they are the only answer, but you cant deny the greater probability of procuring talent from having top picks.

Sydney has a higher cost of living and has a higher salary cap to accommodate that. That is rightfully coming down.

The WA and SA teams have had a lower cost of living in comparison to Melbourne teams, with WA now losing that benefit over the past couple of years. Therefore they have had a higher effective salary cap, and the SA teams still enjoy that benefit. They are, getting more bang for their buck, in terms of playing stocks.

Meanwhile at Carlton we continued to provide long-term high dollar contracts, and as recently as 2006 provided a 3 year one to entice a struggling short ruckman from St Kilda.

The economics of football are just as relevant as the picks, as the Coaches, as team cohesion, as management etc.

I clearly stated that I am not a tanker, I was merely pointing out that your 4 team analysis provides a narrow view and that is all.

Your 'we need to be winning' argument won't placate the tankers either - now that the Club is on a solid financial footing with Pratt behind the Club, the issue of winning more in 2007 v winning more in 2009 is largely moot. Clearly we'd all like to be winners but the tankers want that higher probability of talent on the list to maximise the chances of winning more in 2009.

I'm not having a go at you Molsey. I'm just pointing out that in your ealier post that you said Sydney had salary cap advantages but you also said that they have a higher cost of living. So how is it that they can also have higher effective salary cap like WC and Adelaide - it doesn't make sense.

Regardless, if you look at the lists of these clubs closely, you will see that the salary cap and cost of living in those states have had very little impact on their playing lists and retaining players. They have just done a better job with their picks - which have been lower on average than most of the other clubs. Meaning that picks really don't have the final say. That is the whole point of my analysis. Look at Adelaide and the amount of Rookies they have in their best 22. What more proof do you need.

Btw, Pratt will only be around for 2 years. What happens after that? Who's going to finance the club then? Pratt is trying to change the way the club is run in order to be successfull for the long term. He's not just pouring money in willy nilly.

Like you say, economics is a big factor in being successfull. Probably more so than picks.

Is there anything else you won't me to add to the analysis to prove that the successful clubs of the past 5 years haven't had to rely on early draft picks for success. WCE has played in finals every year (bar 2) in the past 16 years. List management and developing lower picks has been the success story, not tanking.

Where are you going to get the mid-field rotations and the quality ruckman that we so desparately need.

You seem to have a fixation on tanking.

You seem to have a fixation on the fact that our list is 100% OK.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

Molsey - I think you will find that it is now bloody expensive to live in Perth and has been for the last couple of years.

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Between our dreams and actions lies this world

Where did WC and Sydney get their quality ruckman from? I'll give you a hint... two of them start with an "R" and end in "ookie". And Adelaide... not with a pick in the top 35!

You want to take your chances in the Rookie Draft go right ahead. We already have 2 on that list Jacobs and O'hAilpin.

Lets just eschew the National Draft all together shall we and just go straight to riches available in the Rookie Draft shall we.

But I would have preferred a shot at Leuenberger last year and one at Kreuzer this year.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

The post clearly states that the WA teams are losing that benefit. THat is why you hear the bleating from the WCE about getting a higher salary cap along the lines of the Swans.

The analysis provided is a historical analysis of draft picks v success. The Eagles, along with the Dockers and the SA teams, have benefitted from that in relation to player retention over the period we are talking about.

Now that has been smashed due to the resources boom and it will be interesting to see how the hell the Eagles can afford that list without cap relief. How can the Eagles afford Cox, Judd, Kerr, Glass and others going forward? And yes nytdog Cox was a rookie but the point is that latent salary cap benefits have been beneficial to the WA / SA teams up until now.

nytdog, I see what you are saying about the way I phrased the Swans comment.

molsey, are you able to provide some facts in terms of player retention as a factor for success? What teams have struggled to retain players because of cap issues and how has it affected their suscess? Some examples would definitely stregthen your point. This is not a smart ass post, I'd be very interested to learn more about your point, because I've been of the opinion that in general if you have to trade a player to due to cap issues you get something of equal (or close) value in return.