Blue Sombrero wrote:
It's the type of logic that will stop us PERHAPS developing a great team and then having to break it up before it has a chance to do anything.
Watch what happens to the Eagles. They were 'lucky' to get a great team without a lot of high draft picks due in part to their ability to hide players in local leagues. Those players will want salaries commensurate with their ability and success when their contracts come around. Collingwood will offer Judd $1.5 mil (or we will) and if he is vaguely interested in going, the Eagles wil have to offer him something akin. Then they will have to sell off some other players to stay under the cap. That's why it's there.
Brisbane had the so-called 'go home' bonus in addition to their normal salary cap, which was the only reason they could keep Aker, Black and co all at the same time. They were happy to be rid of Aker in part for his attitude but also they had a decrease in their salary cap to cope with so they killed two birds with one stone.
Sydney has a 'it is so expensive to live in Sydney' bonus. They don't spread it around, they use it to keep Hall, Kirk, Goodes etc and buy Everitt. They couldn't do that on a normal cap IMO.
St Kilda is a team who have a lot of high draft picks but apart from Riewoldt (I can never spell his name) the others haven't set the world on fire so they are not under the pressure they might be. They are also an example of a team that proves you need more than high picks to win flags. Had Koz and Goddard fired early, they would be in deepsh.
And Richmond I will just ignore. They have a losing mentality through the entire club from the top down.
We tried to prevent the inevitable in the late 90s and early 00s and had to cheat the salary cap to do it. We aren't ever going down that path again.
I think we already have the basic list we need. Add a #5 to it and an experienced midfielder and I don't think we need to look for a #1 and a #3 this year. I think it may cause us grief later on.
Having said that, if we were to get those picks this year we could use them as bait to try for a trade for Judd or someone else. Assuming we can afford the price, that is. You can bet your life the bean counters at the club are already in overdrive.
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'.
Nice reply and well written, too. Time will tell with this one.
Agro, that's how to critique a post I reckon. No abuse at all, just a disagreement with reasons.
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