Everyone wants to win but you need a couple of years at the bottom to get the pointy end of the draft. With the draft rule changes it also incentives sides to finish bottom 5 and the AFL now has created a genuine “no man’s land”
You have the
the list build is how we got into this mess mate,
to be fair, we’ve got very few top top picks. McGrath at pick 1 and that feels ike it we have taken in the pointy end of the drafts.
Jordan Knapp was the standout performer for an Eastern team that took a bit of a beating against the Swans Academy. Knapp is the gold standard in this draft class for movement in congested space, his dancing feet allow him to change direction on a dime, and his quick first step to burst quickly into clear space outside the contest. Those traits were on full display here, as well as his anticipation and quick, attacking decision making to release teammates and set up damaging moves.
One predicated on always chasing wins. Rather than building for a premiership.
Because we constantly have finished in no man’s land. We have had numerous chances to bite the bullet and drop into the bottom couple but constantly kicked the can down down the road and prided ourselves into not dropping down the order.
Over the last 20 years we have finished in no man’s land probably a dozen times, it’s just not sustainable
I feel you’re being inconsistent here. On the one hand you’re saying wins trump everything, and then you’re talking about how we haven’t had many top picks.
These things are directly correlated.
Meaningless wins are meaningless. This idea that we have to keep winning “for the culture” or whatever (I’m not saying you’re making that case Yoda) I think has been proven to be wrong by the very situation we find ourselves in now. We’ve had heaps of pointless wins over the last decade to push us up into 9th, 10th, 11th on the ladder… and has it helped our culture?
If there were rumours that our young talent was on the verge of demanding to leave due to lack of wins I might reconsider… but for now we need to suck it up and lose games of footy.
the question posed was should we prioritise winning or losing, we should prioritise winning.
the difference with how we are going is not topping up with mature players but building with the kids.
I don’t think that’s what the question was.
No team prioritises losing, and I don’t think anyone here is suggesting that we should send our team out there with the intent to lose. There are ways to manage yourself through a season though. You can choose to play young developing kids over old stagers. As you mentioned you can choose not to top up in trade period with older guys.
There are ways to focus on the future instead of the immediate that will naturally result in more losses and higher draft picks.
Unfortunately I think our ladder position is pretty locked - will finish 3rd bottom. Richmond and West coast are historically bad and will finish below us. Carlton will go on a run at some stage; they are not that bad. And every other team (GWS, Port, St Kilda) are not in reach. So I really don’t think a win here and there will make much of a difference.
trying to win games naturally how we are going is our go. The way we were trying to win win games with quick fixes held us back in th long run.
As I said, I dont think our talent is enough (yet) to get us out of these bottom clinches of the ladder. By continuing this trajectory, we will win some games and develop that mindset but naturally lose games to stay in the bottom few picks this year
Nice change of position…
I think West Coast will beat us over there. Our injuries keep mounting again
no, clarifying what I meant all along
you just know that Dreamtime rolls around, 18th v 17th or 16th, and Richmond will get up for it.
Yeah I don’t know about that. Token wins get you to mid table if you’re not careful and I think Van Hattem or Arki Butler would really help with our non-rebuild.
You seen any stats from Calder game @Yoda1 ?
I dont think we are leaving the bottom 3, even with the direction the club is going. Van Hattum, Butler, Texeira would all be great acquisition to a list with many holes.
waiting for my guy to get back to me, apparently they had a system error yesterday hence delayed
They’re up on the app