List build - where are we going in the next 10,000 posts?

[Ants]

@frosty

I love the “we’re in serious trouble if…” takes.

We’re in serious trouble for 2023. We knew that. The consensus here was we were well in the hunt for the Harley Reid cup. Anyone who suggested we were a top 8 possibility with a good run of luck was shot down as being mad.

We’ve performed better than expected in 2023, but no one really expected us to be contending for a flag. As the season went on and the younger guys who have been good have tired, is it a shock that we can’t compete with teams with mature, experienced midfielder. Especially with our heart and soul ruckman missing?

Our midfield unit needs more time. And to get Tsatas in there. In time it’s going to be competitive with the best. At times this season it has looked to be very competitive even now. And we’ve mostly moved on from Shiel being an integral part of it as well.

We still have list gaps, obviously. A quick look around this site suggests that at times this year we have thought we are missing a BBM, a KPD, a running HBF, a KPF and a small forward. Or multiple of all of that list. As the year has gone on we’ve been happier with our small forward stocks, but they still need time. The rest I’d suggest could be in a similar position over the next little while as some of our younger guys start to put together a larger body of work that suggests long term improvement.

Are we in serious trouble anywhere on the list? I don’t think so. Do we have to continue to improve right across the list of we want to take the step from a 7-15 team to a 3-6 team and then a 1-2 team. Yes. Most of that improvement has to come from within though. If there’s one thing we really should have learned from the last decade it’s “there aren’t easy fixes”. We need 100 games into the core of our next flag. We’re starting to build that, but there’s still a bunch that that have a while to go. From the top of “next flag team candidates” it’s Merrett (201), Parish (145), McGrath (129) and down. Guys like Perkins and Draper are just past 50 games, while guys like Durham and Martin are barely 40.

We need to keep building and improving, but we also need patience (still!). I think this year is different from 2021, 2019, 2017 in terms of the players that are taking us forward. I hope anyway …

I think this is well worth repeating here.

I think we’ve got list gaps. I don’t think they’re as many as some here who want to burn the list down seem to think. If we can, some good pruning of older players (such as Shiel) could be beneficial, but won’t change our draft hand substantially.

What we really need is FA and/or trades over the next 3 off-seasons so that we add 2-3 quality mature players into holes, while (hopefully) still adding 1-3 quality draft picks. That, in conjunction with getting games into talented kids and some talented kids out of the rehab centre would go a long way in shifting the list from mid-table to top-table.

It is what Melbourne, Port, Brisbane all did in conjunction with the top talent they had. Melbourne got May, Lever, Langdon, Tomlinson & Brown to win a premiership. Brisbane getting Neale, Cameron, McCarthy went a long way to shifting them up, and that was before they added Dunkley and Daniher. Port got Aliir, Burton, Dixon, Finlayson, Lycett and JUH. If you took those players out of all of those teams, they’d be mid-table. Hell, where would Geelong be with out Dangerfield, Tuohy, Rohan and Cameron? Richmond got Prestia, Caddy, Nank and then Lynch.

We need to start boosting the side with quality imports. That will be the biggest driver of moving up the ladder.