When was that?
When I was at Marvel on a Friday night in 2012 watching Geelong humiliate us by 10+ goals?
Or a few weeks later being 100+ points down against Hawthorn?
11 more years of drafting and trading since then before we.got serious about it and finally changed direction.
Yes, after the injuries crippled us. Which you appear to have conveniently forgotten.
Before that we were 11-4.
Didnāt agree with King at time where he said we should trade the banned players and get as many first rounders as possible and start a rebuild
Looking back now we probably should have who knows might be a contender or won a flag by now
Cmon Ants. This take is no different to other takes like:
āBut we were 5th in round 17 in 2023ā
āBut North started 9-0 in 2016ā
Itās just Adrian on his burner. Thereās no point engaging
The injuries hit the year Dank and the Weapon were working with us. We bulked up / pushed the guys too hard and their bodies couldnāt handle it in the back half of the year.
Why is it no different? I would say the 2012 / saga list build had a very unique set of challenges including player suspensions, draft penalties, reputation damage etc
I remember there was talks of how much bigger we looked compared to other teams people were getting sus
The big what if with that group:
You donāt lose Ryder, Crameri, Hibberd
Players arenāt damaged psychologically
The club is a desirable place for free agents
Pretty pointless to speculate about I guess.
Donāt reckon we would have got Goddard if Hird wasnāt coach
You would have preferred we didnāt trade Crameri and didnāt get Merrett?
With no saga? Iād be down for that. I reckon weād have gotten him anyway given the Jackson connection.
Is it provable in any way? No.
But we do know both 2012 and 2013 were going very well before injuries (2012) and the finals ban (2013) came in. We know we played finals in 2011 and 2014 (either side) and would have in 2013 if not for the ban. Three finals in four seasons, the other wrecked by injuries. We do know this period followed a rebuild of 2005-2010. We know we attracted Goddard to us at the end of 2012.
I think there is a pretty decent argument that the list was well positioned then. Would it have beaten hawks? Probably not. But Bulldogs, Richmond (first time) and WCE are maybes. Obviously that becomes total speculation as it assumes the list keeps improving from 2012.
Anything provable in respect of long term success? Obviously not. But I do think just saying Dodorro never built a decent list and was 20 years of failure is unfair and wrong.
I think itās undeniable that the saga stuffed us for years.
And how did those finals go?
delusional levels of āthis time we know what we gotā
Dodos resume is a farken phone call from shiel. reckon half our club watched that 300 times
garbage
2011 was a disaster. 2014 possibly very different without the saga weighing us down, having Ryder, and the picks we lost due to the saga, and extra finals experience in 2013.
Ryder played that final, and played well.
Itās funny, the saga didnāt seem to be weighing us down in the first half of that game. Maybe somebody mentioned the saga at half time and all the players got sad? āOh yeah, the saga.ā
That list was a list that maybe, with a bunch of caveats, could have possibly maybe won āaā final.
If thatās the highlight of a 20 year recruitment career, then boy oh boy wowee.
Itās not about the second half of the elimination final. Itās the improvement and development of the team without the saga as a distraction. Not to mention the possibility of adding another 1 or 2 free agents.
I think itās about the fact that the senior core of that team couldnāt stand up in the finals it did play.
But sure, it could be about hypothetical maybes.