Yeah, definitely don’t think you can win a flag without some big draft hauls, but the sides I referenced didn’t miss the opportunity to grab stars via trade when the option was there, and in Geelong and Brisbane’s case, I think the traded-in stars ended up having a bigger impact in their premiership years than their top-end draftees.
Brisbane for me is an interesting case study, in that they spent big on Lachie Neale coming off a finish of 15th, having been down for years before. They got youth in that they believed in, and didn’t wait for them to fully develop before looking at trade. That was risky, but a nice example of how risky it is to skip trading for stars when you have the opportunity. There’s really no formula to building a premiership list – just a lot of good pragmatic decisions.