When should we aim to challenge?

Football Discussion Trade week Duursma head in
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By challenge, I mean a team capable of finishing top 4, which gives you a platform to fight it out in the finals.

This is a decision the club needs to make which has implications for many of the threads on this board. List management, trading and drafting in particular. The implications for the types of players we need, who to delist/trade are particularly impacted.

For example, if you think we need another 40 years of experience and are all in on the kids, maybe you think it’s 2024 and trading our 2023 pick makes sense.

If you think we’ve so many holes and think the kids are no good, maybe it’s 2027 as you think we need a big clean out. Then strategically trading players over 26 makes sense.

And maybe you’re somewhere in the middle and think Covid/injuries have delayed our 2019/2020 talls’ development and the spine won’t be ready until 2025/2026.

Of course, it seems some on Blitz think we should be competitive next year.

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Well my son has a $100 bet on with my missus that’ll we’ll win a flag by 2027, they had that bet before the 2021 season.

I was egging him on, now I feel guilty.

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Recruit gun smalls through the draft now.

Steal gun talls through trade and free agency. They take too long to develop.

Aka the Sydney model.

Just keep the same head coach, he will learn as he goes along. Rutten would probably have been fine , just get the next guy.

So on that metric we could challenge I think in 3. Trade out all but our very best talls now and get some journeymen in. Be ready for the big fish like a McKay or King.

I mean why develop players when we have

84k members
The biggest home and away games
Excellent training facilities

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I think next year we will be 7-12, will get a softer draw and a new coach bounce. 2024 we will need to try and consolidate gains, it’s hard to maintain that spot because you get a much tougher draw. 2025 I’d hope we can seriously compete.

McGrath BZT Ridley
Redman Lav Hind
Cox Hobbs Langford
Martin Jones Stringer
Perkins Wright Snelling
Draper Merrett Parish
Caldwell Durham Kelly Guelfi

Emg Reid Baldwin Bryan D’Ambrosio

? Voss Eyre Brand McBride Lord Francis McMenzie

List doesn’t look too bad, it should be competitive (we were quite competitive for the second third of the year), but we need at least one of Cox, Martin, Hobbs, Caldwell and Perkins to become a proper star, we need Jones or Baldwin to grab that CHF role, we need Draper or Bryan to become a top 5 ruck and we need to find some small forwards that create panic and goals… maybe one of the Daveys.

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Where’s D’Ambrosio ??

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Fixed

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The same year that Zefram Cochran invents FTL travel.

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I want a finals win next year otherwise more blood-letting

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2027 is the earliest in my opinion.

And that’s only if our kids end up any good.

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Which of these do you mean ?

or do you mean :

Or do you mean both… ?

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2028 after we Fark Dodoro off and build a decent list.

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How old are your kids?

Mine nearly 2. Based on that 2038 could be it.

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We will be 11th-14th next season.

Potentially/maybe challenge for the lower part of the 8 the following season?

I still think we are a good 3-4 years off potentially doing something. Potential is a dangerous word though as we are all very much aware by now.

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Need to plan for a GF before Merrett ,Parish, 2MP, Redman and Co goes over the hill.

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We should be aiming to challenge after we’ve built a functional club with a winning take no prisoners, ruthless culture

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Yeah it’s a five year window really

Really need to nail this draft, ideally we get 1 x Davey cheapish, 1 x Davey and Munkara late, a top talent with our pick 5, and find a way to get a second pick 15-25ish before Davey #1 gets bidded on

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Great topic.

In my opinion, if everything goes to plan…
From the beginning of a rebuild, the aim should be…
3-4 years to begin consistently make finals.
5-6 years to begin consistently making top 4.
7-8 years to begin a period of dominance.

The question is, when did we begin the rebuild.
For me it was the year Daniher and co left the club. So we’re one year into it. Even though this year was a bit of a waste, I think it can be recovered over the next few years as long as we try and try and improve our draft position. The only problem is, after a period of time, you can’t keep going to the draft because you’ll have to begin turning over some of those youngsters earlier than necessary.

So that’ll be 2023-24 to make finals, 2025-26 for top 4 and 2027-28 for our first GF.

Now…
I don’t expect it to be linear from year to year. Somewhere in there, we will drop down the ladder.
But across a longer period of time, we should be improving our chances, not continually zig zagging between 8th and 14th.

For us…
I think we need to address our on field leadership to help keep to the timeline.
I also hope we get our ■■■■ together.

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Top 4 can happen in 2025, if you believe the kids on the list can develop at a reasonable rate.
An area, i concede, we havent excelled in.

I wouldnt rule out a surge season 2024, the caveat being the acquisition of players that fill gaps via FA (or trade) post the '23 season.
This is an unknown, obviously.

We need 1 more season to have a clearer picture where the list gaps actually are.

A player like Draper needs to get to 80 games, then a host of recent draftees get to that 40-60 game mark where they start being stronger, more consistent contributors.

Im not sure what 2023 holds other than, more building and frustratingly inconsistent performances.

Im ALL IN on 2025.

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Well said, I’m probably a bit more sceptical on players others rate like Cox, Reid and Jones. I think 2025 is a year too early