Fagan was right last week when he said rebuilds (from scratch) take a long time.
When you look back, our first attempt started at the 2004 draft when Wallace took over (13 years ago). Not trying to defend Wallace as a coach, but the Club's original plan when Plough joined was to play finals by 2008 with a combo of oldies (Richo, Browny, Johnson, Gaspar, etc) and the new kids with 3-4 seasons under their belt. They knew it wasn't sustainable as our list in 2004 had been totally decimated with no young guns to speak off given we had previously traded away early picks for fringe players, but it was buy time for the next recruiting wave. Play a final series and then dip down the ladder when the oldies were gone before rising again with a better balanced list that could achieve sustainable success. However, our facilities and recruiting were so substandard back then that they were a joke and as we know we stuffed up both the 2004 & 2005 drafts despite a number of early picks. Then Wallace was a failure of a coach as well over his 5 years so the original plan went AWOL.
The only positive from the Wallace years was that by the time Dimma joined at the end of 2009, we had kept hold of our early picks and thus we had some young future guns on our list - Cotch, Rance, Jack, Sheds - which Dusty was added to straight away. We may have been classed as "worse than Fitzroy" but we actually had some base to finally re-rebuild off. With a cultural shift, Fighting Tiger funding drive, new facilites, a strong emphasis on recruiting and development, etc ... the "second attempted rebuild started in 2010. That of course took about 3 years to build a side capable of making finals and then a further 4 years after that to win a flag (with a major hiccup along the way in 2016).
Of these current bottom sides, I see some small base for Brisbane & Carlton to work off. Both are back where we were in 2010-11. The issue for both is cultural and financial problems remain. The Blues are still trying to recover from their salary cap penalties for cheating and are still run as a oligarchy. Plus Bolton is in his 3rd year not his first or second. Brisbane's problem is also financial plus retaining their young players so it doesn't become a vicious cycle of developing interstate kids for other clubs to poach. Freo is where you would expect for a club that spent mostly a decade challenging before losing so much experience due to retirements. St Kilda on the other hand look lost. I doubt they know what they are doing on or off-field. They are totally rudderless without Nick Riewoldt out there that's for sure. At least when Richo retired, Jack began to take over the mantle as our No.1 forward.
Melbourne is entirely a different beast or should that be pheasant. Their list should be playing finals but they are culturally in a time warp that hasn't changed sine 1964. They are still where we use to be until last year - unable or simply not good enough to handle expectation. I won't be surprised if the rah-rahs play well against us on Tuesday night as playing the reigning premiers means they have nothing to lose (unless they get flogged by us
). But as soon as they are expected to stand up and can't play as downhill skiers like their supporters at Mt Hotham, they fall in a heap. It's why Garry Lyon always pumps us up as favourites in the days/week leading up to playing his beloved Dees. We are their Grand Final
.