I was reading a Herald Sun article that said Daniel Jackson will be 23 if and when Terry Wallace's current contract expires. Given that we have a lot of young players on our list, and that we are about to have two selections in the top 6, it would seem that the rebuilsing process will be a long one. In light of this, these are my best expectations for Plough:
2005: 10th-14th would be about as good as we could hope for, anything else would be overperforming a bit. One of the disadvantages I thought the Bulldogs had was that their list was never good enough to make two preliminary finals and finals almost every year. I thought that this harmed them in the long run - when they lost a few inspirational players and a couple of others seemed to come back poorly from injury, get old or lose the huunger, they just didn't have any young quality coming through. I DON'T believe that Terry Wallace brought the club to its knees in terms of list management and short term decision making ala Frawley circa 2001, I think they just did better than they ought to for too long.
2006. Just outside the eight (9-12). You would expect a few of the youngsters to be pushing 50 games by the end of the season. You would also hope to have players like Kellaway, Brown and Johnson shouldering the leadership duties in their prime. The list will have undergone some serious change by now. I am more than a little worried by the so-called 'spine' of the team... Richo will be in his 30s with two dodgy hammys, Gaspar we can only hope returns to something near his AA form, Ottens is making all the noises (or not making any noise at all as it were) of someone who wants out, Stafford is OK but past his best by now, Marsh and Morrison should not be around....
2007. Should really be striving for the eight. 6-10 would do me realistically - as long as we were persevering with youth and not trading away the picks over the previous couple of seasons.
2008. Somewhere in the bottom half of the eight. We should see the draft decisions of the previous several seasons starting to bear fruit.
2009. Top 4.
I don't think this is too much to ask for. Its been a long time since a Richmond coach has taken the club to successive finals series, but equally a long time since a coach has been given such a backing by the men in suits and greeted with almost universal optimism by the fans. If Wallace were able to do this, use the draft wisely and only trade away picks for players in or before their prime (and preferably some height at both ends of the ground) then we would have a solid base to work with for some time.