It's hard to judge how many players we are away from developing a premiership team because as froars said most of the kids can only be classed now as having that dreaded word "potential" although they are highly talented. Also someone like a Pettifer lol might finally step up. Did you forget about Krakouer RT?
If we're thinking 5 years time, I'd reckon we only have the following who could play a major part in a premiership side atm:
Defence: Newman, Bowden
Midfielders: Cogs, Johnson
Forwards: Brown
Ruck: Simmonds
The rest are either too young to judge, too old, not up to it or still need to prove themselves (I'm thinking Krakouer and Tivs here). So that's at least 15 players away. If the likes of Deledio, Tambling, Meyer, Pattison, Polo, Schulz, Krakouer, Jackson and Raines do fulfil their potential (no guarantee) then obviously that about halves that number in line with your thinking RT. As most of these boys are midfielders it then as you said comes down to us scoring KPPs. This is why this draft was so important. For each kid from the past two drafts that goes onto to play say 150-200 games for us, the sooner we can build a successful team. We will still need one more clean out at the end of this year and despite the genuine optimism around at Tigerland which we all feel, I still believe we will finish in the bottom 4 next year which may go a long way to getting these quality KPP we need.
Our big problem as I see it ...is our Premiership side does not have a Spine. We have no recognised Full Back or Centre Half Back or Centre Half Forward or even Full Forward although Schulz and Pattison may fill a void. So the up shot is we need now to go after KPP's.
Of all Spud's failings his inability to draft/recruit talls during his 5 year regime except for Schulz was the most disasterous looking forward from now on
. This legacy is shown by the fact that when you look at our list of 190cm+ players they are either nearing the end of the careers (Gas, AK, Stafford, Richo, Graham) or only beginning theirs (Schulz, Moore, Achibald, Pattison, McGuane, Limbach). Apart from Simmonds and Morrison (who could get delisted in a year's time anyway if he fails again), we have no one else nearing or at their peak who can play KP
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Even if we draft a few KPPs in next year's draft, unless they are of Riewoldt's class they are going to take at least another 3-4 years after that to reach a consistent level. St Kilda was able to get around this somewhat by scoring experienced yet quality players like Hamill, Gehrig and Penny. In fact all the top 4 sides this year had picked up a recycled KP - Geelong Harley and Mooney, Brisbane Michael and Port Wakelin. However, as we've found out this year with the weak PSD you can't rely on this happening even if you finish dead last
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