Lloyd made good points whether we like it or not we could have taken some kids instead and added to our depth of kids.
We added 4 more kids to our depth or kids. Problem last season was when we had players go down with injury, we only had untried kids to call up to AFL level, and it cost us games.
With these players who have all played and in some games impacted at AFL level (Pettard, Lonergan, Edwards), at least we can call them into the side if someone goes down.
Put it this way, when Vickery went down in 2012, we had O'Hanlon to call up who had been in the AFL system all of 4 months. Still growing into his own body and inexperienced.
If the same was to happen again, we call in Edwards. No not a world beater by any stretch of the imagination, but in terms of getting a result, Edwards is a much much better option than O'Hanlon at this stage. O'Hanlon is for the future hopefully, Edwards can be the player so we dont go so far backwards in the scenario of injuries.
Same thing with when Foley went down, absolutely no one to call on. Lonergan would have been a god send as a replacement for him last season. Once again, I am not trying to say these guys are 'Cotchinesque', simply that when you need to win games, they are better options then 18yo kids who you just drafted.
People can mask the truth, and the fact is we took another 4 18 year olds at the draft table this off season. That is more than 60% of the other clubs. So what, our rookie spots our filled now with experienced players. In my opinion it is probably the smartest move the club has made in a long long while.
Rookie list is in my view the emergency/reserve list. Put guys on there that we have, that we now can compete against the bigger bodies if required.
My only problem with it, and I am sure we'll do this in future anyway is they could have got more mature bodies from state leagues, not just other AFL clubs.
