Claw just my opinion and reading yours I see what you mean and I agree but in terms of the mature players we bring to the club is it also the club culture that we have that whilst we look at clubs like Collingwood, Sydney, Hawthorn who may bring a mature recruit to add to their stocks and the penny drops and they bust a gut and turn into a valuable commodity for their teams whereas with blokes that come to us see the culture and recognise that,
RFC on the other hand seems to be a half way house for blokes who rather than thank their lucky stars to get another AFL chance thank their lucky stars to induce good coin for a few more years knowing that the "unique and tenuous" relationship the club has with its fan base will ensure they will play week in and out so that the club justifies their selection at the club and hence they play as if they don't care.
Whilst your theory claw at a good club would make a sound if not successful model with a culture that is positive a club like the RFC whose culture is poor regardless of who comes and goes very few go on to make real names of themselves for all the right reasons. Our culture is stuffed both on and off field and thus blokes like Chaplin, Grigg and co are happy to just cruise.
i think the problem arises especially with chaplin is we ignore the history. like hampson 7 yrs in the system a lot of pretty glalring weaknesses and performance that spelled danger yet we traded for him.we ignored the obvios with sean thinking we could turn it around.
chaplin is the same. geez i dont know how many times ive mentioned that chaplin is no different at richmond to what he was at port. even i got suckered in with chaplin though.
i was hopeful we could do what p/a never could and that was turn him into a good reliable 1v 1 defender capable of consitently stopping and playing on the big kpfs. i had hoped for this despite chaplin not showing this apart from the odd game at age 26 and god knows how many seasons. we all live and learn eh. the chaplin deficiencies have always been there for all to see.
im sorry that only deals with part of your post but i cant atm reply to the rest. just too peeed off and there is no objectivity. they deserve a bake imo and i dont really feel like defending them.
i just think sometimes we throw as supporters throw the baby out with the bathj water after a unacceptable loss.