I don't mind it. The two things I would have liked ideally is,
1) To have kept pick 8.
2) To have involved Krak, Hall, Tiv, Hyde or a similar mid range player with trade value.
The Sydney approach says that trading for established players can work. I think that in getting Polak, a 70-game KP defender with something to prove we are going someway to addressing the list imbalance left by Spud.
I think that in some ways you benefit greatly from swimming against the tide. Sydney were trading away high picks for ready made players when everyone else became obsessed with them and built a very good list by using their lower picks wisely. With priority picks gone and everyone holding onto their first round picks, I think the days of picking up 6 or 7 real good kids in a couple of years (e.g. St Kilda) are behind us and you have to think smarter to get ahead.
The automatic assumption that Hawthorn will automatically be great because they are taking top-10 kids is also naive - the losing culture that group is developing will be very hard to shake. I reckon Plough and Miller are doing things just right, but we will wait and see.
Any reasonable approach can work, as long as a club has a plan and systematically works towards that.
The Swans seem to have developed a system that works for them and reaped the rewards. I’m just not sure I understand what RFC’s approach is right now.
The fact the Club threw up names for trade in the same game bracket as Polak, to me, doesn’t say that the club was trying to address the imbalance in that area? Things just turned out that way.
Instead it comes across that they wanted to fill a hole, and rather than use the long term option of the draft, opted for the quick fix of a trade. Both options have the same chance of failing as succeeding.
So it’s down to the ability of the coaching staff to get the best out of their players and also the commitment needs to be there from the players, in order for that to happen. If that doesn’t exist then I don’t think it really matters whether we use the trade or draft to build a list.
Essentially, if worked properly, any system can be effective. Some clubs just seem to be a little more calculated in their trade/draft dealings, while others seem to make it up as they go along. I’m not sure which category RFC fits in at the moment.
It’s almost like a ‘hit and miss’ approach, which seems to be reflected in the style of footy we play.