You forget that Ablett was a pretty good small forward (originally touted as a 2nd or 3rd rounder) until his own playing group told him he wasn't working hard enough. Then...wooshka!
How many Richmond players are in that category? Unanswerable, but the sudden and late improvement of Jackson and Tambling this year suggests that there are a few.
Not unusual for eventual gun mids though to start their careers as small/midsize forwards until they have a few years in the system to build up their body to handle the workloads required to play midfield. Cyril Rioli is following the same path at Hawthorn.
It would have been helpful too at Richmond to have a development coach before their 3rd year in Blingers case and 4th in Jacko's case. The Club didn't have basic resources in the footy dept and until the new facilities are completed in 2011 our resources still aren't up to the elite standard of the best and wealthy clubs.
Having said that the player still needs to do the hard work and have the natural ability to begin with. Jacko was a gun long distance runner at school and of course Richie is finally starting to show the talent that had recruiters excited when he was a junior. Jake King for instance could work as hard as Ablett and Rioli (and he probably does as work ethic is a strength of his) but he'll still be a hack of a kick and just a VFL player at best
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Once again, you confuse the result with the attitude and preparation. My point is that we must prepare our young players to win these last 10 games as best we can. If they lose, at least they have done everything in their control to win the game. If they win, fantastic. If we are preparing them to win, and they do, then we have to be prepared to accept that that is a very good thing for their development, and of more value than losing for the sake of an extra pick.
But you prepare the players to win even when a club is tanking. You say nothing to the players and you expect them to do their best and go out there and aim to win. You still do all the midweek preparation such as watching opposition videos, discussing tactics, etc with the players as normal. It's the match committee that manipulates team selection (play a young inexperienced side instead of your current "best" 22) and the coaching staff choose match-ups that are more for educational and developmental reasons at the expense of winning the game (such as get a young mid in his first or second year to try and run around with Judd, Ablett or this week Dal Santo instead of Jacko who we know already can do a tagging or run-with-role).
When you're a poor side you're losing far more often than winning anyway even with more experienced players. It's not a huge leap to tank
. Doing the above means you're preparing for next year now rather than waiting for official preseason to start in November. Part of that preparation for next year and beyond as a club should be list management. We need to plan now for this. We need a wholistic plan. We can't afford to leave recruiting to chance as we have in the past. We'll have most likely 4 retirees this year. So having an average collection of picks - say 7, 24, 40, 56 - only covers them leaving. That leaves us relying on picks 72, 88, etc, which have a high probably of failing or being no better than what we have now, to replace our current list cloggers. How's that going to improve the quality of our list ???. Remember as well this year 1/3 of the kids usually available aren't. You need the early picks and as many as you can get your hands on. Sure you can trade someone with decent trade value such a Tuck say for another decent pick but that's just one extra pick who essentially is replacing Tucky not our list cloggers. Tanking on the other hand would give us two extra early picks for free!
Anti-tankers want their cake and to eat it too. They want wins now and they want a better list for the future compared to the poor one we have now. Under the current draft system and with the new teams coming in it doesn't work that way. You have to choose one or the other. Attitude and preparation alone while still necessary will not make us a better side. You need the top talent to begin with. Combine this talented list with a win at all costs attitude, preparation and elite training resources at their disposal and then you're going somewhere.
