I must admit at the start of the process I was leaning towards Hardwick first, lately I've leaned more towards Hinkley, quite strongly too.
Regardless of the coach I'm pretty confident we'll delist/trade 9-10 players at the end of the year, I don't think any more is a good idea, it throws the list balance out too much. I also don't think we can afford to cut all six 30+ year olds for TPP reasons.
Mick Malthouse cleaned out the majority of the list over three years when he arrived at Collingwood, 10 the first year then 8 each of the next two years, I see us doing something similar. You also never know how some of the younger players may perform under a new coach. Just look at the turn around in Edwards form under Rawlings compared to earlier this year. Even King is playing much better football as a tagger under Rawlings. Get someone the level of Hardwick or Hinkley and who knows what we'll get out of these kids. No one rated the Hawthorn youngters already on their list when Clarkson arrived, but the bulk of them are the players that won Hawthorn the flag last year. Our kids were all talented juniors, so there has to be something in them to work with.
I'd also like to know who each candidate was going to bring with him as his assistants, but the public will never know that.