Claw you do have a point.
2021 was when we should have realised we were cooked.
2022 trade efforts were a glaring mistake.
I don't blame the club for trying to stay at the top but it looks to have backfired and put us back 2-3 years in a rebuild IMO.
It’s very easy to say that. I wasn’t on the forum in 2016, but how many people were opposed to giving up or top pick for Prestia and other picks for caddy and nank? I’d wager there would have been quite the outcry at that point as well.
I don’t think we could have won the flag in 2022, but reverse that BS goal review in the final against Brisbane and who knows.
Like chucky said, hindsight is 20:20. Trades and list management decisions are always a gamble, you win some (2016), you lose some (2022). The main reason we are down is because we did not have access to the top end of the draft because we were too busy winning flags. I keep mentioning it but there have been 4 dynasty teams in the AFL era, ourselves, hawks and Brisbane have all dropped off a cliff and go through a rebuild. While Geelong seem to ‘contend’ every year and avoid rebuilds, they still went 11 years btw their 2011 and 2022 flags and were mainly pretenders in that time.
The big difference between 2016 and getting Caddy Prestia and Nank to 2022 and getting Taranto and Hopper is quite obvious. The number of high quality players we had accumulated going right back to 2006 and topping it all off in 2016 and the age demographic most of them were in compared to 2022. In 2022 almost all of our best players who were going to carry us to another flag were vets.
By the way i will put my hand up and say i was one who did not want Prestia at the end of 2016. I was rapt we got Nankervis and i had never really rated Caddy as a player and i still don't.
Taranto and in a lesser way Hopper were very large list needs weather we were in a window or not. We had just plain refused to draft adequate numbers of their type and in good positions in the draft with only RCD being a decent pick. Our infatuation with smalls and flankers is well documented. I still maintain we took smalls because there is a better chance of getting something out of them over big bodied players and talls.
I have not heard one supporter here actually acknowledge just how bereft we were of big mids and we had no choice but get at least one good mature one. That was not to win a premiership it was just to compete. We are in that place with key forwards and have been for years and Key defenders is not much better.