- Jan 10, 2011
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At the end of the day, pretty much this. Especially if an SA club have moved up to pick 3 and grabbed Rankine, and we think there's a significant gap in the ceilings of King and Smith.
To all those saying "who'll kick it to him"; for starters, Steven, Seb, Hannebery, Clark, Steele, Gresh, Billings, Acres, Coffield and co. (the last 5 of whom are still hopefully a long way off what they could be, from a midfield perspective, and ALL of the last 6 were drafted or bid on in the first round of their respective drafts, which suggests they have genuine talent and just need to be developed and coached well), but we also need to remember- as plenty are pointing out- that King's not likely to be really ready to impact for at least a couple of years, so that gives us a couple more years to add that elite midfield talent to get it to him when he is.
So many of the comments seem to be about the hear and now or what they'll do for us next year, but that is so short-sighted, as the draft is generally about what whoever you're picking will do for your club over what you're hoping will be about a 15 year period, not about what they can do for you next year. Unless you're getting a 24yo Tim Kelly type, that's much more what trading and FA are for.
It's not like we're likely to find a Joel Selwood or Chris Judd in the draftwho hit the ground running from year one, so the only ones who are likely to make a significant difference to our midfield in the short term are ones we trade in or get through FA, and I'm sure we'll continue to have that as a huge focus over the next year or two, until we do eventually land us a "big midfield fish" (or at least a bigger one than Hannebery, who will be pretty big himself, if anywhere near full fitness and form).
I feel like we've come to the party a bit late with this mega-offer to Shiel, but if we go this hard, much earlier at our main trade targets next year (like North have this year and last), I think it will give us a much better chance of landing one- especially if we go much better on field on the back of the additions of Hanners, Robbo, Bruce (?), Kent, another preseason into the likes of Clark, Coffield, Gresh, Long, Paddy etc, a presumably much easier draw and hopefully much better coaching/gameplan, etc.
Bringing in King also almost guarantees that we'll move on at least one if not two of the Bruce, Paddy, Skunk, Battle, Marshall group over the next 12 months, and that could give us extra currency to use on those who play midfield. Maybe as soon as this upcoming trade period.
At the end of the day though, if we're not able to cobble together a pretty good midfield over the next 2-3 years out of Stuv, Seb, Hanners, Steele, Gresh, Clark, Acres, Dunstan, Billings, Sincs, Newnes, Long, Kent and so-on, then I reckon there's something pretty seriously wrong at the club, that no Bailey Smith is going to fix.
Hopefully with Ratts on board with the midfield group from this preseason that won't be the case and we won't need to add that much to it for it to be a very good midfield group indeed going forward.
You have been saying we had a good midfield for years. We even discussed ours and Melbourne and you said ours was better. The problem is it isn’t better. It has holes in it and no real star power. You could easily turn around exactly what you said and say we have potentially plenty of tall fierwrds and something is seriously wrong if we think king will fix the problem.
I think you are looking for other issues apart from actual ability of our mids. That is the problem unfortunately.
The simple fact is we have drafted many more talls than mids over the last few years considering the amount of each that are in a side. Also a failed mid doesn’t set you back many years but a failed tall forward certainly does. Do the same thing over and over again and failing is sign of madness.