A lot of those mature players were taken as temporary fits. You can't just draft good young players and drafting top mature talent at those times would have been poor list management as we would have overpaid and they most likely would not have wanted to come. We used a lot of salary dump types and that is why we are in the position we are in now, we probably have the healthiest salary cap in the competition and are in an excellent position because of it and will be for a long time to come.
The other thing is that is not an unusual amount of discards for an AFL list, fairly stock standard. You go through the history of the really successful clubs and you will see a similar list.
We have some former GWS players who are really good. Not sure what the issue with them is. Our serious targets have been pretty good. The rest probably succumbed to having too many injuries which isn't really a recruiting issue. The rest were nothing picks and didn't cost us much and they played a short yet vital role at the club.
If we have a good top 25-30 this season then it's all completely irrelevant, that will mean we are building a good list in a good time frame but to know this we are going to have to let the 2020 season play out.
Richmond are the best of the best. Best list. Best team. So lets have a good look at their late pick recruiting. Here's their rebuild layed out, the 2010-2016 drafts.
Trades & Free Agents
Morris (87)
Maric (80)
Aaron Edwards (12)
Hampson (35)
Hunt (105)
Moore (8)
Townsend (20)
Yarran (0)
Prestia (60)
Nankervis (59)
Caddy (62)
Hit and miss, some good ones, some temporary fillers, some busts. Towards the end they became a destination and nailed some guns and we are only just in that stage now and they do want to come as we have seen.
Picks after 50
Dean MacDonald (0)
Tom Derickx (2)
Matthew Arnott (0)
Nathan Gordon (21)
Sam Lloyd (57)
Oleg Markov (17)
Nathan Broad (54)
Ryan Garthwaite (9)
Jack Graham (38)
Terrible, worse than us until the end when they had a real flourish. No stars but some handy players there. Our first 4 years are better than theirs, it's just injury as skewed our results.
Rookie Picks
Ben Jakobi (0)
Brad Miller (24)
Tom Hislop (20)
Addam Maric (31)
Ben Darrou (0)
Steven Turner (0)
Piva Wright (0)
John Heslin (0)
Ricky Pettard (30)
Sam Lonergan (2)
Orren Stephenson (7)
Cadeyn Williams (0)
Todd Banfield (0)
Anthony Miles (61)
Matt Thompson (15)
Jayden Short (71)
Jason Castagna (76)
Kane Lambert (94)
Ivan Soldo (22)
Callum Moore (8)
Mabior Chol (9)
Adam Marcon (2)
Tyson Stengle (2)
Loads and loads of players who were no good, particularly early days, way more discards than us. A few mature age gap fillers who only played a bit, just like we had had. They had a bit of a flourish at the end where they had one really good draft late where they got Short, Castagna and Lambert. Our first 4 years their first 4 years, both resulted in very little. You could argue we did better in our first 4 years but it's pretty much of a muchness.
Conclusion
Can't really compare their list to us all that much as their players have had the opportunity to play more games and you are comparing 4 drafts to 7.
Thing's I am seeing with Richmond's rebuild that strongly resembles our recruiting which we get criticised heavily for:
1. Lots and lots of players recruited who were no good with late and rookie picks, particularly in the early staged of the rebuild. Their first 4 years and our first 4 years are very comparable.
2. Lots of Salary dumps, short term recruits and players to fill a hole for a while early on. Just like us.
3. In terms of traded in players and free agents, we are ahead. Our list of traded in mature age talent and free agents will be greater once we get to our 7th draft. We have players wanting to come and cap space to get them in thanks to our good list management and improving team.
4. Their recruitment of late round draft picks and rookie picks was really only decent in their last few years, years we have not reached yet.
This is why I see a lot of the criticism of our recruiting as being BS. It's comparable with the best team in the competition and we're actually somewhat ahead in some areas and I think from now on we will see things play out and we will see things turn around. If we do what Richmond did who nailed the last 2-3 drafts of their rebuild we're going to have an awesome list and the position we have put ourselves in is every bit as good as theirs if not better.
For all those bagging our recruiting, bagging SOS, bagging our later picks. Don't you think it's strange how it really compared to the team who has built the best list in the competition? Perhaps SOS knows more about building a list than the critics in the media and big footy..
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