Spot on! The fact that we have nabbed freebies here and there made our past teams powerhouses. (And the future quite bleak)
However the overall level of quality of players in the the AFL has been slowly diminishing. If everything was equal then 92 > 94 > 06 > 18 so we don't necessarily have to reach that level to win a flag in say 2027.
18 teams spreading out talent, the introduction of GC & GWS leading to wasted development of 20 odd first rounders. Lately covid in particular has weakened the draft for the last 3 years. Tasmania can **** right off
The biggest problem I see for us is that we have no leg up this go around- No F/S(Cousins), no Judd trade (Kennedy). Adding to that we likely won't bottom out deep or long enough with our obvious home ground advantage.
We seem to be doing things organically, a few retire and we bring in equal rookie players to fill the spots. Anyone 26 and under should be considered able to be part of our next legitimate push.
With a bit of luck this is 10 of a best 25 by 2027. A fair bit of work to do
Duggan
Cole
Petrevski- Seton
Allen
Culley
Hough
Chesser
Bazzo
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Barnett
Hewett
Long
Burgiel
Ginbey
Dewar
Baker
