Tank?

[Spluff]

To be fair, Geelong had some very very good F/S pickups, and NM and Essendon aren't going to contend for a flag with their list.

 

[astro_toby]

Anyone see Emma Quayle's article in the Melbourne Sunday Age today.

Adelaide never had a top 5 pick.

Geelong never bottomed out.

Essendon never bottomed out.

North Melbourne never bottomed out.

What do all these teams have in common? They are all above Richmond on the ladder.

The only argument some would use is Carlton - but consider this, Fevola was taken as a third rounder at pick 38. Generally, when he is on fire the Blues win the game. Yes they picked up Judd, Murphy, Gibbs and Kruezer by tanking but they haven't won a premiership and look miles off the top 4.

Nothing beats creating a winning culture.

Richmond's problem has and will be for the forseeable future our development once we get them. I guarantee if WCE or Adelaide had picked up JON they wouldn't have played him for 3 years until he was ready to play at the elite level.

St.Kilda did. and they are looking pretty good these days

the Lions got "set for life" when they merged, which was basically the same as bottoming out.

Hawthorn bottomed out big time,

For every example there has been to a team succeeding without bottoming out, there is an example of another which did.

Geelong had a few lean years there definitely - and when you can pick up two abletts, hawkins, scarlett as a f/s pick up - ALL capable of being top 5 or 10 picks, well - they had some good luck fall their way