Yep.I don't think a team needs to tank to draft well. We all agree that Collingwood needs to embrace the draft and do better at identifying and developing talent in-house vs the Mayne, Wells, Beams scenarios. We're already seeing that with the kids we've played this year.
There is no benefit to embracing an attitude of "let's write 2022 off" to get the best kid possible but there is no denying that the lower your pick the greater the chance that the kid you want to develop will be available.
If we use Hawthorn as a model they developed well in-house, traded astutely, and were also great at keeping their talent on the park. There's so much more to it than just selecting the right stock on draft day.
All that has happened is Collingwood pivoted, we were draft and youth heavy in 2012-15 whilst never bottoming out.
We then had a period where we traded out of the draft for more mature talent...obviously not managed well with salary cap fallout.
Now we are back in a more youth oriented phase. We need to draft well, we don't need to finish bottom four and get a top4 pick to draft well.
And we still need to ensure we have enough senior onfield leadership to support, develop and drive standards with our kids.