Who will be better in 2025 - Geelong or Hawthorn?

[PhatBoy]

After age 33 decline is not exactly a concept that's up for grabs in an argument.

The young players you mention might fill part of those shoes. Nobody is arguing against that.

But right now, the most important players in your side are declining, and you're telling me you're just going to manage with other guys.

It's not how it works.




It's not exactly a secret, is it?

For some folks on here, the secret seems to be accepting that you might be replacing them at some stage with people who aren't quite as good.

It's certainly seems controversial almost that anyone might suggest it.

Again I'm going to say look at the Geelong sides who won flags 2007-11. Once the core of that group was gone, it was ten more years plus till you won another.

The reason is, you can't just replace high end talent with talent and expect the outcome to be the same.

The core of the 22 flag (Hawkins, Selwood, Danger, Cameron, Stewart and Smith) are also on the way out, or have left. Why is it so hard to accept that this actually means something I wonder?

Yes that’s what I’m telling you.

What you might lose from one Patrick Dangerfield, a collective remaining group can cover through natural growth and improvement, and if one player jumps out of the pack then all the better. People forget that Tom Hawkins was still arguably in our 3 most important players last season. Where was he this year? Yet the collective improvement of others without actually having someone fill his role more than accounted for what he normally brings to the team.

 

[toomanysquibs]

Yes that’s what I’m telling you.

What you might lose from one Patrick Dangerfield, a collective remaining group can cover through natural growth and improvement, and if one player jumps out of the pack then all the better. People forget that Tom Hawkins was still arguably in our 3 most important players last season. Where was he this year? Yet the collective improvement of others without actually having someone fill his role more than accounted for what he normally brings to the team.

That's an interesting one, no doubt his decline was swift.

Cameron had a better year as a result of that, with more opportunity. But you also had a young tall emerge as well.

The trick will be when there's no Cameron to step up. But that's at least a year or so away you'd reckon.

 

[Dewyyyyy]

Yeah, he got delisted because he got the same A grade numbers as Mitch "Tabby" Lewis

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Lulz.

No he got delisted because he had one good year 3 years ago

 

[PhatBoy]

That's an interesting one, no doubt his decline was swift.

Cameron had a better year as a result of that, with more opportunity. But you also had a young tall emerge as well.

The trick will be when there's no Cameron to step up. But that's at least a year or so away you'd reckon.

Cameron is an out and out game winner and it’s very very hard to replace that, and that’s not lost on me: it’s a luxury not many teams have where one guy can just turn a game completely on its head without having to rely almost on anyone else - even the elite like Neale and Daicos and Bontempelli, they can only do so much without having others to kick it to etc. they might kick a couple of goals themselves but they usually DO need some support cast members to chip in. Cameron on his best days doesn’t so that’s something we are very lucky to have and it doesn’t just ‘get replaced’

But the impact of the other two, even if there’s no direct replacement for Danger or Stewart, I tend to think that a collective improvement from a couple of guys can cover that a bit better.