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Date Posted: 09:45 18/09/24 Wed
Author: Two-Bob Man
Author Host/IP: NoHost / 110.144.28.91
Subject: There's probably a lot still in play
In reply to: the seer 's message, "List of players NOT coming to the Pies... (as far as we know)" on 12:47 17/09/24 Tue

Around this time every year, it is very easy to get caught up in rumours around who certain teams are and aren't going to pick up, which teams will take which players in the draft, which players we all want to see in the B&W (either traded in or drafted in) and what previous decisions have or haven't either hurt us or served us well.

There is, invariably, disappointment often as to who we have failed to attract to the club, yet other sides were able to nab (sometimes "under our noses") and while I will often share such frustrations, when you sit down and look at it all without the emotion of the situation, you begin to realise that worrying is futile.

The Sydney acquisition of Franklin and Tippet (together with the allowances afforded them via their NGAs and salary cap concessions) did not yield ultimate success for them during the tenure of those players.

Neither did the acquisition of Judd by Carlton in the early 2000s (together with a range of highly lauded draft picks courtesy of their bottoming out over a few seasons).

Richmond acquired a big gun (Lynch), but its TEAM was already successful prior to this and Dusty was probably a bigger factor on the multiple flag acquisition as anybody (yet the confluence of a range of players on the list played an imperative role).

Even Melbourne's much celebrated list - with the likes of Gawn, Petracca, Oliver, Viney, Brayshaw in the engine room, together with the likes of May and Lever in defense and Fritsch, Picket and McDonald as forward mainstays could not sustain any success beyond a single (heavily Covid-interrupted) season.

So too for the Bulldogs who, with their 2016 list and some pretty highly-rated additions since, weren't able to replicate the feats of that year.

There are so many moving parts to all this that, ultimately, who we manage to select and not select is only a VERY SMALL part of guaranteeing ultimate success - which is, after all, what we crave.

We know of the Collingwood misses (both in terms of trades as well as drafts) in our recent history.

There have been some pretty damning events that we can all recall and from which we thought that we had effectively shot ourselves in the foot.

Going back to the McKee and pick 7 for King and pick 3 trade in 1999, and the drafting of "dark horses" Bo Nixon and Sean Rusling, there has always been an element of disappointment in the wheelings and dealings by the club.

In more recent times, the cost spent on Treloar (ending up being 2x top 10 picks) mirrors the "cost" that we ultimately paid for Schultz, whereas the unnecessary acqusition of Beams back from Brisbane was an even bigger "disaster" for us.

And yet, these events pre-empted a massive list disatser which then befell us due to a bulging salary cap and needing to cast off players for mediocre returns (Treloar and Stephenson, then followed by Grundy) in what many predicted was going to be a 5 or 6 year period of dark ages for Collingwood before we would again be "in Finals contention"....

...that is, until merely 3 years later when we became Premiers!

Think about that outcome in the context of what we DIDN'T have to play with in the preceeding drafts...or with what we didn't have in terms of "trade capital" or salary cap space!

Yes....good picks and good trading maximise the opportunity for success....

Try telling that to the likes of North Melbourne and St Kilda, or GWS or Gold Coast, who have now had several seasons of being able to cherry pick the very best junior talent with the best draft picks available.

Every team that wins a Flag will be lauded by the media and supporters for the decisions they DID make as if those decisions were the SOLE reason why success was achieved.

Really???

They contribute to the success, but sometimes those decision are made because other decisions fell through.

Collingwood was keen on Ross Lyon after Buckley's tenure, but Lyon turned down an approach by the Pies. The Pies were also keen on Clarkson, but the timing regarding his availability wasn't right.

There were lots of names LINKED to Collingwood for the coaching job.

The selection of McRae is now lauded as a "master stroke"...but had Lyon or Clarkson been available and willing, would we have selected McRae?

This is why we shouldn't sweat the outcome of all of these off season rumours.

Only in the fullness of time can the decisions be assessed as to whether they were "right" or "not".

The difficulty is that, generally, a Flag will indictae that "correct" decisions have been made whereas "lack of a Flag" will mean that "better decisions were able to be made".

TBM

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