Pre game postulations: AFL 2021 Rd 7: Carlton vs the Drug Cheats

[kruddler]

I disregard Weitering and Walsh because they were obvious and popular choices  by most observers.

I'll also put aside for a moment the less than adequate players we picked up from other teams.

I don't have a lot of issue with the speculative late picks. (Finbar aside)
Silvagni would no doubt be relying on scouters out in that area.

The main area of concern and discussion centres around those higher draft picks.
Dow, O'Brien and even Cunningham were all high picks.
Silvagni would/should  have taken a bit of interest at that level.
SPS...same (he has been a regular player though, so a bit of slack there)

It may be one or more of these players do eventually reach a level where they're regular, consistent performers.
And yes...the development once drafted is equally (perhaps more of an issue) than the recruitment.

Again, cherry picking to some degree.
Dow, obrien and sps.
No mention of curnow and McKay despite being taken later than those 3.
Fwiw, the dow/obrien draft was an average one.
Cuningham is about on par with most of the others taken around him in that draft.
Perhaps we expect too much?

But...
The balance you talk about is only achieved if it's solid through all parts.
It's not much good picking a player for that position and, balance, if he struggles to make the team.
Austin may be of the opinion that we needed an upgrade in those areas, even though on paper we've had them covered.

Silvagni gets scruitinised because we have a body of work to evaluate.
It's not all bad or good, but a bit of a mix.
Skilled in some aspects, questioned in others.

Austin's time will come but we haven't seen enough of his picks to judge their impact on the side.
I'm still trying to get my head around why you think his selections have unbalanced the side.

Under sos we had senior players in every position and kids coming through in every position.

Under Austin we pushed out Simpson and recruited 2 more hbf/wing types in saad and Williams. We'd pushed out daisy the year before.
We have Docherty, Plowman, Newman, Marchbank, Williamson, sps.... who are afl capable players on the list...and a sprinkling of kids in a similar area.

How many kpd have we got on our list?
Jones and weitering.
We ditched silvagni, finbar, macreadie, Moore and replaced them with nobody.....maybe Oscar who fell into our lap and was good luck rather than good management.

Same with the ruck. Kreuzer out, who was in? We've got tdk and pittonet and....
Casboult??
....and if casboult has to go back to cover for injuries? We've got no key forwards coming through.
How many young kpps do we have on our list?
Zero. Tdk is the youngest (good sos pickup by the way....but nobody talks about him) and the cupboard is bare.

Too many hbfs and no kpps.
That's why our list is unbalanced.

Fwiw, the best list strategy has an abundance of kpps as they are worth more at the trade table....you can trade them for gun mids if you want.

That's poor list balance.