Teague - Selecting Battlers over talent.

[Milhanna13]

SOS once said in an interview, that it’s easy to put a side together that finishes 8th. That comment has always been in the back of my mind when looking at out playing list.

Agree with a lot of what you said - especially, about struggling to really do anything while we have Cottrell, Gibbons, Cas etc in our 22 - hopefully this goes away once we get a few back from injuries and a few more prestige kids come on (incl Dow, Obrien and SPS that you pointed out)

I always took the quote above (re building a list to finish 8th) to be a shot at teams that took short cuts.  Think St Kilda bringing in middle of the road free-agents like Hill, Ryder and Jones.  Or teams that drafted for immediate impact (think Rhys Palmer in his ealry days or Sam Powell Pepper).  Sure, these teams get a short term rise, and the media falls all over them, but in the long run, are they really winning anything?

I always thought SOS had looked long term, rather than short term fix.  But, maybe his good intentions were wasted on the specific picks he (or others made).
He picked young kids with massive upside - but maybe Dow, Obrien, SPS, Cunningham werent the right ones
He focused on younger free agents, who still had upside, but maybe McGovern, Martin, Williams werent the right ones

I will always support his philospophy, maybe the execution just fell over at the last step (the actual picking of the individuals)