2017 Round 5: Post Game Prognostications: Carlton vs Port Adelaide

[LP]

...and we had Walker at #2.

Point remains, we've had 'rebuilds' of sort before, we've had some young emerging talent that everyone gets excited about......AND one of the best forwards in the game.
This time around, our kids seem to be more abundant, but we have less top end senior talent who will be there in the long term.
Is it possible that these kids we are relying upon might not make the jump to the next level as soon as we'd hoped (if at all)?

Time for a rethink?

Trade Cripps, Weiters and get multiple 1st Rnd draft picks for use in trade or drafting, I'm talking we want 4 or 5 picks under 10 that give us Plowman, Marchbank, Williamson quality players or better. Much more list depth, dramatically more list depth is required.

It will be 3 or 4 years before Cripps and Weiters hit their peak, and they have to stay fit, focussed, and contracted to get to that point which by the week looks increasingly unlikely. If we break them over the next few years their value plummets and our resource is lost. At the moment it looks unlikely we'll be able to hang onto the kids like Cripps or Weiters anyway! I know a relative of Weiters has already put out the feelers, as disappointing as it is and regardless of what Weiters thinks, others connected to him are already thinking along those lines! For a team on the verge of the top 4 these guys are worth multiple draft picks!

Keep the likes of Murphy, Gibbs, Rowe, etc, etc, let them play out their careers while we build a strong next generation at VFL level. Pour effort and money into player development at the lower level, the NB thing isn't really working for us, it's just a low cost solution.