Aker Rumours Continue With Roos Interested

[NMWBloods]

So you're saying 6-9 years minimum then (before we win a premiership)?

In that case, of the current team, the following are unlikely to be a major part of any premiership plans (or they will just scrape in at that age you say they are no good any more) - Maxfield, Cresswell, Ball, Williams, Barry, Crouch, Hall, Kirk, Matthews, Nicks, O'Loughlin, Schauble.

That's a fair chunk to replace in that time.

Note: I needed to edit to clarify what I was referring to as a couple of posts jumped inbetween.

[Reggi]

No I'm saying Chris Judd is clearly baring injuries going to be one of the best players of the next decade and is still only a teenager. All his best results in football are ahead of him

As distinct from a 26 YO Browlow medalist with 2 premierships.

[Craig]

Reggi, Akermanis is far from your average player, he is a genuine superstar. Plenty of players with 4, 5 or 6 years of footy left are recruited to clubs and help them enormously. Are you saying that we should never have recruited Williams? We have plenty of young players comming through.

Akermanis has starred in a brilliant team. It is rubbish to suggest that this is because his team mates make him look good. He is one of the ones who have made Brisbane a superpower. Acker easily has the ability and potential to win another Brownlow and a couple of swans B & F's.

[Reggi]

Originally posted by Craig
Reggi, Akermanis is far from your average player, he is a genuine superstar. Plenty of players with 4, 5 or 6 years of footy left are recruited to clubs and help them enormously. Are you saying that we should never have recruited Williams? We have plenty of young players comming through.

Akermanis has starred in a brilliant team. It is rubbish to suggest that this is because his team mates make him look good. He is one of the ones who have made Brisbane a superpower. Acker easily has the ability and potential to win another Brownlow and a couple of swans B & F's.

To your second point I've never suggested he can't play, the question is will Sydney as a club be succesful.

To your first point it is a few years since in another Swans forum there was a long and vigourous debate about recruiting J Ball - whilst he has played some ok footy - we would have been far better using the picks Glass would have presented us with a player just now developing into a key backman. At the time my point wa that inevitably we will be caught being a mediocre team if we keep trading for players.

How right was I then?

How many top players have swapped clubs and gone on to win premierships? Very bloody few. I keep challenging all you guys on this but the fact is almost all the clubs that have won premierships have built sides around youth, then had succesful eras that include premierships.

Here are some statistics to support my case.

Big Names to Sydney

Billy Picken 0 Premierships
Merv Neagle 0 Premierships
Gerard Healy 1 Brownlow 0 Premierships
Greg Williams 1 Brownlow 0 Premierships
Bernard Toohey 0 Premierships
David Bolton 0 Premierships
Neil Cordy 0 Premierships
Michael Byrne 0 Premierships
That dud ex captain of Footscray 0 Premierships
Jason Love 0 Premierships
Mark Kellett 0 Premierships
Darren Kappler 0 Premierships
Michael Werner 0 Premierships
Ed Considine 0 Premierships
Scott Watters 0 Premierships
Dermott Brereton 0 Premierships
Tony Lockett 0 Premierships
Paul Roos 0 Premierships
Kevin Dyson 0 Premierships
Craig O'Brien 0 Premierships
Stuart Maxfield 0 Premierships
Wayne Schwass 0 Premierships
Jason Ball 0 Premierships
Paul Williams 0 Premierships

I don't know about any one else but I'm begining to spot a trend.

[desredandwhite]

Soooo... in conclusion.. "It depends"

WAY too early to make the call now.

[footyhead]

Originally posted by Craig
.

Akermanis has starred in a brilliant team. It is rubbish to suggest that this is because his team mates make him look good. He is one of the ones who have made Brisbane a superpower. Acker easily has the ability and potential to win another Brownlow and a couple of swans B & F's. [/B]

If you'll remember Akermanis, was not much of a star before Leigh mathews went to Brisbane.
I agree with Reggi. Most successful teams find and develope good young talent and form the nucleous of a team with them, and then go on to win premiership s.
You can add a star into the mix of an established team like that, but adding stars into partially established teams is dangerous.That is why Carey to Adelaide was a good choice for Adelaide, but Carey was a bad choice for us.
There is an old saying "nothing grows in the shadow of great trees" . It is very easy to upset a developing team psyche with an imported - very expensive EGO who has credentials from past acheivments with another team. It intimidates other potentially as good young players.
But nurturing shared passion between young players who grow up together, is invaluble in team sprots , especially AFL.
This is why it would be too bigger risk to give up draft picks for AKermanis next year.
Will the Swans ever learn ? I hope so. We have tried this sort of thing so many times.
This is a danger time for our club if everyone thinks that the rebuild is over just cos we win a few games in a row and make the finals. "So lets just get a couple of stars and shove em in the mix: and hey presto youv'e got your self a premeirship"!
Well it just doesn't work that way, it never has for us in the past and it never will. Premeirship teams are tough, and they are tight, and they grew up together.
Wake up to your self Swans. And wake up to yourselves Swans supporters.

[Reggi]

Couldn't agree more Footyhead.

The appalling thing is we never seem to learn.

[undy]

The way Aker is playing at the moment, we should be able to trade him for Cressa's bootlaces and a used junior footy raffle ticket. I didn't see how he played this weekend, but he's been fairly ordinary this year.

Now Gary Ablett junior looks a bit more potent, can't we get Luke to use the force and win him over to the right side of the family ?

Andy

[boroboy]

He's coming - put your wages on it. Andrew Ireland spoke with him at the end of last year - and a conversation I had with Leigh Matthews recently also alluded to the fact Sydney is where he has his eye on....

[thommoone]

i don't really want him, but id take him if he was cheap. I would not give any more than we gave up for davis.

[swan_song]

Looks like this is turning into another contentiious issue and there is no need for it to be. If Akker is available and wants to come to the Swans, and a good deal can be made...let it be so. Even three, four or five years of service to us from a gun player would be of enormous benefit, not only to the prospects on the field, but in the prospect of our younger players learning from being around champion players. Get real everyone!

[Red]

Originally posted by Craig
Akermanis has starred in a brilliant team. It is rubbish to suggest that this is because his team mates make him look good. He is one of the ones who have made Brisbane a superpower. Acker easily has the ability and potential to win another Brownlow and a couple of swans B & F's.

Maybe. But he didn't look much like it 8 days ago against Crouch, one of our 'lesser lights'. Of course, he publicly stated afterwards that he was suffering from a 'virus' of some sort. Which is why his coach then moved him to an 18 yr old playing his 7th game, and was still made to look slow and uninterested IMO.

I'm firmly in the grown-your-own premiership team camp on this one. A solid group of young players developing and arriving at the same time is a strong common denominator amongst the flag winners.

Reggie's Big Names to Sydney post is a classic, and I can't see how anyone can argue with that list and what it implies. Top-up recruiting has gotten us nowhere in 70 years of trying. But maybe we've got such a long history of it that we automatically court the big out-of-contract names.

Footyhead makes a good point about upsetting the team psyche -- which a loudmouth like Akka could do. I suspect that he could very easily get carried away with Sydney's publicity machine, fall in with some of Lewie's 'beautiful people' and lose his focus. We've got a good captain, a young, dedicated leadership group and we really don't need anyone to do any grandstanding (or handstanding) right now.

Also, if we recuited someone like Akka now, then he's taking a spot on the field that a long-term prospect (like McVeigh) could be filling and denying them essential senior experience. And besides that, which of the current regular seniors would you leave out to include Akka? I'd be interested to see which players think Akka could replace, and why.

After all the promise the youngsters have shown so far, to recruit a 27 yr-old with nothing to prove would be counter-productive. In the case of Akermanis, if he really want's to play for Sydney, let him join the Waratahs instead.

[sharp9]

Originally posted by Red

After all the promise the youngsters have shown so far, to recruit a 27 yr-old with nothing to prove would be counter-productive. In the case of Akermanis, if he really want's to play for Sydney, let him join the Waratahs instead.

Nodding, clapping and other general expressions of approval