recruiting policy

[footyhead]

Dear Administration, Coaches and Fans .
I am teribbly afraid that we are about to make the same assumption and mistake we did in 96, 97.
What this team has acheived under P. Roos is self beleife and a supperb team ethic from wich future success can be developed from within the young playing group available.
If we do an Adelaide and persume that we are close enough to make it with a couple of big trades (giving away our higest picks in the draft), we are in danger of upsetting the team psyche by bringing in established out side stars who cannot help but screw up the current team balance.
This team can take the next 2 steps if the 5 year plane is not dispensed with for the desperate need for immediate success.
Anybody who thinks the rebuild is over is deluded.
If we trade away our draft picks for a "name player" and do not improve next year, be prepared for a repeat of the 97-2002 cycle.
When will we learn that Premeirship teams evolve and are fertalized and finely pruned like a magnificient garden?
There is still a lot of work to do people. (we may quite possibly have over acheived this year !) we must keep improving , and the best way to do that is to build from within our inate club culture, developing our current strengths, and not try to stop gap or plug holes.
Please let the "Stars" emerge and improve as they are already.
We may well still be 2-3 years away - if the Brisbane, Collingwood and Essendon models are anything to go by !

PLEASE, please please , lets not jump the gun again !!
we must keep developing YOUTH !!!
Thank you. FH.

[chammond]

Wow.

I see it, but I don't believe it!

[anne]

I agree completely. I don't think we should be madly trading or changing our list. The talent is there and just needs time and experience to develop. A change of course would be disastrous and we wouldn't get any closer than we did this year.

[Scottee]

I agree footyhead. There seem to be three ways that teams can get to have a top class list.

One is to finish bottom with less than 5 wins for several years in a row and clean up on the top draft picks.

Two is to trade your way to the top.

The other one is to develop youth but at the same time keep turning over the young talent.

The first option is not open to the Swans. A couple of years at the bottom would be a financial disaster for the club and for the AFL.

Trading to the top can work but is highly risky and only gives a short term outcome as the older players don't last too long.

Having said that, you would have been crazy to turn down Nick Davis for a second round draft pick, and the Hall deal has turned up a great player with a number of seasons still in him.

IMHO the only way to suceed in the Swans situation is to keep an eye open for the Davis type opportunites whilst really pruning the list at every opportunity to turn up the undiscovered talent. A lot of great players have come from the lower end of the draft and from the rookie lists, the probablites that they will be good are just lower, thats why a high turnover is essential.

The outcome for the swans would therefore be another heavy cull of any player who we can safely say will not form part of a possible Swans grand final winning side. Fact is that there are a number who easily fit that category, and there are also a number that have probably only got another year to prove it.

[Roscoe]

With the trading option - we have not got a lot of live "bait"

Buchanan - what would we get for him ?

Warfe and Nicks - ditto

Stevens - either develop him into a backman or trade him

O'keefe - only if he wanted to go home for family reasons

IMHO we should keep the rest such as Ablett, Fosdike etc who have been mentioned, unless we get a super offer