I guess the advantage of our method (keep picks / mini-renewal while successful) over Hawthorn’s method (trade early picks) is better transmission of culture and habits from the successful seniors to the next generation.
The disadvantage of continual renewal is you’re leaving a few chips off the table in any given year.
We’ve held a stable list profile for over 10 years now and it’s coincided with clear cultural advantages.
We have high retention and high interaction between seniors and future contibutors.
Is it naive to think we’re never going to face a traditional “rebuild” under this system?
I think the club has the process right at the moment. Strong talent identification and picking the better options with out later picks. All good while we still have the stars in top form.
Now you are not going to score the absolute stars like Martin very often but we need to get more types of Cotchin's and Riewoldt's level.
Two ways to do this is through free agency like Lynch and the second by trading out surplus players for picks and then trading picks to get higher picks preferably top 10.
It will be interesting to see how the club negotiates the second path over the next 5 or so years. Ellis was the first of a number of established players that was forced out. There will be others as we see the kids mature. It would take something like trading out Caddy (only using Caddy as an example here) to get a 1st round pick. Then using that pick and our usual first round to move up into the top 10 picks