Wallace is a snake oil sales man and his golden tonsils and savvy manipulated the RFC the media and most feral tiger fans.
Clarkson did the hard yards and didnt compromise the plan by wasting trades and drafts on half arsed face saving quick results.
Truth is the RFC has never bottomed out to the level the Hawx did. Yes some of the Hawx side was there (Hodge Crawf etc), but correct me if i am wrong as am going off the top of my head the likes of Richo, Brown, Bowden, Newman, Johnson and even Pathetifer and Schulz were at the Tigers too were they not, whilst Simmo came over for 05, and Deledio and Tambling were added at end of 04 also when the Dawx took Buddy and Ruffy etc.
Dermie (god help me) even stated as much. They took the extra pain and offloaded blokes in Hay, Thompson and Rawlings who were the backbone of their previous finals campaign for draft picks when it was evident a re build was required, and they also traded off Everitt and showed the likes of Graham the door.
The Hawks have traded/drafted and built for structure and depth of structure, whilst the ad hock efforts of the RFC has left the Tigers with none. Now the Hawks are in an enviasble position to consider offloading talls like Boyle and Dowler for inflated draft picks to further bolster their stocks whilst the Tigers continue to persist with near enuffs and not good enuffs.
There is no way the RFC has had the guts, vision or the foresight to offload these types, in fact they cant even get rid of players whove given and shown even less than the Hays and Thompsons when they were the mainstays of the HFC spine.
The RFC has proven its reticence and more so its inability to move these player types on, i mean they have kept Schulz for what 6 years now and he has done nothing, they kept Hall for years not to mention likes of Pettifer and Hyde for just as long if not longer for Pettifer, and then gone off and brought in duds like Kingsley, Knobel Bowden, McMuffin and Graham, in desperation efforts for results and to plug gaping holes in the list that couldve been addressed by shrewder drafting trading and management.
Ive got my suspicion that stuff all list management will occur at the RFC this year as Wallet again is spinning sh!t with his locked and loaded rubbish. Cameron or no Cameron no hard decisions will be made at the table imo.
FFS the club struggles to make easy decisions.
The club still has an unbalance list that lacks quality and depth and still has a large number of mediocre players that are not the answer going forward and no doubt the tigers are gonna enter 09 with pretty much the same unbalanced ordinary list as 08. Much the same outcome as they did in 07 after 06, and it most certainly is not inconceivable that the Tigers may tumble in 09 as they did in 07.
The fact Wallet is on the block also makes me feel he will put his own neck ahead of the club next year and wont bring in required structure and young talent in greater numbers to replace dead wood and those with deficiencies that are not gonna be good enough to take the club forward as he will be after a quick fix to sneak a cheap birth in the 8 next year ala his effort last time and Frawleys effort prior.
Should it backfire and i reckon there is every chance it could then Wallet will be gone and the Tigers will be put back another 18 months going forward.
The RFC in 09 is possibly 2 injuries away (Simmo and Richo), and a tougher draw from being in the bottom 4 again especially if the minimum of list changes are made which i reckon will be the case.
This is the year long term and hard decisions, early calls on deficient players must be made, but wont and it is this thought that really p!sses me off.
My opinion of the list and Wallet has not changed and i think the Tigers wallpapered over a few cracks in 08 to be honest.
A poor start to 09 will see the RFC and Wallet cop a savaging the likes not seen for a while, whilst the Hawthorn comparisons will go on and on in the media.
FFS get rid of these spuds and give Francis a chance to build the list better. Jackson can do his job, the RFC needs to give him more opportunities to deliver a strong pool of young talent with quality so the RFC can no longer endure a list infested with mediocrity, imbalance and deficiencies.
