meltiger said:
I don't neccesarily think we are right.
What I have long argued is the St Kilda model, which you mob are clearly following - Is totally unproven.
Indeed it is.
The thing is, however, in considering the so-called "St Kilda model", one needs to take into account the altered face of the broader elite footballing landscape that is encouraging clubs (St Kilda, Bulldogs, Hawthorn, with Carlton & possibly Collingwood to follow) to run with it.
Prior to the 1990s, wealthier clubs were able to accrue the best talent and stockpile it, which is why you only had a select few clubs winning the flag over many years. Effectively they had depth to burn, but being able to build such depth is beyond clubs in the salary cap era.
Critics of the so-called "St Kilda model" of contemporary team building will commonly allude to the 1980s "Hawthorn model" (as outlined above) and the far less successful 1980s "St Kilda model" in order to argue their point. The battling Saints couldn't hope to stockpile top talent in the 80s, hence their tendency to run with a considerable complement of youngsters out of necessity. Its hardly surprising that the 1980s Hawthorn model worked wonders while the St Kilda version failed dismally.
The problem with using these disparate examples to argue a point today is that you are effectively dealing with the prehistoric, given the massive course of change that has swept over the code across the last 20 years.
The draft started in 1986, but it took a further decade for elite junior football structures to evolve to a point that teenage footballers (in a group sense) became genuinely viable recruiting options. The relative weakness of junior football structures, combined with the penchant of clubs to cling to past processes, ensured that the recruitment of "rejects & castoffs" remained a priority for some time. Frankly, I don't seriously rate any draft prior to the 1997 one. After five years of operation, the TAC competition had established itself and the clubs were coming around to the fact that it offered strong possibilities. The competition has only got stronger since then, and the science of preparing and identifying young talent has tightened annually, hence the increasing number of chosen players who go on to forge sound to strong AFL careers, compared with the corresponding numbers 10 (and even 5) years ago.
Many people cling to a strange view that players never amounted to anything prior to the age of 21 in the grand old days of yore. There were always young guns like Tim Watson & Dermott Brereton, but the VFL environment was so tough and player training/development vehicles so limited in scope, that such youngsters had to be both extremely talented AND mentally resolute to be able to cope.
In previous years, the old U-19 competition was well behind the (then) VFA competition in terms of standard; whereas today's TAC competition is at least as strong as the (current) VFL, with many football people willing to suggest it is actually of a higher standard. The TAC teenagers of today are more professional and skilled (all things being equal) than the vast majority of VFL players would have been in the 1970s & 1980s.
As such, the major issue with bringing young footballers into top flight football today relates to ensuring their bodies are in sufficient shape and that they are not overworked to the point of developing the dreaded OP. Outside of that, young footballers of today are a lot less "rough and ready" than their erstwhile counterparts. As such, leaving them for too long at VFL level can be as detrimental to their career as playing them too soon can be, given that you're effectively stalling their development by keeping them locked into a standard of football that is no stronger than what they've came from.
Anyhow, the main point I'm trying to get to here (albeit via the scenic route) is that its hardly surprising that the "St Kilda model" hasn't been proven yet. A cursory look at the four premiership clubs of this century shows that their flags (the first one in Brisbane's case) were 7-9 years in the making. The St Kilda model, as much as it is anything concrete, is very much a 21st century practice, making it very new vogue.
