Carlton Supporters Club

I don't agree that Hawthorn's best is top 4 material any more. Carrying too many guys over the hill or not good enough and a range of trades which was never going to work.

With the run they've got over the next 6 rounds they could be in the bottom 2 in a month.

Coll / Freo / Gee / Bris / Norf / GWS.

That's one $hit run.

I omitted to mention this on my earlier post but I thought that Samo was absolutely brilliant yesterday.  His skills, decision making and poise really set us up for the win.

They have to play the Eagles again too. Champion data last week ranked their run home the hardest, Geelong the easiest.

eggsackery Thry.  In reality, it doesn't matter what Adelaide gets.  It means absolutely zero to us, as it's not our pick.  Our pick is determined where Adelaide finish.  That is all that matters to us.

That's not really what matters to us at all.

What does matter is how good a player Liam Stocker turns out to be.

At this stage he is starting to show some good signs.

Its not an either scenario.

The better draft pick we get off Adelaide, the better the deal becomes for us.

I'm not worried about Liam.  His ability makes the trade a worthwhile exercise.  The problem starts when you give away a top 5 draft pick, and then that draft yields a top player. It will result in comparisons being drawn between Stocker and that player for the rest of their careers.

Richmond did the same with Tambling.  They said they had enough talls, so they skipped Lance Franklin, and took Tambling.  The pressure was on him to become a superstar of the game afterwards, and he never really lived up to it.

Either way, I am comfortable with the trade.  I just will be more comfortable as the draft pick becomes closer to pick 5 instead of pick 1.  Likewise, if we get a top 10 pick back instead of a top 15, that is also a better outcome.

There is no problem it's flawed thinking. History proves drafting is a coin toss, the minute Stocker played and looked OK we'd already won a 50/50.

Fans talk about low draft picks like they are certainty, when in reality so few picks succeed it's ludicrous not to swap them for a guaranteed player. We swapped a future pick for a player and won, that already puts us well ahead of the curve, no matter what happens in the future!

Retrospectively claiming some later pick was better is not relevant, it's like backing a champion racehorse the day it eventually loses after you've already had a collect on the same horse, or eventually backing a winner after you've lost on the same horse a bunch of times. Nothing that occurs in the future diminishes or enhances your previous wins or loses!

I like Liam Stocker and he will be a good player but the two leading candidates for pick 1 are very good players who are match winners. Dont want to be handing the Crows a chief for a good Indian in return.

There is no problem it's flawed thinking. History proves drafting is a coin toss, the minute Stocker played and looked OK we'd already won a 50/50.

Fans talk about low draft picks like they are certainty, when in reality so few picks succeed it's ludicrous not to swap them for a guaranteed player. We swapped a future pick for a player and won, that already puts us well ahead of the curve, no matter what happens in the future!

Retrospectively claiming some later pick was better is not relevant, it's like backing a champion racehorse the day it eventually loses after you've already had a collect on the same horse, or eventually backing a winner after you've lost on the same horse a bunch of times. Nothing that occurs in the future diminishes or enhances your previous wins or loses!

Bulldust.

We have people complaining about Chris Yarran vs Rich vs Ziebell, vs Sidebottom in one draft.

We even had people complaining about the Boekhorst trade, even though we turned pick 7 (Paul ahern) into Boekhorst, the other dud midfielder from GWS, and Jaksch.

People always find a reason to complain.  Stocker is one element of the equation that has paid off.

If we get a top 10 pick from Adelaide, then we get another chance to get a win out of it, and Stocker is simply a bonus.

If we give away picks 1-3, and we see anything like Sam Walsh, Connor Rozee, the King Twins, or anything of that nature in the next draft people will quickly forget about Stocker.

Agree. We made our call on Stocker. Looks like a good one. Great - move on, don't look back - you can't change anything now. If we had kept the pick we may have bombed out when we used it anyway.