Not quite that simple. You draft and recruit to build a list to firstly cover contingencies, and secondly develop your future generations. The thing is when you lose someone from your best 22 you go to the guy you've recruited for contingencies. Say Reid is injured (hypothetically of course). The ideal person to cover his absence is Karnezis. But even having your best possible contingency coverage playing means you're effectively at less than 100% of the teams optimum, the effectiveness diminishes even more the further you move away from your 1st choice.Jezza wrote:I don't doubt that it was bigger compared to Hawthorn but only about a third of those unavailable would have been certain starters on Saturday.
This includes Sidebottom, Goldsack, Reid, Brown, Maxwell and possibly Fasolo. I didn't include Scharenberg and Freeman as they haven't played any footy so far this year and they're only first year players anyway.
However we look at it, injuries have hurt us since 2011.
And then there is the impact on the development of the kids. Instead of learning in the VFL along side Huddo and Kanezis et al, learning structures, building bonds, they're battling through along side VFL listed players in teams that are getting beaten because they're undermanned.