I watched that too with interest. Roosy has always been pretty sceptical of whole GWS concept with his knowledge of this town not due to his Swans affiliation.
Basically he said a lot of things I have - that the media will have a feeding frenzy over this and that a 2nd team in Sydney that is a laughing stock will set the game backwards here not forwards.
To be fair I guess the Bogans can learn from the Suns mistakes. Problem is they have so little time.
I suspect they will find it very hard to get the same level of "talent" the Suns have via uncontracted players. If they filll the team with talented 18-19 year olds they will get slaughtered in the short term and they may lose the kids anyway once their 2-3 years are up. I suspect they will have to trade some of their early draft picks but the type of player they will get will be journeymen at best and they are in a Brisbane Bears situation. Certainly no player would go there unless it was their last chance saloon.
I can just imagine Sheeds and his three ring circus sitting at the table going "Mmmmm maybe this is going to be harder than we thought" scratching their heads in shock at the shambles they are involved in
I actually think the Suns have gone about it the right way though perhaps they could have traded one first round pick for a bit more experience. It's hard to see at times but there is some talent there and I think they'll be OK next year. Big diffference is they are in a much more forgiving market up there as there is a really strong AFL culture in that part of Australia. Don't think the Sydney public will be as understanding - as we keep on hearing it's the toughest most over-crowded sporting market in Australia and it hates losers let alone a club which is an embarrassment to be involved with....
There was more talk about this on AFL Insider last night. The very valid comment was made reflecting on the Suns playing TAC Cup in 09, VFL in 2010 and then up to AFL in 2011 with their kids. Contrast this with GWS who are playing in the NEAFL this year - they will not be coming up against nearly as many AFL-listed players, or players with AFL experience, meaning the experience gained on field this year will not stand GWS in as good a stead as that of the Suns before hitting the big time.
It's going to be a massive uphill battle.
I'm on the Chandwagon!!!
If you cannot compete for the premiership, it's better to be young and exciting than middle-aged and dowdy.
You only had to watch them against the Bullants last week to see how poor they are. I know they ahd a lot of 17-18 year olds but it was very very hard to see how many of those kids will be anywhere near AFL standard in under a year.
It will be very hard to find any player going there by choice. The draftees have to but they get the experience and can then move to a real club. No-one would agree to a trade there unless no-one else anted them (not a good omen for recruiting) and I think they will find it very hard to attract a single player who you'd consider a top 100 AFL player (i.e. in the top six of an AFL club's list).
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