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Rebuild is the AFL buzzword at the moment. It’s all people want to talk about regarding list management: if you aren’t in the premiership window, you should rebuild.
It’s not easy to just do that and start again. So why is everybody acting like it is?
My beloved North Melbourne got smashed from pillar to post last year on their call to delist four veteran players, when none of them were ready to call it quits.
The perception was that North wanted to rebuild.
But the Kangas play two good quarters against the Eagles, and push Geelong all the way to the end for a one-point loss, and North are being lauded for how they made the right call.
What if we lost both of those games by 80 points? The narrative would then be how horribly wrong North judged their list and the young players weren’t good enough to carry the load.
Look at Richmond six months ago. Besides Alex Rance and Dustin Martin, you couldn’t name any players who were untradeable. Now look where they are and where they could be heading this year.
It only cost them a broken down Brett Deledio, who would be lucky to play above 12 games this year for Greater Western Sydney with his injury history.
Can you imagine where they’d be if they decided to rebuild?
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Warren Tredrea wrote in the Advertiser in June last year that Port Adelaide needed to rebuild.
But after two good wins and unearthing a potential gun in Sam Powell-Pepper, everything is fine. What if they decided to rebuild like Tredrea said?
See the common theme here? A rebuild is not always the best solution.
Clearing out the deadwood and going into full youth mode has been tried and tested before, and failed miserably.
Ask any Melbourne supporter how going the full youth approach went for them between 2007 and 2013, before Paul Roos saved them. Ask any Carlton fan how they feel watching their team right now, and where they see them in the next five years?
We need to stop this mindset that rebuilding is easy. It might be the best method for long-term success but don’t act like it can be done as easily as it’s said.
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