noPeople have this idea that because we've been at the bottom for so long and had so many high draft picks, we should therefore be challenging for Premierships right now, and if we're not, the coach must be held to account.
The problem is: it's one thing to have a large amount of high draft picks, it's another thing to actually recruit good players with them. We have gone down the exact same path the Gold Coast have been on since their inception: poor recruiting leads to poor list. They let Scott Clayton handle all their recruiting for almost a decade, and it left their list in a state where they just cannot make progress no matter how hard they try.
Everyone gets sucked into the illusion that there is a "clear" best player for every draft year, and a no-brainer for pick 1. In 2015, that player was Jacob Weitering. Three picks later, Melbourne made the more unorthodox selection of Clayton Oliver, who didn't even get selected for the U18 Championships. In the end, Melbourne ended up with the far superior player. If our recruiter at the time (SOS) had the vision to recognize who the better player was in this instance, it would've made a huge difference to where we're at today.
That's just one example too, and not even close to the worst. Pick 6 on Petrevski-Seton, pick 3 on Dow, overpaying for Kennedy, overpaying for Cerra, overpaying for McGovern, overpaying for Saad.
With the examples we've overpaid for, smart players get this level of player from the bargain bin. Look at Geelong: Atkins, Stengle, Miers, Close, Menegola, Smith, I could go on. All of these guys were acquired for a bag of chips, and yielded Geelong a much better on-field return than what we got from our trades.
Anyway, the point of all this is that you can't just blame everything on the coach. The rot goes far deeper than any of you want to admit.