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Well put Dukes.
Hindsight is a pain in the butt! As long as we live and learn.
I think a few people are missing the point. The main issue is how can we get it so wrong with Chambers. He was at AFL level for 7 years. How did we decide he was going to be a senior player with us based on 7 years AFL performance and then when he got here decide he wasn't up to it.
And as for live and learn - what about O'Reilly, Devonport, McGuane, mansfield et al. If we have ample opportunity to make judgements on AFL listed players - and 7 years is ample- we shouldn't get it badly wrong.
Everyone knows recruiting is an inexact science, very hard to judge how good a 17 yr old will be in 5 years playing at a totally different level, will he grow etc, what is his character like etc. After 7 years in the system it shouldn't be hard for professionals to get it fairly right.
And also I know it is easy in hindsight, but I think lots of posters questioned the selection of Chambers and Longmuir at the time. We have to be better than everyone at drafting because we have been so much worse than most over the journey.
Everytime we get a Chambers or draft like we did in 2000 we can't just say "Gee it's so hard" We will get some wrong obviously but it burns when we recruit mature players and then wait till they get here to decide they are not worth a game.