Good topic retreads:
1. Jarusa's point re Sydney retreads is well made - you can't be rebuilding forever, at some stage you need to stop hiding behind rebuilding and go for success. Good clubs know that time - we screwed that up, most particularly in 2001.
2. You have to consider what you pay for a retread
eg) Is Saddington value at pick 55 or whatever he was?
Is Saddington better value than the bloke who was delisted to make way for him?
And finally is Saddington better value than the remaining players available to be drafted or rookied (difficult call given that trade is done prior to draft - imagine a scenario where we traded the draft pick that we acquired Kade Simpson with

given that in his year Kade slipped through much further than we thought he would).
3. Somehow football departments need to come up with a way of rating a retread versus an 18 year old. I don't know who in a football club structure has an intimate knowledge of players from other clubs who can objectively measure them against the 18 y/o who may slip to number 60.
4. There are enough Josh Mahoneys, Craig Bolton's, Shane Tuck's around to justify someone on your football department who knows about these guys and what priority should be given to them according to a clubs needs.
5. Looking at Elwoods team, it is certainly an area we could improve on, and given that we are directing resources to people to watch U/18 football and become expert on it, surely it makes sense to recruit from there rather than speculate on retreads.