RE: Geelong's current success, it's very easy to take a "Grass is greener on the other side of the fence" attitude.
In actual fact, Geelong had 7 new Geelong players in their side (compared to their 2013 5 point Prelim loss to Hawks).
They are;
- Dangerfield (ex AD) - certainly one of the best 5 players in the comp, arguably currently the best.
- Lang (draft '13) - A quality 2013 1st round draft kicked 3 goals.
- Smith (ex GCS) and Stanley (ex SK), two ok ruckmen, nothing special IMO.
- Henderson (ex CA), Gregson (draft '14) & Kolodjashnij (draft '13) didn't contribute much to their Round 1 win vs the Hawks.
Geelong/s average age for Round 1 2016 is only 141days younger than their 2013 PF loss team, and not even 1 yr less than Freo's Round 1 team.
My point is, Dangerfield aside, because he wanted to move back to Geelong due to family reasons, (eg. Bennell & McCarthy), Lang is probably their only real quality draft (end of 2013) that had a big impact in Round 1.
The players they have cut loose since 2013 are mostly 30yrs old +, eg. Hunt, Johnson, Podsiadly, Rivers, Stokes, Corey. Which 30yrs+ player from Round 1 should Freo cut to make the team better out of Pavlich, Dawson, Griffen, Mundy & Mzungu?