Geelong premiership great Cameron Mooney is concerned a hole in the club’s playlist list will develop if young players aren’t given sufficient opportunities in the coming years.
Despite topping up its list with another host of veterans in last year’s trade period, Geelong once again failed to win a premiership, and were destroyed by 83 points in a preliminary final against Melbourne.
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The catastrophic loss has resulted in the spotlight being put on the club’s list strategy, with a number of key players now on the wrong side of 30.
Mooney, who played key roles in the club’s 2007 and 2009 premierships, said incoming club CEO Steve Hocking had needed to oversee a refreshment of the list.
“They’ve had a lot of youth down there, but they’re in and out of the side like yo-yo’s,” Mooney told SEN.
“Now there’s talk about a couple of the younger stars maybe leaving … a lot of game time they could have had over the years has gone missing due to the fact they wanted to bring in older players.
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“I’ve got no problem if that’s the way they wanted to go to get result, but unfortunately the result isn’t there.
“If things don’t change in terms of youth policy, I can see a bit of a hole (in the list) coming in the next couple of years.
“There’s a lot of old guys at the footy club, all you need is three or four of them to go at once and there’s a big hole of experience there and you probably haven’t got the game time into the youth that you’d hoped.
“Steve Hocking has some big decisions to make.”
Young stars such as Quinton Narkle, Jordan Clark and Charlie Constable have all been linked with exits due to not getting insufficient playing time over the last few seasons.
Mooney also lamented the fact that his beloved team kept “going back to the well” with the same game style that has repeatedly come unstuck in the finals.
“I’m very disappointed that again we’ve seen a really good home and away year and yet it’s a brand of football that seems it doesn’t make it in finals footy,” he said.
“When you come up against the best sides in the comp, defensive teams, pressure teams, it’s a game plan that seems to come unstuck many, many times.
“It seems like they keep going back to the well with that same type of game plan, and it seems like it’s not working for them.
“I think Steve Hocking is the most important man coming into the football club over the next couple of months for some of the decisions made around the football club.”