Regrets are an inevitable part of life. They come with the territory of breathing and are a part of the unwritten deal we all sign for the right to exist.
Although some contrition can feel enormous – such as the misery born when a relationship breaks down or after committing a far more criminal act – others are forgotten in the blink of an eye.
In terms of the unpredictable game of football, there are a plethora of scenarios that have made or broken careers.
What if your side had picked a different player from a certain draft?
What if your star spearhead had kicked straight when it mattered?
What if said player was better behaved?
Well, for fans of every creed we have sought to answer the question that has rankled you for years and kept you up at nights for far too long.
We can't promise that we won't open old wounds, as let's face it, that is the entire point of the exercise.
PART ONE: Adelaide, Brisbane Bears, Brisbane Lions, Carlton
PART TWO: Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Fremantle
PART THREE: Geelong, Gold Coast, Greater Western Sydney, Hawthorn
PART FIVE: Sydney, St Kilda, West Coast, Western Bulldogs
However, if we can help you find closure by looking at the facts and asking what if the doors slid the other way, then we have done our job.
As always, feel free to critique our non-linear traipses, as we are tipping some of you are unlikely to enjoy some of the conclusions we have drawn.
With the first three instalments in this series now behind us, here is part four of the game's greatest ‘what ifs' since 1990.
Melbourne
What if the Demons were proficient at drafting during their finals drought years?
It may seem particularly sadistic of me to start sticking familiar daggers into old wounds at a time that the Demons sit just below the ladder's top rung.
However, had basic competency been enacted when drafting talent across the vast majority of this millennium, the air the league's oldest football team currently finds themselves breathing wouldn't be that rare at all.
From the commencement of the 2007 season until the completion of 2013's calendar, Melbourne proved poor enough to produce a 34-2-118 record.
As woeful as this appears at first glance, it becomes even more de(e)pressing when broken down further, with the once proud side only able to win 22.08% of these 154 ‘contests'.
As the league has rewarded weaker sides with stronger draft picks since 1986, it goes without saying that due to their inability to remain competitive – even if they weren't actually trying to at times – Melbourne were afforded several bandoliers of blue-chip selections.
Across this torturous stretch that saw the club claim two wooden spoons and never take part in the September action, the Redlegs made a total of 71 draft selections on 64 different players – with Tom McNamara, Jake Spencer, Neville Jetta, Jordie McKenzie, Daniel Nicholson, Michael Evans and Mitch Clisby selected twice.
As we are almost eight-years down the track from the night of the 2013 draft, we are all armed with a clear level of hindsight that allows us to genuinely grade the players that Melbourne plucked with their war chest of picks.
Like a curmudgeonly pedagogue at the end of semester, to truly get to the bottom of how bad the Demons were at identifying talent across this aforementioned period of time, it is necessary to assign passing and failing grades to these 64-names.
To do so effectively, we'll need to draw up some guidelines.
SEE ALSO: What if Mark Bickley never farted during at half-time of the 1993 Preliminary Final?
To gain a pass mark in this exercise, a player selected between 2007 and 2013 will have needed to have either played 100 games for the club, claimed an All-Australian blazer, won a club best and fairest or led the club for goals in a single season.
After running my well gnawn bic up and down my notes and cross-referencing statistics with my laptop cursor, the results make for horrendous reading for those whose hearts beat true for the red and the blue.
Of the 64-players that made their way to Melbourne within this seven season boundary, only nine names have managed to surpass at least one of the markers I have laid down – Jack Grimes, Jack Watts, Neville Jetta, Max Gawn, Jeremy Howe, Tom McDonald, Jack Viney, Christian Salem and James Harmes.
Again, if you break this down further, you will find that this wafer-thin minority of proven names makes up just 14.06% of the entire list of names called.
Now, I'm sure I am not raising any new points to the Demons' band of loyal members – nor will I in the next portion of this piece – but for a professional sporting team that pays people to present the correct under-age talents with club branded polo shirts, these results are beyond dismal.
Despite the fact that the club has rectified these issues from 2014 onwards - with names like Petracca, Oliver, Spargo, Fritsch, Jackson, Pickett, Rivers and Jordan currently plying their trade tremendously for Simon Goodwin's side - the list of names that could have begun wearing a red yoked guernsey from 2007 until 2013 is nightmare fuel for success starved Demon diehards.
As I don't wish to be any more malicious than is necessary, I'll roll through this catalogue at pace.
If Melbourne's recruiting staff were even marginally competent within our previously outlined bounds, then any number of this seemingly never-ending list of names could have joined the perpetually disappointing football club:
Patrick Dangerfield
Cyril Rioli
Harry Taylor
Alex Rance
Easton Wood
Ed Curnow
Jack Ziebell
Nic Naitanui
Phil Davis
Daniel Rich
Luke Shuey
Hayden Ballantyne
David Zaharakis
Dayne Beams
Dan Hannebery
Rory Sloane
Liam Shiels
Mitch Robinson
Michael Walters
Michael Hurley
Jordan Roughead
Jack Redden
Hamish Hartlett
Dustin Martin
Liam Picken
Luke Breust
Ben Cunnington
Mitch Duncan
Jack Gunston
David Astbury
Ben Stratton
Nat Fyfe
Dylan Grimes
Michael Barlow
Zach Tuohy
Isaac Smith
Jack Darling
Scott Lycett
Luke Dahlhaus
Luke Parker
Jason Johannisen
Jeremy McGovern
Lachie Neale
Jack Crisp
Mark Blicavs
Jake Stringer
Jack Macrae
Ollie Wines
Nick Vlastuin
Brodie Grundy
Lachie Hunter
Matt Taberner
Dane Rampe
Zac Williams
Dom Sheed
Patrick Cripps
Matt Crouch
Jarman Impey
Zach Merrett
Toby Nankervis
Aliir Aliir
Tom Barrass
Darcy Byrne-Jones
Charlie Cameron
Now, before you start sharpening your own knifes to toss back at me, Melbourne fanatics, take a breath and know that not all of these names could have have found their way onto your list.
Also know that a vast majority of them were also passed on by a plethora of other clubs.
Still, every single one of them was available to your club when your recruiting team was on the clock.
SEE ALSO: What if Nathan Buckley stayed a Bear?
Nevertheless, had the club's fortunes have been trending upwards rather than sitting mired in the proverbial cellar for seven seasons, then Melbourne wouldn't have been afforded so many early first-round picks.
Yet, as the recruiting staff were evidently incapable of producing a ‘hit' with their selections, who is to say they wouldn't have taken the same band of also rans in this alternative reality too?
Some may also suggest that the coaching staff of the day, and not those that called out a draftee's name, should be shouldering more of my chagrin here. But as very few of the players that entered the Demons' inner sanctum from 2007 until 2013 have gone on to forge noted careers at other clubs, it is clear that although there were issues with the barn and the feed, the cattle in the paddock wasn't exactly A-grade either.
SEE ALSO: What if the AFL allowed the Lions to play a home Preliminary Final in 2004?
It is almost impossible to know whether Melbourne would have broken their still active premiership drought had a lot of this litany had become Demons.
However, what should be taken for red (and blue) is that if a smattering of these previously listed stars had laced the boots for the sesquicentennial club, then there is close to no chance that the side with 12 premiership trophies to their name would have been made to wait just shy of 12-years between finals campaigns.
Still, If Max, Jack, Clayton and co can steer Melbourne from the depths of hell in 2021, then I doubt a second thought will ever be given to this heartbreaking catalogue.
If you don't believe me, I'll differ to someone with a few more braincells than I to set your pessimistic minds straight.
The mustachioed French writer Marcel Proust once said, “we are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.”
Given the late wordsmith still holds the Guinness World Record for producing the world's longest ever novel, I'm tipping he knew a thing or two about torturous journeys that consistently appeared to run away from the finish line.
Having wantonly picked at these still aching sores, I must apologize to anyone that holds the Demons dear, and even though I pray at a different alter, I do, for my sins, vehemently hope that an exorcism of epic proportions is on the cards for you this season.
And as the statistical gurus at Stats Insider currently give you a greater chance of claiming the cup than your previous recruiting team did of drafting a decent player, your levee of hurt seems to be rapidly nearing its capacity.
