Adrian Caruso, list boss at GWS, does not buy into some of the football landscape's fears around the losses of its veteran presence this off-season.
Jake Stringer, Jesse Hogan, Kieren Briggs and 15-year superstar Toby Greene have already been confirmed as departures, while Victorian clubs are circling fellow veteran, Lachie Whitfield.
Caruso has supreme faith in the players in the age bracket just below those departing commodities, and said as much at the opening of the trade period at Marvel Stadium on Monday.
"How do you replace you know a 15-year superstar of your team and the captain and someone who's performed so well on-field and then has turned into the fearless leader that he has?" Caruso pondered aloud, before answering his own query.
"We feel as though there's opportunity there now for younger guys to step up.
"On the field, we feel with guys like Callum Brown, Riley Hamilton, Ollie Hannaford, we've got young talent that can hopefully step up.
"And then in the leadership sense, we feel as though the developing leaders of Tom Green, Lachie Ash, Connor Idun, Jack Buckley, Sam Taylor, Brent Daniels, we've got a core group of guys who've got to step up now.
"So while you're never going to replace someone like Toby, we feel like on and off the field we've got things in place to hopefully make sure that it's not as significant a drop that it might seem."
Caruso offered that only Geelong would have had a similarly aged list next year if the Giants did hold on to its veterans - a decision that would have cost them the youth they have acquired in recent drafts. Caruso pointed to an exodus of a few years prior as proof the club's stance works.
"We had to make a decision with Hogan - if we signed him, Max Gruzewski would have left, and we would have been sacrificing the future for another one or two years of Jesse. Similar with Briggsy (new Tiger, Kieren Briggs), we're prioritising Nick Madden as a younger player, and as I said, with guys like Stringer and Hogan, we feel like we've got guys underneath that are sitting there waiting for their opportunity," he said.
"(It's) similar to a couple of years ago when we lost James Peatling, Isaac Cumming, and Harry Perryman, and everyone thought we're going to have a drop-off. Then the next year we came back and won a club-record number of games, and were able to unearth guys like (Joe) Fonti, Harvey Thomas, Ryan Angwin, Phoenix Gothard, that at the time no one knew about.
"We're confident in what we've got underneath. And while I think you look at our outgoings and some of that experience and the quality of those players and what they've been, we're just super confident in in what we've got. We've hit the draft as much as anyone in the last five years, and those guys need opportunities. We don't want them to leave in 12 months because we hung on to those 32-year-olds a little bit too long."
An attempt to land another high-end draft pick weighs into a potential move for Whitfield.
The club will not posture itself into a position that means it cannot match a bid for academy prospect, Ethan Matthews. No offers will be heard for Harry Himmelberg, either.
"There's been a few reports around that Carlton and Melbourne have met with Lachie...we haven't had any discussions with any of those clubs yet around what they might want to offer up for Lachie. That's what we have to do today, and wait and see what happens on the back of that," Caruso said.
"We've been pretty open about our desire to get into the draft and try and have a crack at another early pick in the last un-compromised draft before Tassie come in. That's what we'd be having those discussions around. But clearly, he's contracted and he's been a high-quality player for our club for a long time. So, we're not just going to let him go easily.
"There's a lot of moving pieces in the draft order with compensation picks landing and still a couple of compensation picks ahead of us that haven't slotted in yet, so it's hard to really work on our scenarios when there's so many moving pieces.
"We're open-minded about about anything, whether that is trading up or not. But I think ultimately, with that one, we wouldn't be trading up the order unless we'd be sure we could still be covered for a Matthews bid after it, which at the moment we wouldn't be. So unless things change, it's probably unlikely that we're going to have the picks to move up."
Caruso ended his media engagement with a final vote of confidence in what he hopes is the nucleus of the club's inaugural premiership side. He knows that the team remaining competitive will be pivotal in retaining stars Ash and Green.
"Tom and Lachie have been part of this decision-making in terms of understanding why we're doing what we're doing. We want to get into the draft this year because it's the last chance, but those guys know that the core of our group is still in its prime," he said.
"It's Tom and Lachie, but it's (also) Finn Callaghan, Aaron Cadman entering their prime. It's Taylor, Daniels, Buckley, Idun, Gothard. There's talent on every line in our group. We just didn't have it on the park enough (in 2026). And those guys in their early 20s are now ready to step into their prime.
"So, I think when you look at it, if we had committed big contracts to some of those 32-year-olds and compromised potentially signing Tom and Lachie at the end of next year, that wouldn't have been a smart decision. So that's why we're prioritising making some moves to give ourselves the best chance to have a sustained run."
