Gardner and co have long complained that the gap between the rich and poor clubs is getting wider and wider.

i think this topic is topical again, bc Judd openly told MFC that the reason we arent his preference is bc of our bad training facilities.

in the last 7 years, the premierships have all come from clubs with extremely good training facilities, strong finances and memberships. (westCoast, Sydney,Brisbane,Essedon...)

Can teams like that Bulldogs, Kangas and demons realistically win a premiership when they train in crap facilities and have poor finances.

We dont even use all of our salary cap bc we're so pov! bulldogs use 93% of their cap. that means they are using almost $800,000 less than Collingwood. that equal 2 really good players!!!

The good news is that in 2 years we will have state-of-the-art facilities at olympic park! hopefully our finances will start to turn around.

but for the next 2 years...can we be contenders even if we train in poor facilities and dont use all of our cap?

will our new facilities in 2008-2009 give us a massively better chance of breaking our premiership drought or will it make no difference at all?

one things for sure, it'l give us a better chance of securing the likes of Judd if they ever come on the market in the future.

Has everyone forgotten a little movie called..... ROCKY!!

Anyone know how much of the salary cap we pay? I would have thought we were near the mark by now.

It's not the facilities that gets you premierships, they're just the icing on the cake, nutritional icing..

It's the abilities & skills of the players & coaches that are singlly the most important ingredient, together with a solidly unified club. These are the most important things.

Then when your fighting amongst equally strong opponents, the facilities to provide the extras can give that little bit more.

We're a long way behind the top teams, probably 2 years behind & their isn't any short cuts. Just recruiting kids & getting experience & games into them.

Bomba has been building the Cats for years.

lets wait and see what happens in 08