Football fan or not, if you still haven’t heard of Gary Ablett Jnr, you must be living under one colossal rock. The media saturation regarding the Gold Coast’s desire to recruit the Geelong superstar for its inaugural AFL season in 2011 has arguably been unparalleled in recent times (although an ex-Swan’s big bad bustling return to footy may have come close).

The recruitment of such a marquee player is seen as crucial to the new club’s ability to attain early success, and this couldn’t be more true. However, the over-hyped storm that the Ablett saga has become could be overshadowing other key factors GC requires to be instantly competitive. Many media followers may be under the impression ‘Gaz’ is now the be-all-and-end-all, but GC needs not just one big name, rather a spine of influential key-position players out of contract and in their prime, and if recent reports are anything to go by, several purported targets have already shored up their futures at their existing clubs.

Firstly, let’s have a look at the reasons why Gold Coast is set to make waves soon after their introduction, big-name signings aside. The coach, Guy McKenna, is a West Coast champion, and has served under the wisdom of Mick Malthouse as both a player and assistant coach (at Collingwood). The list manager, Scott Clayton, is one of the most astute judges of talent going around, and has already assembled some of finest youngsters in the country to tackle the VFL competition this year. Among the many concessions GC received was access to a dozen 17-year-olds before last year’s national draft – the minimum draft age was 18 for all other clubs. If the big wraps are on the money, be looking for Josh Toy, Maverick Weller and Marc Lock (among others) to make an impact this year. The club also used the first five selections in last year’s rookie draft to secure a few delisted AFL players in Daniel Harris, Danny Stanley and Sam Iles. While these three are not household names, any previous experience will be invaluable to a young playing list. In addition, GC has signed former Geelong premiership player Nathan Ablett and NRL defector Karmichael Hunt, decisions which will prove to reap very handsome rewards or fall completely flat. Not only that, but the club will receive picks 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 in this year’s national draft, as well as the first pick of every subsequent round – an absolute bonanza considering how desperately a lot of struggling clubs need quality draft picks.

Indeed, when compared to the other interstate clubs at their point of inception into the league, the concessions that GC will receive appear generous. Given that West Coast, Adelaide and Port Adelaide were relatively high achievers (playing deep into the finals, at least) after five years without such assistance, a similar timeframe could have been applied to GC’s plans. In fact, Scott Clayton recently claimed it would be possible for the team to win a premiership by 2014. However, the lists of these clubs contained hardened older bodies ready for the unforgiving AFL environment, which makes one other concession GC receives perhaps the most important.

The icing on the cake is GC’s right to sign one uncontracted player from each existing club, with the aid of an extra $1m in the salary cap for 2011. What this means is GC has a truckload of money to splash around on an AFL superstar shopping spree, and Scott Clayton would be wanting to explore every avenue possible. Guy McKenna is on record as saying the club will be going after “the best” and, naturally, Ablett’s name has been raised. Sure, Gary sometimes appears able to single-handedly win games, but what if he goes down injured? What if he can’t adjust to a new way of life in Queensland? The obvious question – what if he actually stays in Geelong?

Who will bring together an eclectic mix of enthusiastic young bucks, born-again B-listers, and outcome-unknown X-factors? The huge sums of cash in GC’s possession must be directed towards establishing a spine of 24- to 25-year-old stars in their prime, or current 3-4 year players with significant upside. This way, there is a core of knowledge and physicality meshing with youthful exuberance, creating a side close to resembling the blueprint for success. It will not simply be a team of kids in a man’s league, although for a while it may seem so. If the football department hasn’t succeeded in already signing existing talent, they must be getting disheartened at the amount of players shunning the Gold Coast sun and surf to re-sign with their clubs – suggested early targets such as Riewoldt, Hodge, Tippett, Cotchin and Cloke are off the market. It’s why speculation of the future of Selwood, Harbrow, Brennan and the like will become deafening as this season progresses.

Yes, the club has many things in its favour, but they will need more than Ablett. There’s no questioning the value he holds to Geelong, and while he is currently the standout in a team of champions, you have to wonder if he’d be having the same damaging effect without their support. It would be interesting to see how he would handle having to single-handedly guide a team of youngsters through their first years of professional football. If GC makes the right calls this year, it will be a situation we never really get to observe.

Who knows, maybe GC will use the distraction of Ablett to subtly work around the media’s glare in luring other big fish up north – the little maestro may not be the biggest story of the AFL’s expansion after all. The smart footy fan would bet the Cats won’t be the only team during 2010 to get publicly fed up with speculation of player-poaching. Time will tell.