Your Mum, that core group of veterans? Do you mean two players (Saville and Campbell)? McKee is young, I was almost surprised Martin was even re-signed, Jackson's never really done heaps, Behrendorff was let go from NZ, Gruber was an import with the Spirit who many wanted replaced, Delaney is laughably undersized, Davidson was almost avoided post-Slingers and Tragardh got ditched by Townsville and Brisbane.
'We could be the next Wollongong' isn't the ultimate issue here, it's just one reason not to jump to conclusions. If Adelaide had signed their roster almost backwards, and three signings from the end were in this position:
Braswell/Bruce
-
Ere/Herbert
Ballinger/Holmes
Johnson
And had 17 points to spare, would there be quite as many tears? And funnily enough, that roster is still possible.
EC, what stops teams jumping from last to first? A salary cap and a points cap. A limited pool of local players. A limit on restricted players. The bulk of the best local players in the right price bracket (e.g., not in NBA or Europe) re-signing with their clubs prior to free agency. (Wortho to Europe, Goulding/Gibson/Petrie/Harvey staying with Blaze, Redhage/Wagstaff/etc with Cats, Bruton/Penney/Abercrombie/etc with Breakers and so on.)
The non-36er free agent signings off the top of my head, have been: Crawford, Knight, Vukona, Allen, Hoare, Garlepp, Rickert, Tragardh, Burston. Some good options, but given how many would expect to start, how many would Adelaide have wanted instead of say Ballinger or Johnson? (I wouldn't have rushed to sign any of them except Burston.)