Our focus must remain on building our lists, our membership and fan bases, and our revenue.
Any time off to dwell on how hard it is, any moments of self-pity, are moments the 17 other contestants are running past you.
Our resurgent Bulldogs team is wholly focused on building the most formidable fighting unit for 2014 and beyond.
But when a once-in-a-generation player like Buddy Franklin foreshadows the biggest trade in the history of the game, our fans react and we the Clubs, say, 'Whoa, how does that happen?'
There'll be a lot written and said about this historic move and with an AFL investigation proceeding, there's a bit of water to go under the Harbour Bridge yet. Let's spotlight a few issues.
Whether the current Sydney management should be entitled to backend a contract into the next decade with millions of dollars payable to a 34 year old who may have hit the wall years earlier is one of them. If it all works out well, fine. But who is left to pick up the pieces if it ends in tears much sooner?
None of the present senior management may be there then.
They get the benefit of Buddy next year in the current 'premiership window' and at the same time, the comfort of knowing that if it all stuffs up, the pressure on the AFL to step in and fix the mess for the team in Australia's largest city and biggest potential TV audience will be immense.
Another is a simple matter of confidence.
Sydney is one of a few clubs in the competition which knows it can plan its list with complete confidence it can meet the full salary (in Sydney's case, plus 9.8 percent) every year for the next five to ten years.
Up to half the clubs in the competition simply haven't been able to plan their lists with the same confidence.
While that imbalance remains, the unexpected big signings which capture the nation's attention will always belong to the more powerful.
But almost every point that gets raised about this extraordinary deal comes back in some way to the fact that Sydney gets to spend $980,000 more every season on its players than almost all of its competitors.
Eddie McGuire has been raising it as an issue for 10 years. The recent study tour to the USA did not provide any evidence in support of it.
The Kurt Tippett deal brought it into renewed focus this year.
Yesterday's press suggested Tippett got over $80,000 in living allowance just this year. It's believed he lived this year with a teammate.
So, given most of the justification for the cost of living differential is based on property costs, we might assume that with Kurt has made an impressive windfall gain...or maybe his teammate did!
However the COLA (cost of living allowance) works, it works to provide Sydney with access to financial benefits to players which is simply not available to the Bulldogs, the Bombers or the Magpies or the Eagles or the Blues to compete for signings.
There is no evidence that being in Sydney makes it hard to for the Swans to entice players to the Harbour City.
Quite the contrary, Buddy is apparently heading up there specifically because of the lifestyle.
The Swans have got and kept great players and have a record in the last 10 years as good or better than anyone's.
As I said at the outset, we don't like to put our heads up because our focus is on competing.
Between now and 2020, there are only seven available Premierships and we all want them.
Less than half of us can succeed in that endeavour as a matter of simple arithmetic. The fight must be fair. We leave it to the Commission to make sure it is.
The Commission has done a great job to defend the fairness of the competition this year under various forms of attack...substances, tanking and fake contracts.
It can cap off a heroic year of achievement by ditching the COLA, and giving us an even draft and salary cap.
Then we can really say, may the best team win.
