Ross Lyon scoffed at a line of questioning in his post-match press conference last week as he walked down a corridor afterwards in the bowels of Marvel Stadium with St Kilda football boss David Misson.

Lyon, whose Saints had just beaten lowly North Melbourne, had been quizzed on how hard a rebuild is. In his eyes, the question did not need to be asked because a rebuild is obviously really hard.

Ross Lyon continues the job of rebuilding St Kilda.Credit: Getty Images

Adelaide started this round on top of the ladder, but have not played a final since losing the 2017 season decider to Richmond. They had, in Lyon’s estimation, been building for six of those years, during which their placings ranged from 10th to 18th.

Lyon also highlighted the praise being directed towards his old club Fremantle’s list, while adding the caveat that they played finals only once in the past nine seasons.

This begs the question: has the current AFL environment, from compromised drafts to free agency and two extra clubs, with Tasmania’s introduction also only three years away, made the rebuilding process – whether it is called a reset, a transition, or something else – tougher and longer?

It is challenging to answer, and not even Champion Data can quantify it, but Lyon thinks it has. He wants the league to rid the first round of the draft of any compromise, from father-sons to academy picks.

Ex-Hawthorn, Port Adelaide and St Kilda list boss Chris Pelchen believes that proposal goes too far, but would like the AFL to further increase the draft points that clubs require to match opposition bids in the first round.

“It is more difficult to rebuild now, firstly, because of the expansion of teams … which has continually diluted the talent pool available,” Pelchen told this masthead.

“The AFL then added more mechanisms and systems that essentially offer greater freedom of [player] movement, which can help a club rebuild, but also can make it harder because someone integral to your rebuild might move.”

The Crows’ and Dockers’ rise is not the sole reason this topic is hot. There is also North Melbourne’s run of five-straight bottom-two finishes, which could stretch to six this year, including wooden spoons in 2021-22.

They avoided a third in a row the next season with a last-round win over Gold Coast – but that meant they drafted second, and missed out on Harley Reid.

Colby McKercher is proving a decent consolation prize, and crucially re-signed until........

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