Brisbane's AFL talent manager Rob Kerr said the Lions deliberately avoided recycling players during trade week because of salary cap issues and an ill-fated 2010 experience with recruiting.

In a letter to members posted on the club's website, Kerr stated the Lions went down the recycling recruiting path last year when it picked up the likes of Brendan Fevola, Brent Staker, and Amon Buchanan, and it did not yield the results they had hoped.

He stated there also needed to be more alignment between a players' performance and their worth.

That comment could be seen as a veiled swipe at midfield/forward Justin Sherman who was traded to the Western Bulldogs despite having two years to run on his contract.

Sherman was reported to be receiving $400,000 a season, yet in his six seasons with the Lions he had only two top 10 finishes in the club championship.

"This trade also helps with the realignment of our lists performance and TPP (Total Player Payments) position," Kerr wrote.

"No doubt our members and supporters are already aware that the club attempted to recruit mature AFL players into the group last year with a view to having another genuine tilt at a premiership while the likes of Luke Power, Simon Black and Jonathan Brown remain influential players," Kerr wrote.

"Unfortunately injury and form meant that this strategy did not reap the return the club had initially hoped for.

"After assessing the limited short-term success of this mature-age approach and our lists overall performance in 2010, a decision was made that we should focus on finding the next layer of players who can lead our club in 3-4 years time."

Kerr said the stockpiling of draft picks by off-loading Jared Brennan to Gold Coast and Sherman to the Bulldogs and losing Michael Rischitelli as an uncontracted player to the Suns would hold the club in good stead for the future.

"Trading the compensation pick we received for Jared back to the Gold Coast was an important factor in elevating ourselves up the draft order from pick No.10 to pick No.5," Kerr said.

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