This year we started with great expectations to find we were about as bad as we could be. Again I eagerly look forward to the 2013 season. But tonight I watched our win over Essendon this season and, noticing that Morton played reasonably well, I started wondering if without players like Green, Moloney, Morton & Rivers, could we actually go backwards? We've pinned a lot of hope on Viney, Toumpas, Dawes and others but is it reasonable to expect them to make a big difference?

Guessing I'm still on thin ice- someone else want to take a shot at this one?

Rivers is the biggest loss there in my opinion. Arond the ground I feel we have made up for the losses

No chance we can get any worse. Rodan, Byrne's, Dawes, Viney, Toumpas, Terlich in tandem would have a lot bigger impact than Green,, Moloney, Rivers and Morton. Not to mention less off field dramas, 2nd hard slogged Neeldy pre season. Watch our players improve a lot in 2013.

On the question of whether we can go backwards, its always a possibility. We can rookie draft a certain former Tiger next week who could influence our cultcha negatively so his teammates end up turning up to games asleep. Half the list could spend the off season belting the living suitcases out of their relatives with machetes. A member of the Comancheros motorbike gang could be elected to the Board at the AGM. Our sponsors could all turn out to be closet Nazis. Somebody might falsely accuse the entire football department of racism. The selectors could drop our ten best players for the GWS game and replace them with untried rookies. The AFL might force us to take Cale Morton and pick 88 back and we could appoint Greg Denham and Caroline Wilson our no 1 male and female supporters respectively.

Can we go backwards?

[censored] yeah!

About time someone dished up a little dose of reality as I think there are a few on here getting a little carried away. In saying that, I don't think it is possible to get any worse, and I like the sound of what Neeld is doing, so I think we will improve, just not as much as some are hoping.

You know what....if we go backwards it won't be because we have poor facilities, it won't be because we haven't done the required standard of training and education with our players. It won't be because we have too many stick thin project players.

I reckon if we are no good this year I will think at least we are now on a level playing field for the list and the way we prepare ourselves. At least we have given ourselves every chance to improve by setting the right culture at the club.

We should be careful with expectations but its honestly very difficult to see how we could go backwards compared to where we have been over the last 10 years. You would think logically we just simply have to progress forward by the way we are going about it.

Interestingly does going backwards mean less than 3 wins as a measure? As if that's the case I would think we will do better than that, how much better than that I'm not sure, but if you prepare and do all the right things then you have done all you can with what you have.

My preference is to ask whether we can go forwards in 2013 and I would say "yes" because I don't expect all of the things that went wrong for us both on and off the field in 2012 (all well documented) to go wrong again in 2013.

I'm reasonably satisfied that our inclusions will help us improve and that we have a number of up and comers who did little in 2012 due to injury or lack of experience who can help improve of playing stocks and depth.

As far as our losses are concerned, I recently came up with the idea of giving each of the departing players a rating for their contribution to the club in 2012 and came up with this:

Retired:

Clint Bartram - injured by mid season, minimal impact. Rating 2

Brad Green (veteran - outside list) - last third of the season very good but either injured or out of form before that. Rating 3

Unrestricted free agent:

Jared Rivers (Geelong Cats) - a good contributor in defence or attack but was no longer important in our defensive structure. Rating 5

Restricted free agent:

Brent Moloney (Brisbane Lions) - looked uninterested. Rating 2

Traded:

Jordan Gysberts (North Melbourne) - one ordinary game in 2012. Rating ½

Stef Martin (Brisbane Lions) - injuries and ordinary form sealed his fate. Rating 2

Cale Morton (West Coast Eagles) - limited influence throughout and injured at the end. Rating 2

Delisted:

Matthew Bate - failed to impress. Rating 2

Jamie Bennell - struggled before season ending knee injury. Rating 2

Lucas Cook - no AFL appearances. Rating 0

Liam Jurrah - a major distraction for the club and one below par game. Rating -3

Kelvin Lawrence (second-year rookie) - no AFL appearances and went home early. Rating 0

Ricky Petterd - season ruined by injury. Rating 1

Jai Sheahan (rookie) * - no AFL appearances. Rating 0

Leigh Williams (rookie) - no AFL appearances. Rating 0

The total of my rating of the departing players is 18½; out of a possible 150, barely above an average of 1 per player. I would be surprised if we can't improve on that with the influx of the new players and improvement among existing members of the list, especially with better fitness and less injuries in 2013.

* I liked him at Casey and was disappointed that he was delisted but the FD must have had their reasons.

We went backwards this year bigtime. People forget that we only had one win this year (Essendon) when playing against the same fifteen teams who we won four against in 2009, the year we allegedly tanked. It is even worse when you consider that one of our losses in 2009 was due to a kick after the siren (Richmond).

I have a sneaking suspicion that our list has far greater depth this year, and we cannot help but win more matches (even if would be be nice in a way to be able to watch the freakish antics of both Howe and Jurrah). The AFL has been kind to us with the draw and hopefully they will come to the correct conclusion in relation to the ridiculous proposition that we tanked in the year that we had four times as many wins (discounting GWS and the Suns).

Go Dees.

Can we get any worse?

If we do Neeld needs to hand the keys in!

This year we started with great expectations to find we were about as bad as we could be.

You may have been on your own with those expectations. The lead up to and early games gave due warning that it was going to be a long year.

I started wondering if without players like Green, Moloney, Morton & Rivers, could we actually go backwards? We've pinned a lot of hope on Viney, Toumpas, Dawes and others but is it reasonable to expect them to make a big difference?

Without Morton we could go backwards??? Really. Did you have to see any of his other games last year given Essendon mistakenly took our game for the bye.

Can we get any worse?

Thought that myself. We could actually go backwards. Hardly possible.

What WJ said, The players we have added could not give any less than the players that were removed.

It all depends on what the other clubs do.

At this stage, I feel that the list has improved (easy to say in December), but the gap between top and bottom teams really widened this year.

The AFL has been kind to us with the draw

The AFL has made the draw with its commercial interests in mind, and that just happened to mean we play the weaker teams twice. The fat controller knows nothing of kindness unless it's toward GWS or GC

I don't think we could possibly go backwards from this year onfield.

I wouldn't be floored if we went backwards initially. We've got a hell of a lot of new players - all of which have to adapt to a new game plan, new roles and a new team. The forward structure is completely new and may need time to gel. The NAB Cup and first part of the season may be a time of adjustment and be a bit messy - until the players work it out. St Kilda were ordinary for the first half of the year, until they started to function under Watters. I'm hoping for a smooth transition but not banking on it.

Injuries may come into play.

Neeld has not proven he can coach, yet.

He has only proven he can make sweeping changes.

2013 is a very big year for neeld.

Good Question

No.

With Cale gone , thats 37 kgs of dead weight we dont have to carry.

Fair enough question. Each team improves 5-10 percent each year. We have to improve 30 percent just to make an impact. Still 8-10 decent players away from making a real impact. Don't get expectations up too high.

Fair enough question. Each team improves 5-10 percent each year. We have to improve 30 percent just to make an impact. Still 8-10 decent players away from making a real impact. Don't get expectations up too high.

Those are some startling numbers, they would make me numb if they weren't so made up...

I expect improvement, we have removed project players who were wasting valuable time and list space and we seem to have recruited in a smart and focused manner. Our leaders are actually leaders which makes me wonder why we haven't tried doing that before, and our training standards have lifted as evidenced by the players testimonials, and our own eyes.

Can it be worse?

Of course it can be, but dwelling on that while the club has done everything it can in the last couple months to rectify that is not good for the soul.

I don't think we will go backwards.

I am concerned as to how we will replace Rivers though - as I think he is a big loss to our backline. Although he played mainly up forward, he is still a player of quality that we have to replace.

Hopefully one of our mature aged draftees can replace him immediately.

On the upside, I think we will see a further improvement in our culture and general feel around the club by the removal of Gysberts, Morton, Cook, Moloney and Jurrah especially.

We have got rid of some lazy workers and added some young, hungry, quality kids in Viney, Toumpas, Kent and co.

Add to this Dawes, Pederson, Brynes and Rodan, all of who are experienced bodies and quality individuals.

All this and a combination of minimal injuries next year will see us improve greatly, we will not go backwards.

I don't think we will go backwards.

I am concerned as to how we will replace Rivers though - as I think he is a big loss to our backline. Although he played mainly up forward, he is still a player of quality that we have to replace.

Hopefully one of our mature aged draftees can replace him immediately.

On the upside, I think we will see a further improvement in our culture and general feel around the club by the removal of Gysberts, Morton, Cook, Moloney and Jurrah especially.

We have got rid of some lazy workers and added some young, hungry, quality kids in Viney, Toumpas, Kent and co.

Add to this Dawes, Pederson, Brynes and Rodan, all of who are experienced bodies and quality individuals.

All this and a combination of minimal injuries next year will see us improve greatly, we will not go backwards.

Rivers was all about Rivers.

He wasn't big enough or creative enough for the job.

See how many games he plays for Geelong.

Don't think we will go backwards, but the youngsters laiden with talent GWS and GC will go right pass us, can not expect any other outcome, I suspect our Grand Final will be played out on Queens Birthday for some years yet.

I also expect the Dogs to drop down and join the MFC and Power.

Don't think we will go backwards, but the youngsters laiden with talent GWS and GC will go right pass us, can not expect any other outcome, I suspect our Grand Final will be played out on Queens Birthday for some years yet.

I also expect the Dogs to drop down and join the MFC and Power.

Personally I think we are better than both the Bulldogs and Power.

We were ravaged with injuries and have far more polish than both sides - not to mention our foward line looks miles ahead of both teams.

With Clark, Dawes and Pederson we have a more mature and talented foward line than both those sides.

Our backline looks stronger, considering next year we'll drop Garland back there and Grimes if needed.

If Jamar is up and running, our midfield would smash both Port and the Bulldogs.

We will demolish both of those sides next year, we have far more class, talent and improvement in our list than those sides.

Personally I think we are better than both the Bulldogs and Power.

We were ravaged with injuries and have far more polish than both sides - not to mention our foward line looks miles ahead of both teams.

With Clark, Dawes and Pederson we have a more mature and talented foward line than both those sides.

Our backline looks stronger, considering next year we'll drop Garland back there and Grimes if needed.

If Jamar is up and running, our midfield would smash both Port and the Bulldogs.

We will demolish both of those sides next year, we have far more class, talent and improvement in our list than those sides.

I wonder looking at the ladder, who else we will go past, OK Port, Dogs, even if GC and GWC don't pick upthe bit for another year, anyone else?

I think that what we have addressed over the pre-season will make the worst player in the 22 better. I expect that as a result we will be harder to play against.

What we don't know is where the brilliance will come from ie: the big clutch marks in defence, the line breaking runs, the strong clearances and class disposals, the freak goals and the pack marks up forward. Those big game defining moments that are consistently provided by champions of the game of which we have none.

Edited November 30, 201212 yr by dandeeman