While the last few years have been horrible for everyone associated with our club, confidence has been destroyed on every level of the club, coaches have come and gone like a revolving door, i can't help but feel like we are turning a corner now,

Paul Roos seems to have given the whole place a huge lift, just hearing about the reactions of office staff is amazing, the players already seem to love him and want to stay under him,

a huge sign of this i noticed was during our final game against the bulldogs when Jack Trengove for the first time in two years ran as though he wasn't in concrete boots, just days after learning the players had met with Roos.

I'm not saying for a second it's going to be an instant turnaround, but 2014 may well be a year when alot of opinions of players change, this is a group we have never seen well coached for any length of time, and a group we have never seen with sustained confidence.

players people have put question marks over, Jack Trengove, Jack Watts, Jimmy Toumpas all undeniable talents that have not yet come on the way we would have liked, ( probably being abit rough having toumpas in there ) all may well improve very quickly finally not playing out of position, finally knowing their role and finally having confidence

would be interested to hear other peoples thoughts on how big an impact this new found confidence might have on our club?

New found confidence will take the players to a certain level. This level is far from being a premiership contender.

For various reasons, our players have had no idea what it takes to win a premiership. They think they know, but they are a long way from what is reality. For me, this will be Roos' biggest challenge.

You work your ass off to play finals. When you make it, you work even harder to finish top 4. When that happens, you raise the bar again until you win a flag. After that, you work even harder again to win it the following year/s. We have a culture of stopping after my first point.

New found confidence will take the players to a certain level. This level is far from being a premiership contender.

For various reasons, our players have had no idea what it takes to win a premiership. They think they know, but they are a long way from what is reality. For me, this will be Roos' biggest challenge.

You work your ass off to play finals. When you make it, you work even harder to finish top 4. When that happens, you raise the bar again until you win a flag. After that, you work even harder again to win it the following year/s. We have a culture of stopping after my first point.

There are a lot of sides that play finals and think that it's just going to happen the following year but it doesn't. Richmond are a classic case of getting to 9th and their players and supporters just assume that they will take the next step the following season; as you say you have to fight to get there and fight even harder to stay there.

We have made finals in the past 20 years or so but I have never thought we were good enough to win the flag.

Correction we had good teams in 1990 and 1994 and as I've said before; if those teams played for another club they would have given it a shake it's just Melbourne has never had the tough mentality to go all the way.

Edited September 17, 201311 yr by RobbieF

While the last few years have been horrible for everyone associated with our club, confidence has been destroyed on every level of the club, coaches have come and gone like a revolving door, i can't help but feel like we are turning a corner now,

Paul Roos seems to have given the whole place a huge lift, just hearing about the reactions of office staff is amazing, the players already seem to love him and want to stay under him,

a huge sign of this i noticed was during our final game against the bulldogs when Jack Trengove for the first time in two years ran as though he wasn't in concrete boots, just days after learning the players had met with Roos.

I'm not saying for a second it's going to be an instant turnaround, but 2014 may well be a year when alot of opinions of players change, this is a group we have never seen well coached for any length of time, and a group we have never seen with sustained confidence.

players people have put question marks over, Jack Trengove, Jack Watts, Jimmy Toumpas all undeniable talents that have not yet come on the way we would have liked, ( probably being abit rough having toumpas in there ) all may well improve very quickly finally not playing out of position, finally knowing their role and finally having confidence

would be interested to hear other peoples thoughts on how big an impact this new found confidence might have on our club?

I didn't see that in Trengove in the last game?

Anyway, building up confidence will be a slow process and will only come as we progressively get better and the players learn to look after each other and play as a unit.

Confidence is really 90% of the game. With more of this we will get better and some players will surely suprise when they begin to play with less mental baggage.

a huge sign of this i noticed was during our final game against the bulldogs when Jack Trengove for the first time in two years ran as though he wasn't in concrete boots, just days after learning the players had met with Roos.

If Trengove suddenly started running freely just because there was a chance we could get Roos, then he shouldn't be captain. To suddenly 'switch on' over something that at the time wasn't confirmed, is just crap.

You're just imagining things though, so my point is null.

Port Adelaide are the perfect example of the confidence factor

Port Adelaide are the perfect example of the confidence factor

I am with D26 and his theory. Provided we can pull some rabbits [or midfielders] out of the hat in this year's trade/draft/free-agency period and Clark/Dawes both have an injury-free year, then I, for one, am confident that we will play finals next year.

If Trengove suddenly started running freely just because there was a chance we could get Roos, then he shouldn't be captain. To suddenly 'switch on' over something that at the time wasn't confirmed, is just crap.

You're just imagining things though, so my point is null.

I didn't say he was suddenly running well, just that he looked to have a spring in his step, confidence can make slow players look quicker than they are, i think a big issue we have had in recent years is indecision, this can be fixed with confidence and understanding, Roos will bring both of those things to our list.

The greatest manifestation of low confidence would be poor skills leading to woeful execution. I'm not sure how many goals we gave away due to turn overs this year, but I would hazard a guess that it would be well over 100. Take these goals out of the equation next year and we will already be miles ahead.