7 hours ago, bazza226 said:

You can add Petracca to that list.

Nup, not any more. I reckon he's worked much harder this year to develop consistency in his game.

If I have concerns over our young mids, it's over Oliver, Harmes and Brayshaw. I don't see enough defensive running from any of them (Oliver in particular). I don't see enough buckling down when the going gets tough. I don't see enough leadership. I see too much sulking, too much poor body language and too much selfishness from each of them.

All fixable things, and if we're going to go anywhere as a club then these three need to learn from their flaws.

11 hours ago, Rodney (Balls) Grinter said:

In my view, Patracca's solid and consistent run of form amongst the carnage has been a big positive.  Yes, he desperately needs to fix his mid range goal kicking, buy asides from that, I think he has been very workman like in his approach to keep presenting and bulldozing his way out of packs to often create forward movement for the team where the ball would otherwise have gone nowhere.  Once the team gets it's act together around him, I can genuinely envisage thay he will start splitting games open at times.  It's hard for him to have the same impact at the moment, when his performances and potential contributions are being dragged down by the team performance around him.

Yes balls, just wanted to add his defensive work in the forward half might be a little underrated. In a year where we have struggled with ‘retention’, I think Trac has worked hard defensively to keep the ball in, especially in the last 6 weeks or so.

Often he reads opposition defenders well and puts him himself in a good position for an intercept or simply just sticking an arm in to bat the ball down. 

I like what some of the young players have shown also, for me it’s Trac that’s been a big positive. He’s received a lot of negativity and I’m glad he’s starting to show what he’s capable of. Pity it’s been in a horrid year, can’t wait for next year though when he starts getting some more support.

23 minutes ago, Dee Zephyr said:

Yes balls, just wanted to add his defensive work in the forward half might be a little underrated. In a year where we have struggled with ‘retention’, I think Trac has worked hard defensively to keep the ball in, especially in the last 6 weeks or so.

Often he reads opposition defenders well and puts him himself in a good position for an intercept or simply just sticking an arm in to bat the ball down. 

I like what some of the young players have shown also, for me it’s Trac that’s been a big positive. He’s received a lot of negativity and I’m glad he’s starting to show what he’s capable of. Pity it’s been in a horrid year, can’t wait for next year though when he starts getting some more support.

Some of Hunt's defensive pressure and run down work has also been pretty decient at times and has created scoring opertunities for us, but I'm also left feeling like I want more from him in this regards, but perhaps he has been assigned a more offensive role and/or perhaps I greedy, although applying manic defensive pressure in forward lines has become the new black and something that every player needs to excell at for teams to suceeed it would seem.

17 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

On the small sample space that he's rested up forward, the answer would be no.

If you can't increase the sample size during dead meaningless rubbers, then when can you?

One gain this year is we have won 3 out of 4 close games (less than a kick) a few years ago we were unable to do the right things in the minutes to seal the deal. Maybe the competition was not great (blues, Suns and Hawks) and faltering badly to the crows. But we took those points

 

Got my rose tinted on. 

18 minutes ago, Rocknroll said:

One gain this year is we have won 3 out of 4 close games (less than a kick) a few years ago we were unable to do the right things in the minutes to seal the deal. Maybe the competition was not great (blues, Suns and Hawks) and faltering badly to the crows. But we took those points

 

Got my rose tinted on. 

https://m.afl.com.au/news/2019-07-17/what-happens-when-the-onekick-games-are-flipped-blues-in-the-hunt

We'd be in the hunt for pick 1 without them

Gains 

- Max Gawn is a superstar

- Clayton Oliver is a potential superstar (if only his disposal improves)

- The discovery of Hore and Lockhart as players. 

- Frosty is a keeper. Sure sometimes there’s the odd shocker turnover (reducing) but he is fast, strong and big. 

- May will be very very good for us

- Lever is back (fingers crossed) 

- Petracca is getting better and can do so much more

- Preuss can work in tandem with big Max

- Hunt is versatile and can play forward (though I still think his best position is on the wing)

Importantly we couldn’t have as many injuries as we’ve had in 2019. It has killed our year. 

I'm still very ambivalent about Petracca. I see occasional glimpses but I don't think he impacts games enough. In other words, I don't see that he's a "gain" this year.