Three years makes a difference

[Rodney (Balls) Grinter 10,823]

3 hours ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

60+ more games of experience, particularly 60+ more games of playing with essentially the same teammates.

The stability of the playing list, coaching panel (albeit with some changes) and admin (again, with some changes, but well managed) has also helped.

The flip side to this is also that another 3 years age hasn't benifited many of the main opposition rivals from 2018, who even at that point were running around with aging lists.  Collingwood, West Coast, Geelong and Richmond being the main culprits in this respects.  Also think it's a key reason why our realitve performance has been so much better 2021 Vs 2020, with the longer games this season, it has benefited our list age profile.

Edited August 25, 2021 by Rodney (Balls) Grinter

[Little Goffy 14,530]

One of the reasons we are better now than in 2018 is because 2018 happened! Not to mention the 'learnings' of 2019 and 2020.

A lot of gun young players (does Gawn still count as young?) saw that it wasn't going to be enough to just be a gun player if they wanted to pursue real glory.

We've also got possibly a league-best coaching and fitness group right now. That might not hold together forever but with the player-leaders we've gathered and created since 2018 I have a confident hope that the raised expectations are sustainable.