the last 3 years we have come 5th-8th. we have been provided great entertainment by our team and many times during these 3 years were we in the top 4 teams in the afl.

however, were we honestly close to a premiership with our list? maybe close, but in reality we were not true contenders. we won one final in those 3 years...

unfortunately this year our list looks strangely out of wack:

our 2 most important players, white and neitz (no1 ruckman and FF) have maximum 2 years left of footy. we have 9 players above 30, and while only 4 are in our best 22, we must still replace all those players within the next 2 years. our spine for much of thise year has had robbo and bizzel at CHB and CHF. where have we gone since 2004 when we identified CHF and CHB as our weaknesses. breese, molan, rogers, smith and miller were drafted and did not come up. (millers last hope to make it as an afl player is as a big bodied defender playing 10 games a year against the monster forwards). Green bruce and Johnstone were the 3 players who 4 years ago were touted as going to be the core to our premiership team. they have come up short. all 3 are very good players, but are not leaders and while they all had potential to be stars, they are not.

The only real positive is the fact we have recruited magnificently in the last 4 years. Mclean, Sylvia and Bate are 3 youngsters i see as being potential A-graders. Pettard, Jones, Bell, Rivers, Davey,Moloney, PJ, Frawley, Newton, Dunn will all become (or already are) very good players. they might not all become star A-graders, but all will become quality starting 18 players. Garland, Buckley and even CJ could be added to that list. I see Bate becoming a great CHF, Newton is a ligitimate option as successor to Neitz and Frawley and Rivers both will man the defensive posts for years to come.

unfortunately there is a big hole in recruiting past these 4 years. Bruce, Green, Jonstone Wheatley, Carrol and Robbo and the only players in our starting 18 that are between the age of 23-30 yrs old. thats only 6 players. these players should be the core leaders of our team...They are not.

my point is... had we had no injuries and abit of luck this year we once again would have come 5th-8th. with this year being so even people would have probably touted us as premiership contenders during certain parts of the year. however this would only have hidden the weaknesses in our list which are now becoming so glaring.

This year has given us an opportunity to see that in reality we do not have good depth and that our supposed stars are not really stars at all. we have also been able to get 10-12 games into nearly all our great youngsters which is vital for their development for next year. had we made finals this year then Frawley, Newton, Dunn, Buckley and Garland would have had no opportunities. With games under their belts they will be able to make a real impact next year.

at years end we should get rid of 5 of the 9 players >30 yrs old. we should trade one of Green or Bruce. both have high market value. we should use a top10 pick to continue the recruiting of the last 4 years. we should also get rid of the dead wood we have on our list. (neville, Ferguson, Jamar). this way, with some good recruiting we will be proper premiership contenders in 2-3 years with Mclean, Bate, Jones, Sylvia and Rivers as the core players. we may look back on this year as they year we had to have. a reality check that led to us shaping our list in the best way possible.

Good thread Sylvinator, who do you see as being the next group of leaders coming through?

i see our leadership group in 2-3 years time being

Mclean (captain)

Rivers (Vice Captain0

Leadership group:

Jones, Bate and Bell

These 5 players all have lots of leadership ability. Sylvia will also be a core player in 3 years time but i dont think he's a leader unfortunately.

Our current leadership group is abbismal. It's been so obvious this year that the players that should be our leaders (bruce, green Johnstone) simply aren't.

once again, i dont think our defiency in leadership would have been so obvious and profound had we made the finals this year. developing our new young crop of leaders must be a focus going forward for next year with Neitz close to retirement

  sylvinator said:

my point is... had we had no injuries and abit of luck this year we once again would have come 5th-8th. with this year being so even people would have probably touted us as premiership contenders during certain parts of the year. however this would only have hidden the weaknesses in our list which are now becoming so glaring.

The weaknesses were glaring at the end of last year (and probably before, but hey).

With the implosion of the interstate sides, I'm not happy at all that this was the year that we combusted with injury. We've made Grand Finals in 1988 and 2000 where our GF opponents finished something like 46-4 combined in those seasons, and have suffered the injury plague in the most open season since 1998. Looking at Hawthorn, Collingwood and the Kangas up at the top of the ladder, a fit Melbourne side would be hard pressed not to finsh at or above those sides. No point worrying about that now though.

  pantaloons said:

With the implosion of the interstate sides, I'm not happy at all that this was the year that we combusted with injury. We've made Grand Finals in 1988 and 2000 where our GF opponents finished something like 46-4 combined in those seasons, and have suffered the injury plague in the most open season since 1998. Looking at Hawthorn, Collingwood and the Kangas up at the top of the ladder, a fit Melbourne side would be hard pressed not to finsh at or above those sides. No point worrying about that now though.

you're right, if we wouldv had no injuries and better form this year we would probably be ahead of collingwood and kangas (definitely not hawthorn, im very jealous of their list and they're much better than us). with the decline of the interstate clubs we might have even pushed for top 4...

BUT, we would not have come close to winning a premiership. this season has proven that our list just simply isnt good enough at the moment to win a premiership. anyone who believes our current list can win a premiership is delusional.

if we came 5th we might have thought our current list is fine, and make the minimum 4 changes to the list like they did last year. (what a huge mistake that was!).

now we know where we have to improve, which areas we lack, and have put game time into a youngsters. next year we can clear out some dead wood and old players and rebuild with our current crop of youngsters plus pick 2,10,17,19 (pick 10 from trading green or bruce).

we could not afford to keep coming 5th-8th. this is the wake up call we need