bing181

Your memory is probably better than mine, but that's not how I remember it. Which was that it was only when he was moved down back at Casey that he started to put it together. Even from when he was drafted he was seen as a defender. Jason Taylor at the time: "He has played behind the ball as a half-back and you speak to his coaches and the people who have been involved with him and they think that is potentially his best position. Having watched him live on the wing on occasions this year, I felt his last two games there he really started to get going. I'd like to think we'd put him on the wing and in the midfield and see him develop there initially."

He was played on a wing at Casey for nearly 2 seasons and was going nowhere until they moved him back.

There are too many other variables and you don't know what training Kolt and McVee were doing away from the group/inside/in the gym etc. About the only conclusion you might be able to reach on the limited data we have is that older players with more pre-seasons under their belt are less impacted by missing pre-seasons than younger players, who need pre-season to build long-term fitness.

Hmm. Certainly looks like hindsight? Viney's injuries haven't stopped him playing most games each season. And his current injury is an achilles, which I believe is a first for him. As for the rest, I'm not averse to the club giving decent long-term contracts to experienced players who bring leadership onfield and off, and you can understand the club's thinking after the loss of Brayshaw - plus the upcoming loss of ANB, which the club must have known by then as well. On top of that, there were fairly widespread reports of strong interest from North Melbourne. Some of us here are still haunted by the departure of James McDonald and the damage that that did, so I'm more than happy that we err on the other side of it all. It's all very well bringing in a heap of young, talented players, but you desperately need players like Viney around the place to take them under their wing.

And this from FoxSports (rather than start a new thread with all these different Season Previews). Hard to argue with: The Demons were a properly bad team at the start of the season, but after their 0-5 start when Simon Goodwin and his coaching staff made some tweaks, they were simply average. They lost just three games by more than 20 points, and had some very solid wins including knocking off Brisbane in Brisbane. Now, how much does the fact that they were an OK team by the end of the season matter when you’re projecting forward? Well, that’s the impossible question to answer… but it feels unlikely losing Petracca and Oliver is going to make them immediately better. Just remember when you’re doing your predicted ladder that they weren’t what their record says they were; they’re not a seven-win team that’s getting worse, they’re a nine or 10-win team that’s likely taking another step backwards in their first year under a new coach. We don’t think we’ll actually tip the Demons to rise above 14th this year, but the case can absolutely be made based on these numbers. Even if they play worse, just getting luckier in 2026 could see them pinch an extra win or two and ‘improve’.

I think for me in all this is how they finished the 2023 season. Which for me is also what to watch for with us this year. If across the last 6 - 8 games we see signs of it coming together, again, that would be a good/excellent outcome. And is what we were really missing last year. (Though what we did have in 2020.)

Valid point of course. But in 2023 the issue for Hawthorn wasn't so much what they were capable of, but consistency. Alongside some bad losses, they beat both grand finalists (Lions and Pies), as well as a couple of teams in/around the top 8. They also managed to find a bit more consistency across the last 8 games where they were in most games and had some decent wins. That's not a pattern we've seen with us over the last couple of years, which is one of the reasons for the change of coach and personnel I imagine. Not so much that we were mediocre, but there were no real signs that things were turning. For me, if we can match Hawthorn's 2023 it would be a decent season and auger well for 2027.

Admire the optimism of some here, but every supporter of every club would be saying the same kinds of things - some with good reason. Would love to be proved wrong, but the real world tends to behave in more or less predictable ways and it's hard to see us doing much better than we have over the last couple of seasons.

I have no idea where this perception comes from. "Very quickly"? In the five long years from 2019 - 2023 Hawthorn were in the wilderness. If they're the yardstick then we can expect to see the start of a turnaround in ... 2029.

Just shows the importance of an uninterrupted pre and early season for younger players. Watch him in 2026 (unless he's played out of position ...).

Yes. But not just from game to game, within games. It's no good having a cameo quarter and then disappearing for the rest of the game. Not saying he does this, but with younger players it's often where the challenge lies.

I'd be surprised if CJ can match McVee of 2024 as a lockdown/stopper defender, also very different players. It's not for nothing that Hawthorn let him go. And AMW is still unproven, he's miles off what Bowey brings - Bowey was/is emerging as an elite half-back. Not to say that both those players can't play a role and in the longer term nail down a position, but we shouldn't underestimate the quality of McVee (at his best) and in particular, Bowey.

Suns the dark horse. Mids to die for, younger players a year older (Humphries!), the addition of one of the best players in the AFL (Trac) and if JUH gets back to anything like what he's capable of they're going to be a force to be reckoned with.

A bit of a worry this, it goes back 4 months now. At the very least, you would have thought that there'd be a clear timeline by now. He's missing a lot of training and match sim.

Don't disagree. But there's a lot of "ifs" in there.

Age. Once you have 10 or more pre-seasons under your belt missing sessions or slabs of pre-season becomes less critical. On the other hand, with players in their first few seasons you sometimes feel that one or two weeks out in January and their season is shot.

Still a bit to go before he's over his injury. Shows how serious it was.

Got any stats for that?

Mihocek. This from September: "Craig McRae says the Mihocek injury involved a torn tendon in that dislocated toe" Is it a concern that it's still an issue 4 months later? Injuries to feet seem to really drag on, or worse.

No.

Except that it usually doesn't. Those are outliers. Go through all the sides with poor win-loss ratios over the last 10 years (you went back to 2015), and see how things turned out. But even in what you've cited you're cherry picking. e.g., Hawthorn. You omitted the 5 long seasons before 2024 when they lost more games than they won. It actually took them 6 seasons to make finals again after 2018, hardly a case of "it can turn quickly". Always great to be optimistic, but let's be realistic here.

Easy to see us going 0 - 6 or 1 - 6 on that (Essendon?). I feel we have a decent enough backline (though losing McVee + Bowie won't help), a decent enough forward line now with Pickett x 2 plus Mihocek. But around the ball some of those teams could cut us to ribbons.

I just think this is a complete Furphy. The club (led by Richardson and Green?) had had enough, and with a new coach wanted to put a broom through the place, with Oliver first to be shown the door. The "play in different positions" is maybe how it was presented, at least publicly, but it was always just a way of everyone saving face. Not to mention, going through the motions of maintaining some semblance of trade value for him. (A waste of time as it turned out, no-one wanted to touch him.)

All I'm saying is the way it is. I'm really not sure why it's so difficult to understand or accept. As Brad Scott said "I'm one vote among 4." There are a LOT of decisions that occur within and across a football club where the head coach has little or no say.

You're presuming he was "driven away". People change careers/jobs/life paths for any number of reasons. Amongst those and in the case of Trac, there have been suggestions here that he wanted to get out of Melbourne (the city) for family reasons.