bing181

You're a brave man. I know a lot here are getting on board the rebuild/transition bandwagon. But I know what the Gameday threads are like, and it's not a pretty sight.

Every club is looking at doing what we are, hardly going to surprise anyone. Here's Dean Cox recently: "We want to play with a bit more speed on the ball and I think we've trained really hard this off-season with really high intensity running."

Reductive post. First of all, I didn't say no-one understood a word of it. You're deliberately misquoting me. There are 60 million Spanish speakers in the US, not to mention the millions of Spanish speakers around the world who would have watched. As for the "message", communication is much, much more than just words. Everybody knows full well what he was saying and what this was about, which is why there's a backlash from the usual suspects.

Wonder if you'll still be saying that when we're 0 - 6.

Seriously? From what I've seen it's running around 20:1 for. With good reason. Incredible show, a fantastic celebration of the the best of latino culture and a powerful message (even though I didn't understand a word of it!). Hard to see how any of it translates to the AFL, though I hope a few at head office were paying attention.

Plus Brayshaw and ANB.

Facts.

We're already behind the 8 ball on the "keep the good" part. Out of our top 10 in the Bluey last year we've lost Petracca (second ...) and Oliver (7th), plus likely to be without Bowey (4th) and Viney for a good part of the year. Add to that McVee who was 7th in 2024 (his 2025 was seriously compromised by injury.) There's no way we're covering those holes, not in the short term anyway.

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.