Over the off season we had 10 or 11 good players have major surgery they all started training late. Some had no match play preparation and some I don't think had fully recovered. Next year's preparation will be much better in that they will get in a full load. Between now and then I expect most to regain some confidence, form and play at a higher level in the second half of the year.
A couple of players will either improve be moved move on.
With a little luck the FD will revise the game plan to better handle 666. I remember last year in an interview with the then GM he said quite often a team falters just when they look like going all the way. Improvement is seldom linear.
I believe this year we will finish bottom 6 and therefore have a low drafting pick to either recruit a good draftee or use to recruit an established KPF.
If most of these happen we will make the GF in 2020. Think of 2019 as part of the build up to a GF in 2020.