It’s the old team of champions or champion teams argument.
Good game plans that play to your teams strengths win premierships in my opinion.
It’s not until you become successful do you get full recognition and rightly so. But I think most half intelligent supporters have a fair idea who’s on the way up and Essendon clearly is.
wasn’t wallis on personal leave?
barnes was injured as was mercuri going in to the GF.
I think both blumfield & heffernan missed large chunks during the season with knee injuries so they were underdone for finals.
Lions were becoming a great team, so that 2001 GF would have been a classic if we were able to field a fit team.
List management issues didn’t really impact us in 2001- we made the GF but ran into a rampaging Brisbane.
Hardwick didn’t leave until the 2002 season and Caracella, Blumfield and Morecroft the 2003 season.
plus Rioli and Mercuri
not counting Wallis
and Long was pretty close to the end anyway
Sheedy stuffed 2001. In partnership with the President Graeme McMahon. McMahon decided we were the Manchester United of the AFL — foregetting that we had won one premiership while MU had won about 6 out of 8; while Sheedy decided that he should make Dean Wallis and Michael Long play another year even though they were both past it and Wallis had actually retired. Both of them forgot the hunger and determination that had made 2000 so good and that each year requires a fresh start.
Didn’t we have some sort of partnership with Man United at the time? I remember seeing something about it on the official website back in like 2002.
Wallis and Long ‘being past it’ was the least of our worries.
There were three young players who seriously took their foot off the gas and they were all traded.
Another even younger player with talent to burn screwed his career too.
Fact is, we were lucky to even make the 2001 GF.
Lucky and probably undeserving.
It’s hard to take seriously an article that in the body talks about Devon Smith as an on baller and how good our 3 small forwards are then when listing the best 22 puts Smith in the forward pocket
Yeah, well I didn’t get past that hurdle.
So this blogger is saying that other bloggers are saying the bombers are better than they are so the Essendon supporters should tell those original bloggers to shut the fark up? How farking dare Bomber supporters allow media to up-sell the club prospects? The hubris!
please
I don’t think Walla and Fanta are in the same category, to be honest. Special players, extremely talented, yes. But AA to me, means consistently excellent, and they haven’t arrived there yet.
Hence why I said not far behind.
Fanta was on his way this season until injury and Walla is probably the best defensive forward in the game.
Both still have improvement in them and I wouldn’t be surprised that they got a AA guernsey in the next couple of seasons.
I agree. The point I was making was that the rot started at the top with the two most powerful men at the club.
When it comes to winning flags, rather than making finals I’m not sure AA is the right criteria.
What does seem to matter is having 4 or 5 players who are at least one of the following;
Absolutely elite / able to turn a game / can pants their opponent / consistently win contests they have no right to.
A clear example was Hawthorn - Hodge, Burgoyne, Rioli, Roughead, Mitchell.
Geelong had Selwood, Bartel, Taylor, Kelly.
Sometimes a bloke can be in the form of his life and provide this - eg Cotchin’s final series was the best I’ve ever seen him play by a long shot, and Easton Wood the year before was outstanding all year and particularly in finals.
Hawkins had one great finals series for the Cats.
I’d argue that in this category we’ve got Joe, Hurley, possibly Merrett (finals performance needs to lift),
And then a hole - Hepp could step up maybe.
We’re a couple of match winners, game changers short.
Hence the hope for Stringer, Parish, and McGrath, who I see as the most likely.
( Before exploding in outrage, Tippa, Fanta, Conor, Hooker, Zaharakis etc are very very good players - we need them and I love watching them but they’re not quite at that game defining level)
After the players come back on 8/1/18, theres just 6 weeks to the first JLT game. I dont think we need to wait long to see how S S S fit into the team and get an initial impression of how our midfields going to work out.
Agree, Look at what Rance, Martin, Cotchin and Riewoldt were able to do this year. All had fantastic years, Martin one of the best individual years ever.
Well no ■■■■
But seriously, if we won one, and went no further, the monkey is off the back. Make to mistake if we do not win at least one final this coming season, the season will be a massive failure
Agree. Swagger and cockyness is manufactured and not founded in anything of substance until this occurs. The fact we have the longest drought of any team in the league in terms of winning a final absolutely burns me up.
Joe’s swagger is entirely concocted. Ditto Parish et al, just a front for tiny little boys crying inside.
We soooooo going to be hated for our celebrations in the near future. Except for TIPPA, no one hates TIPPA (apart from @Reboot).
Joe doesn’t swagger and neither does Parish or anyone else in our team. They all celebrate their goals, but they do it because they’re happy, not because they think they’re better than anyone else.