We’ve today cut Cutting and Doonan (and retired Wuetschner last weekend).
With Phillips set to return (bub was born end of October???) and 3 spots needed for the draft, we have -1 spaces and a few hours left for any pre-draft Cannons/Pioneers selections.
Now do Lila Keck next.
She’s good, but more importantly she’s exactly what we need.
How many more do we cut?
I make it currently:
So we need to cut or (net) trade away 2 more just to get to the required 3 draft picks.
The problem with the team is they only have about three class players. Opposition coaches only need to look at the Blitz votes to see who they are. Close down these girls and game over.
Yet…
Those three players were never really ‘closed down’.
It’s really the others that need to develop further and help out those three.
We’ve built the team to set a culture. One that mimics what we had at VFLW level. That may pay off, it may not.
It’s tough when you are competing against teams who have had multiple pre-seasons, set up their departments and systems and also developed players for five years. They’ve had their failures and learned from them, we’re still trying to work out what works for us.
It’s no wonder the teams that were in the comp since 2017 have been able to maintain their spots towards the top of the ladder each season.
We’ve actually improvement throughout the season. The Geelong and Richmond games were us at our peak. It was a disappointing to lose 3 of our last 4 games. We could have achieved more, but we did well just to reach finals with that draw. We played 1 bottom 4 team (and lost to them), no top 4 teams, but almost every team that finished 5th to 14th.
I think we’ll be around the same mark next season. There won’t be too many changes other than the ones that are necessary. With a list of 30, it’s going to be tough to bridge the gap on the top four teams when you have to take on 3 new draftees every year.
