Last year was a gap year, horrific injury run, 2026 will be a proper test for Brad, Cant say he hasnt made the changes everyone has been screaming for at least. Lets see how he goes in 26
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And put us in the box seat for butters
Every year since the Saga has been an excuse year.
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Interesting how not playing football tends to make us more optimistic.
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Haven’t won a game!!
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Intraclub games are when optimism truly peaks. I can’t even remember the last time we lost an intraclub.
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well if this year doesnt qualify as a legitimate excuse then nothing ever will
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I’ll tell you why it’s a cop out. Rounds 1-6 we had few injuries. We beat Port, Melb and WC.
Port and Melbourne were both extremely up and down during that time. Port had lost by 91points to the pies and Melbourne had lost by 59pts to North. We beat WC by 2 points. We lost to the Hawks by 26 points and Adelaide by 61 points.
This just shows the level of inconsistency and the lack of system improvement. To concede 161 points shows the team still has significant defensive issues. Sure later in the year the injuries masked underlying issues, but the issues were still there. These are the same issues that have been there for the past 2 years. Scott has not been able to fix any of these issues.
We will now enter into year 4 with Scott as coach, and much like the Worsfold era, excuses are masking over fundamental issues that multiple coaches have failed to fix. Maybe it’s the players, but this didn’t stop Scott going with the same players for the first 5 rounds. We all know that the injuries were a blessing in disguise.
Anyhow, much of this has nothing to do with Welsh, but I’d like to see some pressure to deliver be put on Scott. Like Worsfold, it feels that we are just content to remain where we are. It’s all about stability rather than results.
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We should play less often.
We have more gap years than a trust fund baby.
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Things are “changing” just like they were when Barham took over, and when Brasher took over before that.
But it’s totally different this time.
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But we were 6-4* before injuries!
* sitting at 10th on the ladder with a percentage of 85
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Majority of us went into 2025 believing we were a bottom 4-6 team. The first 10 rounds weren’t inconsistent with that. In fact, if anything we probably had an extra win against our name (Power or Swans wins we were outsiders).
if you genuinely thought we were a top 8 team then I’d argue the first 10 rounds were a bit disappointing.
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I didn’t think we were a bottom 4 team. I thought we were a 10-14 team.
The reality is that with a Healthy team, we are still a 10-14 team.
With a full strength team, we were really really poor against good teams….. then got ourselves over the line against poor teams.
The fact is that our senior players are mediocre who go missing against the good team, and we are going nowhere while Theyre still on the list.
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^ This in a nutshell
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And are injury prone
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And that’s the biggest nutshell. It’s been a factor in why our young players haven’t developed over the last decade, leading to our senior players being very mediocre.
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Poor recruitment > injuries
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I agree in large part. However, we were 6/4 after 10 rounds and for a team not a finals factor they were battling away reasonably well. Terrible in three games (Hawks / Dogs / Crows). Decent on ANZAC Day and unconvincing winners against Tigers, Eagles, Roos. The performances against the Power, Demons and Swans were objectively ‘good’ wins at the time…..
I didn’t rate our chances in 2025 and in the first 10 games they were uncompetitive three times. That first 10 game block to me was exactly ‘par’ for a team expected to be in that 10-16 region.
Of every team outside the eight, you coukd almost certainly find 4-5 shockers, 4-5 ordinary, 6-7 decent and 3-4 strong outings. That’s the case with every team every year.
The team always blows out in the second half of the season.
Injuries or not, the second half of the season would have played out similarly regardless of who was fit.
This belief that injuries are our problem, is just an easy excuse.
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