Surely there’s a curse at FC. In spite of variously being described as a fitness guru and elite operator, Hawthorn have been unable to get Birchall back on the park, basically at Gumby-Pears levels of injury - rehab disaster.
clearly Russell is not guaranteed to be the answer to the bad Karma that surrounds FC.
Sidebottom equal with Cripps? He was pretty much one of the last guys tagged in a gf side while Cripps had half the opposition hanging off him playing with a barrel of monkeys.
Ordinary ones at that.
Pendles spends so much effort these days using his basketball background and his Jedi mastery to make time stand still so he can run around opponents, he forgets to do anything particularly damaging eg. win contested ball, take contested marks or kick goals.
He is still a good player, albeit past his peak now.
Sidebottom’s got a few decent mates alongside him though. Gary Ablett couldn’t make Gold Coast a finalist off his own back, so why would Cripps have higher expectations on him?
Cripps is very good, no doubt about that but he is made to look better than he is because he is surrounded by some utter trash and long may he continue to be.