ie if we get as good a run next year as it was bad this year - what’s the likely outcome?
I’m picturing:
-All of our best experienced players stay on the park (Merrett, Langford, Parish, McGrath, Redman, Ridley, Wright, McKay)
-Caldwell and Durham continue to improve
-Reid gets his body right, Cox plays a full year
-Martin and Bryan come back mid season and hit the ground running
-Archer May becomes a viable alternative/complement to Wright
-Kako and Caddy become stars
-The baby bombers continue developing
-The new draftees all get a taste of senior footy, Sharp and Robey become best 22 players
Now, if all (or even most) of that happens, where do you see us finishing up? And more importantly, what would be the implications in terms of trade/free agency/draft prospects for the next couple of years.
I think the “if everything goes right” hypothesis is like a Tattslotto player saying “if all my numbers drop”
yes, it can happen but in reality it’s highly unlikely.
Temper expectations without being pessimistic.
Clearly we want a better run with injuries but we all know players doing ACLs is just bad luck. We had 4 last year so hopefully the odds are we won’t have as many if any this year. I would like to think keeping Parish, Langford, Ridley and Reid fit would be the best possible outcome as soft tissue recurrence is more or less manageable. Frankly a full season from Reid would be a brilliant outcome.
My version of everything going right is that we build a game plan and press on with the young guys. Caddy gets a full year. Johnson gets a full year. Kako gets some midfield mins, Reid just gets a sustained run. Robey, Sharp and Farrow all feature at different points and big Vigo gets the odd game.
If all our injuries woes disappeared and are senior guys played to their potential (like Perkins, Parish, Mckay) I think we’d land between 8 and 10. We’d beat the bad and some of the mid table teams.
I agree that our senior players who are known quantities are B-graders at best (with the possible exception of Ridley who, if he gets his body right, could be an A-grader).
But some of our young talent has A-grade potential. Just potential, yes. But it’s not out of the realms that Reid, Caddy and perhaps Kako could all reach that level (maybe not as soon as 2026 for the latter two).
I think we need one more year of bottoming out and grabbing 2-3 top 15 picks if we can wrangle it somehow. Then 2027 we look to bring in established talent and grow from there.
If he’d converted as well as he normally does he’d have had a 40 goal season (he was still our leading goalkicker), while doing a serviceable job as back-up ruck.
I like Pete, I think some folks just expect far too much from him.
