How on earth are you re-signing Laverde?
Even the club has pretty clearly forecast that this year will be his last.
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Iām sure the club is always thinking/hoping that we are a chance to win a final right up until we are mathematically impossible to do so., this mindset is dumb and arrogant and hasnāt worked for us in over 20years.
Bite the bullet, have some courage and foresight and commit to a proper rebuild.
You write that and then remember who we have as coachā¦ Ffs.
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How could we have had both? Zerk and Mass requested to leave.
Fair to say none will play in a premiership side
McGrath would though in another team
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We need one player / list management decision that can be held up as āthe reason we arenāt committing to a proper rebuildā. It fools people into thinking our failure is the result of a simple and obvious change and that there is an obvious path to getting better - even if the club isnāt following it. The alternative - recognising we are bound to fail no matter the path, will expose the curse / destiny plaguing the club. Why are we destined to fail? Iām a little scared to say too much. Letās just say jobs for the boys and private school mentality led to a properly deal with the devil to hide where the bodies are buried shortly after Jay Neagle played on against the cats.
Indictment on Scott that the only players to have shown improvement in his time are Durham and Caldwell
Yet he was supposed to āget the most out of the listāā¦ā¦ā¦heās actually got the worst 
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Reid has shown improvement. Draper as well. Langford too. Iād say Merrett has grown as a leader. Martin has improved.
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We were worse in the rain. rain didnāt help us
Nothings improved there either. Weāve been rubbish in the wet for 20 years
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Yep, Draper
In a word ādepthā.
Hayes
What if Hayes is injured?
Speed of ball will always beat pace, we simply need to target more elite kicks.
Itās still our biggest weakness IMO, we are probably the worst kicking team in the comp and rectifying that should be one of our main priorities. We actually have very few players that Iād consider a good field kick let alone elite
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Someone made a good point about good/elite kicks and good decision makers. Their example was Martin off half back last year who is a good kick but his decision making was questionable. I agree we have some genuinely poor skilled players and in key areas of the pitch too but it would be nice if we could have both. Players with elite footy IQ would be an absolute need for me as well as having skills.
We have what I term as a lot of āloopyā kickers that can get it somewhere in the vicinity of the player but not to advantage which often leads to our better players by foot trying to bite off more than they can chew and make some really risky decisions.
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Reid, Perkins, Merrett, Redmanā¦ā¦
I think weāve assembled some really useful pieces both forward and back. Enough that with a bit of luck injury wise and better than historical development, we could finally be building a capable list.
I think of post 2027 looking like:
FF: Gerreyn - Perkins - Kako
HF: Merrett - Caddy - Day-Wicks
(Bewick/Davey Jnr/Al-Achkar/Unwin)
and
HB: Clarke - Reid - Roberts
FB: McGrath - Hayes - Ridley
(Johnson/Nguyen/Redman/El-Hawli)
Add to that either some real elite midfield talent (to go with our current set up) and some positional upgrades where possible, and I think we might be on the right track.
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Yep, things can change quickly and a lot of premiership sides have formed around 1 really good draft crop and astute trading. Iāve not seen enough of Clarke or Unwin, but Kako, Caddy , Roberts, Reid, Gerryn, Johnson, Nguyen, Vigo all show great signs in their early output. Iām certainly still a believer in Tsatas too.
Thereās a bit to work with moving forward. Development is key, of course. And that hasnāt been a strength of ours for some time.
Personally, Iām not in the ātrade three first rounders for H Reidā camp. Two at most and even then Iād be fine with Rosa taking both picks to the draft instead.
Iād also be fine with trading Parish now. Keep Durham and Duursma and shift the focus / opportunity onto the younger kids.
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Iām on board with this - largely mirrors my sentiments.
If Parish and a Redman type could bet useful draft capital either to draft with or help with trades, then I think that helps us improve quicker.
I would seriously look at Reid though. Not for an unreasonable price, but if we could do it while keeping a presence in the next few drafts Iād be all in. Heād be that elite mid quality we need to add to our current talent stocks.
If it was three firsts for him, Iād be wanting two WCE seconds coming back. Otherwise our two first this year straight up. Any more than that and Iād have to walk away.
Brad Scott has made some horrible mistakes as coach, but when you have a whole team terrible kicksā¦ā¦ Iām not sure what the coach can do.
Itās not a development issue, is a recruitment problem.