Honestly.
We don’t deserve to make the finals.
Edit: and I’m just unsure why people are hoping that we scrape in once again. We only ever make up the numbers and supporters are proud of it.
I don’t understand what your trying to say. The message from the coaches and leaders right now should be based on giving confidence and giving your all. Don’t question the game plan, we are naturally in the right position but our turnovers are causing a two goal swing. Skills are killing us and the focus should be resolving that.
We would if we could turn it around tomorrow.
I just don’t think anyone thinks that
Finals would be nice, but I think what we really should be aiming for is playing 4 quarters of good honest competitive football week in week out. Win or lose (and you’d hope that would give us some wins) is not the major point, the wins will come if we get to that level.
We want to see the team improve it’s overall performance and competitiveness from last year to show we are getting better.
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So, which players are we going to bring in?
Already tried Dea. Brown Langford, McKernan Mc Niece Baguley, Long; At least 3 of these to be delisted.
Already in the side: Mutch, Laverde Guelfi
Ready: Clarke, Redman Ridley
Not ready Houlahan, Francis, Lavender, Draper, Mynott, Zerk
So, you suggest we chuck in the season, so we can bring in the 3 players who are ready but have not been tried and hope we finish bottom 4 ( aka tanking at selection) ?
I don’t think the problem is the fringe players.
It’s why are our best 10 all out form. Not a single player would even be in AA discussions at the moment.
It startled me the other day to think that Zaharakis might nearly be our most consistent player this year!
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Was there with you sister
Chucking in the season, or going to development phase gets us 1 early first round draft pick, probably an improvement of 10-12 positions in draft order
Losing our way to a better draft pick does not help us to develop a culture of playing 4 quarters and winning games which is the most important thing right now.
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We played well vs Sydney last year the first time just 4 mistakes made late and it could’ve gone differently. But it didnt and we lost.
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That’s the only one I can remember. It’s a concern.
When you look at the Collingwood teams that made the grand final in 02 and 03, I reckon the club had every right to think they were a top up or two away. Even 04 we played some really good footy and a number of elite players.
People point to the salary cap issues killing the 2000 team and us failing to build sustainable success, but I reckon the biggest impact was Rama, Rioli and Winderlich - if we get full seasons from them 04 onwards this team has capacity to refresh. Instead they were left to rely too often on Hird, Lucas, Lloyd.
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The wheels came off for the rest of the season. Brisbane game was worse than that loss.
Even weirder, our imports are often the ones holding things together.
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I think refusing to strategically rebuild by bottoming out in the early 2000’s combined with the later introduction of two new francises that raped the draft really hurt us. Im not even going to mention the drug scandal. Im happy for the club to pursue working at the game plan that must be so complex and difficult to execute, that not only us supporters, opposition teams and AFL experts dont understand, but neither can the players. If it takes a couple of years for the team to gel and master the game plan, so be it. Wallow down the bottom and get some decent talent come draft time while we are at it.
The problem is that barring one of those rare miracles (didn’t the Tiges win 9 in a row to make the finals a couple of years ago) there is literally nothing about this gameplan that inspires confidence that we can turn it around. Oh I will still watch every game like I did in 2016 but personally, the hope is not burning bright.
And, Woosha, I am sorry, but the buck stops with you.
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Oh FFS!
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We haven’t done this in years.
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Look, I don’t think we should be throwing away the season at all, but focusing on development doesn’t just get an early pick, it gets development. Or rather, independent of a better draft position, perhaps winning right now is not the fastest way to a winning culture, local maxima and all that.
You can look at it that winning is the important criterion, and consistent effort is something that follows winning. Players win, they see what it takes to win, they enjoy winning, they are more likely to play that way next week, and so on. In that case you simply pick the 22 players most likely to win. Could be some flaky but talented players in there, or some seasoned players who can provide decent impact even if they don’t play at full tilt.
Or you can say that consistent effort is the important criterion, and winning will follow. In that case you pick the 22 players most likely to give consistent effort. To me that’s about measuring consistency against capacity. An 18 year old might blow up and not be able to play a full four quarters, but if they’re trying to do it, that’s a better result than a 25+ year old player who definitely should be able to play four quarters but for some reason drops off for chunks of time.
I’m not 100% either way, I think you can overplay “drop him to the VFL” as a tactic when it’s inevitable that most players have an off week or two (ie the Beveridge approach), but also if the pathology of the team is to routinely go missing even when you continually back them in, then it’s probably not just the fringe players at fault.
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I just keep coming back to. What’s gonna get us more net gain. Pumping games into younger players at the expense of older players or the opposite. Now with Lang Clarke lav etc we may go backwards or sit in status quo or we could improve. But with players like Myers baggas Goddard to an extent we know what we’ll get. And by my reckoning bags is at the end some with Goddard and Myers just costs too much to maintain. 3 games rest 3 games rest. Where the first and last game are almost warm up cool down games.
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Having Woosh signed long term actually gives us the flexibility to declare this season a write off by round 10, play the kids and call 18/19 development years.
We won’t tho. We’ll scrap to finish 7-12 like every other year and talk about learning.
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