Why not both, like Dusty, Dangerfield and Fyfe to name a few?
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No, thatās just the blitz vibe that was doing the rounds for a bit there
Im kind of hoping he is on the arrogant side tbh
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Oh gotchaš
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Personally l love this time of the year and in a way hope the season never starts. We can dream as much as we want
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I am excited about how the young group are united and have a purposeā¦ but i am also realistic on next year that the side wont threaten the top 6 teams. My excitement is more longer term growth and group coming through
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Draper just turned heel!
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I saw this image and thought to myself āWow, Perkins is a midgetā¦ā
I then realised everyone around him is over 200 cm.
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Now is not the time for your ārealismā
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Nackers, youāre making it very difficult for me to mope, feel despondent and remain on suicide watch.
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Itās hard to see anyone having the sort of impact Ridley had, I canāt recall anyone else from any team going from borderline delisted to just missing out an a AA with only a handful of games under the belt. I did also make special mention of Ridley in his first year after 2 or 3 sessions, it just took a while to click for him.
itās also a bit early yet, by this time last year the whole team had 3 - 4 weeks training in them.
That said I think Iāve seen enough (which is not much really) to say Perkins will have an impact in his first year. I recall seeing both Heppell and McGrath in their first sessions and thought the same thing about them.
Draper is an obvious one, but Iāve been saying that for a few years as would most people who have seen him at VFL level. He should have played from the start of the year when he did his knee, and of course was only coming back from injury last year.
I think Langford will make an even bigger step up than he did last year to become one of our most important players, and considering he finished 4th in the Creighton last year that would be a pretty good level. The light switch in his head has definitely turned on for him, heās now one of the young leaders in the club. I wouldnāt be at all surprised if he was elevated to the leadership group.
Of the youngsters Cahill and Jones havenāt put a foot wrong, but Iām not sure if they will have a big impact or just be in and out of the team, it could go either way.
The player I would most like to have a breakthrough is Francis, he certainly has the potential to get to Ridley levels and if he did we would have the makings of a great backline, but who knows if it will click for him or not, maybe he will show it in the next month or so.
Redman is another one with the potential to have a breakout year, but he hasnāt even been at the club yet so I canāt really say anything about him.
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I agree with you in theory that next season in all likelihood will be a developement season with us showing glimpses into the future but not necessarily winning a lot of games.
But history has shown us that even in recent times things can happen even quicker than even the most optimistic could imagine.
Some Examples:
Geelong went from 10th in 2006 with a 10 1 11 record to a premiership the next year
Richmond went from 13th in 2016 with a 8 14 record to a premiership the next year
Collingwood went from 13th in 2017 with a 9 1 12 record to runners up in 2018
Brisbane went from 15th in 2018 with a 5 17 record to second on the ladder in 2019
Footscray won a premiership with a whole bunch of kids in 2016.
And of course Essendon went from a 160 point belting in round 20 1992 to a premiership in 1993 on the back of a whole bunch of untried youngsters including Hird, Mercuri, Fletcher, Misit, Olarenshaw, Hills, Calthorpe etc.
While Iām certainly not saying it will happen, for the first time in a longtime we have a whole bunch of exciting new players, a new coach, changes in the board and administration, as well as some potentially very good role players in Wright, Caldwell and Hind, and Iām not ruling anything out just yet.
One thing you can guarantee almost without a doubt, some team will unexpectantly have a sudden jump up the ladder.
Lets hope next year itās us.
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Reckon you meant 1993 there mate, but I love the positive thinking.
Just one thing though - you mentioned Peter Wright as a good role player. It sounds like heās in good shape, but Iāve read 2 reports now that have said his marking has been off at training.
This worries me a bit, because I really donāt see a role for a 200cm forward who canāt take a grab. To me, that sounds like weāve recruited Josh Schache. Am I being too harsh there though?
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I reckon youāre right about 1993, corrected now.
With Wright itās a bit hard to tell for sure just yet. It can be a very difficult place to take marks at the best of times with the almost constant strong and sometimes flukey wind, even players with good hand sometimes struggle and take time to adapt and judge the wind.
So there may be some cause for concern, maybe not, again time will tell.
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Youāre writing him off because he dropped a couple of marks at training. Before Christmas. After less than a handful of sessions.
That does seem harsh.
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And what was Laverde doing?
Answered already. In the gym with Hooker and came out to watch later.
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Agree with Nackers, you could tell very early that McGrath might be good enough to play round 1, and it was confirmed during match sims in February. So it sounds encouraging about Perkins, but wait and see how he goes when the players with big boy pants return in the New Year.
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Before people get all excited about our awesome training reports, itās important that I remind Blitz that everyone looks good when they play Essendon, and therefore our training drills will look good because we are training against Essendon.
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WTF!
Not a photo you want circulating social media.
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