That’s one way to look at it. But in all fairness they managed to fill a few gaps/ add depth at virtually no cost, meaning we stayed in the draft and pick up someone like Caddy who could become a great player.
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You do have to wonder why the Cats even bother?
An intra club against their own ‘B’ team would offer a harder hit out than against our best 22.
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McGrath is a seriously overrated footballer….great at talking, no good at doing……this guy shouldn’t be anywhere near our leadership group. He epitomises everything that is/was wrong with Dudoro as a recruiter…you just don’t blow a number 1 pick on a back pocket player, HBF to midfielders will be engraved on his headstone when he goes
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We may be going down that’s my concern. After Friday I’m really concerned about the midfield. They look too slow and won’t man up. It’s been that way for years. The hard running leg speed isn’t there. Teams with a better midfield will cut us to pieces
My biggest concern for our midfield is its aggression and size. They looked timid against the saints and whenever we come up against a hardened contested midfield group we generally go to water. Libba and Bont feast on our timid small mids. Geelong the same over the years. I am hopeful although small ish Hobbs comes on, just loves the contest and Tsatas he looked quick and his hands great… Need to see if these players can take us forward. Whenever I see parish and Merrett in the middle I get concerned, our best pairing no doubt. But lack size and it’s see ball get ball… roulette everytime.
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I cringe whenever I hear Dodoro bang on about leaders and good kids from great families and so on and so on… he’s the common denominator.
And then Scott rolls out a leadership group of Merrett and McGrath, no question that Merrett is the only choice but there’s not one aggressive bone in either of them.
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Libba isn’t exactly a monster. Just an in and under player.
He’d be about the same height as Merrett.
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It’s his attitude and his attack on the ball that’s the difference.
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Might be right, that’s why I like Hobbs… I’d take Libba over Parish every day…
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We just don’t look like a team. We look like individuals. There wasn’t anything exciting on an individual level either, but that doesn’t bother me nearly as much.
Gresham was okay. But I’ve watched too much of Gresham with my St Kilda mate before he arrived on our doorstep to get excited about him.
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I understand your point, it’s never down to just one player to win games, it is a team effort. My point is that we haven’t had a real star who is able to turn the tide of a game when the pressure builds. There have been numerous Anzac Days when either a Swan or Pendlebury would will themselves to contests in the last quarter and swing the momentum their way. In these moments, we don’t have anyone capable or willing to do that for us.
Our bottom players do need to lift considerably and overall the team has to perform more consistently across the ground. We have too many players who have little to no impact for prolonged periods ( Weid, Kelly, Hind).
Im hoping the acquistions over the off season will help improve structure and create a groundswell where there is more competition for spots.
Ross Lyon did what our coach could not after our horror show of a finish last season.
Soft underbellys, mentally fragile, leadership issues in all facets.
We are going nowhere this year
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This to me is the real worry. It looks as though they have learnt nothing from those massive losses.
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Good move…never trust them they have screwed supporters around too much so it’s a healthy way of thinking.
Still love my club as do you but don’t trust in the lip service at all
That game meant absolutely nothing,
I may be delusional and I am sure many will say so.
But I believe the overreactions to it, are absurd.
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That’s the point - the players don’t care ……after two massive floggings end of last season you’d think they’d care
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Keep your eye on the prize.
Nothing to be gained hurting yourself, while playing silly buggers.
They would have been playing under instructions not to go hard.
Now you might think that was a mistake, but when nothing and I mean absolutely nothing was on the line, what happened last season is irrelevant.
Now is not the time to make amends.
That time will come.
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What happens this week if we get flogged by the Cats by 50+ points ?
That will largely depend on our approach to that hit-out.
Clearly we were not presenting any effort to create game plan synergy, to me it looked more like a collection of situational drills.
I am hoping that we approach next week with a different focus and see more stability to where players are playing. I still don’t expect us to risk injury, but hopefully we get a glimpse of game plan development.
In any event I guess we need to wait for next week to happen to provide another opportunity to pile on.
The loss to the saints doesn’t worry me one bit
What did worry me was the things that you normally want to see in a pre season game just didn’t seem to be there
Our structure still seems all at sea, especially defensively
No fringe players stood up, normally in a pre season game you expect a few fringe players to really put their hand up for a spot in Round 1. Nope, even worse that our fringe forwards in Jones and Weed were horrible
At least we had no big injuries
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