Yes true WP and there is a reason I believe so strongly about not finishing 9th even though we are moving up the ladder. I actually believe our current team is one more draft away from securing better than average players through next years draft and trade period. I would hate to think that we are getting ahead of ourselves...yet again. While I love winning and really don't want to lose I would take the loses for the sake of one more draft and better picks. We really have no depth, we have no players coming through in the seconds, that have shown they will be anything. We have a week backline and I feel that with one more decent draft we could top up the positions where we are lacking depth.
Bingo! Although WAT I think we're outnumbered on this
. This is the last of years you want to finish 9th with only pick 18 on offer. That's effectively missing out on a normal first round pick
. Wait till next year and go for your life up the ladder as even 9th place would still get us a top 10 pick plus we'll have our end of first round compo pick available. As you said WAT overachieving this year would be getting ahead of ourselves and hurt us in becoming genuine premiership challengers in the upcoming years.
We've been very fortunate this year with few key injuries apart from Moore so our lack of depth hasn't been exposed against the low-to-middle of the road sides.
Our spine is only settled at FF with Jack. We are hoping Griffs and Astbury in time will fill two of them but nothing is certain yet and then we've got to find a big-body full back. The ruck possie is certain either.
Our side has too many smalls who will get pushed aside by bigger bodied opponents in finals footy if we think the current group as is is complete enough to move forward with. Also we still lack class across all lines as our side falls away quickly after the top half-dozen or so players. The class is found earlier on in the draft. No coincidence our best players are high draft picks - Lids (1), Cotch (2), Martin (3) & Jack (13).
We may have won 3 in a row but we are still a long way away. Judging us by wins/losses is still misleading.