Bowden pulled that crap for most of his career under several coaches.
Kel Moore's 2008 was his best year, but still wasn't as great as made out by some and Thursield was comfortably better
I recall Jackson & Tuck both racking up the possessions in 2009 because oppositions allowed them to, as they weren't a threat. B&F results mean stuff all to me.
Never said Tambling was ever going to "reach expectations". Clearly he wasn't.
We stood up under pressure in the last quarter in at least 5 games that year - more than we have during Hardwick's entire reign.
Jackson was playing as a tagger 
and did it well I might add. He was rubbish for the next 3 seasons.
Can you name the 5 games? I don't really remember them that clearly. I certainly don't remember us playing finals in 2008.
Absolutely laughable to say Thursty was better than Moore that year. Moore took the best defender each week and did good jobs on the likes of Franklin & Jono Brown.
The opposition allowed Shane Tuck to rack up possessions? And here I was thinking he won mostly contested ball his entire career.
Bowden's crap got him in AA squads and won him B&Fs. I do agree that some B&F results can be dodgy but you don't finish top 5 almost every year like Bowdo did unless you can play.
- IIRC in 2009, Jackson & Tuck both regularly racked up 20+ possesions. Stats may well contradict this, but that is my recollection. Opposition sides knew their disposal was not damaging and often even favourable to them.
- Off the top off my head Brisbane at Docklands, Port at AAMI , Essendon second match, Carlton round one(?). thats 4. Sure there was another one or two. I'm talking about last quarter efforts, not our overall performances.
- Thursfield was last pure stopper we had and was a rock on the last line - yes he wasn't much of an attacker, but he was servicable and excelled in his primary roll. He was rarely caught out of position. Moore was descent rebounder and he had a few high-profile wins but with the ball coming in he had no idea was far too often left trailing in his opponents wake or nowhere near it. Like Rance the further from goal he played the better he was, we haven't had as reliable a mark on the flanks until Ellis came along, but I maintain my opinion that as a defender he wasn't nearly as good as many claim. .
Bowden was a quality talent, only a fool would deny, my problem with him was the amount of times he took the soft option and played unaccountable football. He didn't take the game on nearly enough , particularly from defence and would often ignore blatant options and teammtes in space or running past with a paddock in front of them and effectively kill our run, holding onto the ball, chipping it around and generally kicking every which way but forward.
My opinions were in regards to a few specific things, not an extended commentary meant to imply Wallace was a better coach than Hardwick or that we were overall a better side in 2008 than now.
