have any of "them" turned over the players we have in the last two years?
do any of them still have to turn over another large number of players at least once, maybe twice more?
dont confuse a clubs finacial state with the football side of things. from hawthorns premiership in 1991 to their next in 2008 the most they went without a finals appearance is 6 years. in that time they played finals in 9 years out of 18, but you think they were a basket case like us?
if you think that record is similar to ours, or even playing 2 finals series in 5 years is similar to playing none...well what more can be said?
Think I'll take wp's advice on this one as you obviously dont comprehend just how bad we were when hardwick took over
while we may vigorously disagree on player merit and worth on this we are in total agreeance.
when can we realistically and confidently expect to make finals. i ask it without the b/s and spin a club must put on things to get supporters and members in.
the real question is not when will we make it but do we meet the key criteria that will enable us to make it.
fail to understand what the criteria is and expectations can go thru the roof. fail to achieve the criteria yr after yr and you wont make finals.
to me and ive spoken about this lots of times on all sites the important criteria are.
1/ age groups - can people remember wallace bemoaning not having enough good players in the critical age group well he wasnt just peeing in the wind. what are the critical age groups. 22 thru 24 and 25 thru 28 and onwards.
an example of us lacking in this area is the simple fact that at the start of the season we had just 9 players aged 25 or more. they were maric, moore, king, mcguane, tuck, newman, foley, miller, and jackson. the age problem is then exacerbated by the over all quality of the players in this bracket. 7 of those 9 are likely to be gone within two yrs. so when the next tier like deledio derickx white nahas and graham step into this senior category the numbers wont be alleviated. the simple fact is the next tier to step up are mostly in the gun themselves. we either wait till enough good players develop and fall into this category or we can speed it up a bit by targeting a few mature types the reality is there is no quick solution to this.
2/ games played - which is directly linked to age but is also different. examples of why we dont put em all in one category is. morris and derickx are in critical age brackets but at the same time very inexpeienced when it comes to games played.
at the start of the season we had just 6 100 gamers and again the overall quality has to be called into question ffs miller was one of the 6. to go with this we had just 10 who had managed 50 to 99 games and again the likes of moore white edwards king mcguane and nahas made up the bulk of these numbers where was the quality.
3/ depth - again is loosly linked to the first two but is different depth is about having enough players in all positions to cover for injury and poor form its about having enough proven players who are up to standard.
surely i dont have to go into this the problem is there for all to see in most areas.
4/ quality of players - must have a good spread of high quality players thru the entire squad. and at the other end at least enough players who are up to standard.
simply put we dont have enough top end talent and the simple fact we play each week with a terrible bottom 6 in the 22 says we dont meet either criteria yet. we may have a fair few pieces of this puzzle in our system but that comes back to development time and patience. some things it seems people have run out of.
5/ list structure - is related to depth . must have enough of each type in your system at the needed stages of development that will allow you to cover for injury form and importantly development. player type and things like size height all fall into this category.
imo the list lacks about 4 genuine mids it lacks another competetive ruckman and one of quality in early development. it lacks a genuine big bodied fb and it lacks polished small forwards. mids aside we do have good numbers in most areas but we dont have the required quality or enough developed enough to help out and make a difference this yr.
it been plain all yr that this yr the 22 has needed a ruckman forward. a genuine second kpf, at least 3 genuine mids. a big bodied reliable key defender and goal kicking small/med forwards. again we may or may not have them in our system and we need to develop them.
anyway thats enough dribble the above is a pretty good reason imo why we should not have had expectations on the 8 this yr the above sort of says that the 8 next yr may not be a realistic goal either.
at the end of 2009 i thought we had only 5 or 6 definate long term keepers we now have about 16 with a few younger players who we should be able to add to the list in the future as well. we are getting there but it does take time.
for me the main aim for next yr should be to improve the bottom 6 in the 22 and build some actual depth.
