WTF?
we are 2-4 and playing a horrible, stilted brand of football. hardwick mitigated the damage against melbourne - not since 2016 has there been such a feeling of inevitability within a game.
it's been a long time since we focused so much on opposition.
we beat the bulldogs who are in freefall. we beat the giants who are as soft as they come, particularly at the MCG and without Greene.
you have oscillated between being down on the list to rainbows and fairies all of a sudden.
why don't you just watch the game?
i'm fine with a dip if it gives us a look at some kids and we net a high draft pick. a quick bounce for 2024.
in your world it would be great scraping into 8th and getting blasted off the park by a Jeremy Cameron. you welcome mediocrity, dude. but that's ok. it takes all types to make a forum.
I haven't been down on the list since 2009. Maybe wavered in 2016. Recognised the need for a change to our best 22 with rule changes last year.
Injuries have really tested our depth this year. But the changes to our best 22 have been really positive. Things like Rioli back, Baker forward, Gibcus in, Dow in, Balta forward etc.
If you're talking about last year, this is what I said in June 2021:
Never advocated anything other than picking our best side. Everything I said would happen did. We dropped Aarts and Castagna, then went hard at the draft. You had a go at me then.I posted earlier in the year, that I had seen our worst three games since 2016 all in this year. Now I've seen our worst four.
People like to point to our infrequent big losses in premiership years to suggest that nothing has changed. But the fact is, minor aberrations aside, we have been incredibly consistent throughout our reign.
This year is different.
Every year for the previous 4, I've said to anyone who will listen, 'We are the best side in it. We'll be there at the end.'
This year, we are not.
We are suddenly a middle of the road team.
Champion club? Yes. Also a champion coach, with some champion, albeit aging, players.
But the current 22 we're fielding is an 8-10th side.
Bad losses. Non competitive quarters. Skill errors. Inability to take something away from the opposition. Structurally unbalanced. Lack of composure in tight losses. Slow on the ground, beaten in the air. But with moments of brilliance and leadership from our stars.
We could pinch a couple of finals wins if the stars align in September and we sneak into the eight. Inconsistency means we can't dominate a season, but we could blitz a month.
But it's time to think about the R word. Refresh or Rebuild, whatever you want to call it. There's not much we can do this year to do either, so we might as well go hell for leather and try and jag one. We could move on non contributors that are not part of the future (Aarts, Castagna etc) and incorporate some who are maybe less ready, but are (Stack, MRJ). It's still time to be picking best 22, because the cupboard will be bare until the offseason.
But if we win it this year, it will be theft.
It is the end of the our reign, the signs have been there all year. We can't complain about the intensity or longevity of it. Though we can hope for an encore.
bookmarked that Coburg would like a rebuild in June 2021.
six months after winning our third flag and with finals still on the cards.
You were upset about me writing us off in June! And now you want to play for draft picks in April!
I find it odd that you do frequently have a go at people by saying things like 'Watch the games', or you lack insight, or whatever, when you're also so frequently wrong. It's okay to be wrong, we all are at times, but none of us are coming from a position of authority. None of us has any great insight.
We're all here with different opinions. And it's fair enough, when you want a rebuild a month and a half into the season, that we can have a different opinion from the guy who wanted a rebuild in 2017 before we won the flag, said Collingwood had gone past us in 2018 before our back to back premierships, and thought that refreshing last year was 'utterly ridiculous'.
I can see your point, most of the time, and respect it. You just tend to call any opinion other that yours nonsense, and any that aligns with yours astute. I think the last time you referred to anything I said as anything other than 'nonsense', 'ridiculous' or once even 'Ebola slime' (haha), was when you called one of my posts astute as I agreed that we should sack Hardwick in 2016. Possibly my worst ever take.