17th Premiership wrote:
Yeah rah rah rah and all that.... yehaa, lets sack everyone, beat up a few people, bribe a few more and we'll win a flag! let's offer malthouse $2m (Blight, anyone?)
BUT, Collingwood was looking a much worse place to be than we are now only a couple of years ago. Buckley gone. Thomas looking like a dud. No leadership. No guns.
Geelong was underperforming and on the verge of sacking its coach at the end of 2006.
Sydney was the 'ugly duckling' of the AFL, virtually bringing the game into disrepute, mid 2005.
Hawthorn was such a basket case a few years ago that Wallace (amongst others) selected RICHMOND as the better place to go. Dermie was so fed up he 'drew a line in the sand', and then there were calls for Clarkson to be sacked (Dawson, anyone??) 18 months later, they were Premiers.
Some teams take time. Some teams "take years to become an overnight success". We are progressing on many fronts. We also have glaring deficiencies but we can overcome these quite quickly. Ratten has not set the world on fire but he is learning steadily. Players seem to be miffed but our players have a bit too much hubris for their own good - perhaps they are not taking well to being put in their place. This unwarranted arrogance has led to the harshest criticism of the team this year - inconsistent intensity. Playing like millionaires etc... If they don't want to be at the club, the should piss off.
I'd much rather build a team of players committed and prepared to die to be out there rather than players who believe that we owe them without having earned it.
Some of your criticisms may be valid but we are learning and we are progressing. I have complete confidence in Greg Swann, if not some of the others. We are in a position to be considered in how we deal with our development. We are not Richmond. We are not Essendon*. Ratten is not Matty Knights. And if he turns out to have failed, we will be in a much better position to recruit a gun coach at the end of next year (who says Chris Scott or the like would be any better than Ratten????) Similarly, with the President. If your preferred candidate of Middle-Eastern appearance wants to be there with all his heart and soul, that would be great. If not, I'd rather not have him at this stage.
Let's just exhale. Appreciate the gains we have made. (Russell, Garlett, Henderson, Waite back to his best, JUDD, ruck stocks) be thankful we got value for Fev when we could easily have waited another year and got nothing for him...
And let's see how the club performs during trade week, at the draft and through the first half of 2011 before we start frothing at the mouth.
Great post and all that; I love the passion and you may be right - but we also need cool heads.
Most pundits were tipping us to miss the 8 this season. I reckon most will be tipping us to be top 6 next season. (And I think we could finish top 4.)
Our expectations for the following year are driven by past performances. I accept that this is an old bugbear of mine but our 3 losses last year to Ess and Freo (gabba) meant that we played an interstate final that we threw away. My take is that had we won one of those 3 winnable games we may have got a home final.
Also, had we beaten Bris in that final and lets just say had an honorable loss the following week, would expectations have been different for 2010 (without Fev)?
Bottom line is that, however we are expected to perform in the future is a function of how we have done in the past. If the media thought that we would crumble without Fev, its because they felt that nobody had been developed to take over his role.
at the rate that some people on here are happy with as far as development is concerned, we might be playing off for a flag in 4 years. And I dont give toss about the Bulldogs or whomever not going past the prelim. My father always told me to look at those better than you and try and reach their level. Collingwoods development rate is light years ahead of ours. So is Hawthorn. They are the sleeping giant in 2011. we need to pull our finger out and fast track development...at all costs
We have 3 #1 draft picks + Judd + a priority (Walker) and some on this site will be happy finishing 6th and maybe win one final. Every team is 3-5 years away from a flag or from a spoon. Our development rate is too slow. This is our single biggest issue
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