That's because they play keepings off, and rely on Buddy to create something out of nothing up forward. Lose Franklin, or some of their elite defensive rebounders (Guerra, Suckling, Birchall), and they would struggle.

When Collingwood lost Dawes, they lost their edge a little. If they lost Cloke, they'd lose it a lot. Or some of their elite defenders in Reid, Tarrant, O'Brien, Shaw or Davis.

It's true we might not have depth quite as good as Collingwood and Hawthorn, yet we've had a lot of injuries and played a lot of players, and still finished pretty high. So it can't be all that bad. We don't have enormous key position depth, it's not surprising we took a hit with them out.

Hawthorn lost two of their best key defenders and Roughead early on, and have lost 4 games for the year.

Collingwood won all their Dawes-less games by an average of 11 goals. They've also been without Reid, Tarrant and Shaw (albeit not injured) for decent periods, as well as Brown for the season, and you'd barely notice.

These teams handle it better, and that's why we're behind them. It's that simple. We instantly look lost when we lose a key tall, and it's like a red flag to a bull to the opposition.

We had those kind of losses to playing personnel as well Don, and we've managed only slightly poorer.

Exactly my point. If we want to reach that same level we need to improve in this area. Slightly poorer shouldn't cut it anymore.