Braithy wrote:
Sidefx wrote:
Finally!!! A break through! Yes, you are defining the club by margins, losses etc. Rather than seeing the facts that I’ve been saying about our age, experience and cohesion. Maybe this is the light bulb moment for you that we need to wait until the end of the year to asses our development rather than calling for heads after 3 rounds. It’s not all doom and gloom unless your only focus is the win/loss column, just look at the experience of our midfield and what they can become with time. Pretty exciting!
No offence, but i don't need a breakthrough moment here. I understand what the pro bolton & the people who are preaching patience here are saying. I just don't agree with it, not all of it at least.
No one is calling for anyone's head after 3 rounds. We're actually 78 rounds into the rebuild, and what? into the 4th season of bolton? it really has been a disaster, and it shows no signs of letting up. at the end of this season we'll lose a few more old heads then at that point we really will be fielding an expansion-team calibre squad.
we have all the talent in the world, yes. but there's more pieces to the puzzle for success than that alone.
my fear for the club is; i think the 2017-18 offseason was the one that we'll look back at as the one that cooked us and cooked our plans.
delisting whatever cohesion we had, for players that ultimately were worse.
then 2018-19 offseason -- the AFL changes a key rule in regards to runners this year, which suddenly puts a premium on having leaders and onfield veteran presence, of which we suddenly have a bare cupboard.
And any way you dress it; trading our number one pick for next draft, was a statement of intent: Season 2019 we'd climb outta the cellar -- never mind we traded for a guy who might not even contribute at all this year (that's another issue entirely) , but it was a statement that we''re backing who we have here right now.
And we really do have deficiencies all over the park. starting with a lack of footspeed down back -- we're too tall; through the middle we're slow and lack polish (but we will get there with the talent) and up front. well dear god. No one up forward has any craft or smarts or can apply defensive forward pressure, or it seems, lead to the ball or into space.
It's a shame for Bolton that none of that is any of his doing. he's doing his best to put lipstick on this pig. but ultimately we have a rookie coach who's never won, along with a rookie list who's never won. and what you get is 2 wins in 35 games where the fanbase is actually saying, "well at least we're losing by not as much."
like, we've become so accustomed to losing here, that in order to grasp anything positive, we're actually measuring our loss margins.
it's like a seinfeld episode.
Firstly, great post. I'll answer in dot points to make it easier.
1. I assume you mean 69 games (3 seasons + 3 rounds) and there are more than a few on here calling for Bolts head this season with some even saying they used to believe but now they don't all after 3 rounds of games we would not have been penciled in to win anyway.
2. I hate to break it to you but the rebuild we have done probably makes us less than an expansion team because we have had to do a few things different:
a. We couldn't just get rid of the whole list in one draft because we just didn't have the picks for quality young talent.
b. We had to add discarded players from other clubs to temporarily patch experience holes of the delisted less talented players we had in the hope these discards would support the kids. Some worked some didn't and most have now moved on.
c. We did not have the luxury of the expansion clubs to bring top A grade talent to top up our list i.e. Ablett, Shaw, etc.
d. We did not have extra salary cap space either to do the above.
e. Finally we had to do it over 3 years gambling on fringe and discarded players to help us through the rebuild of the list.
3. Yes we now do have a lot of talent but it is all young and inexperienced. Time will fix this.
4. I can only assume you mean the injuries in the 2017-2018 offseason. It will just mean a 1 year delay in team development hopefully.
5. We had to delist those players, they were not up to AFL standard and unfortunately the upgrades were not either. But when you're on the bottom you have to take risks on these fringe/discarded players. Our list before Bolts and SOS was so bad and shallow it was embarrassing that it was allowed to get this way. Part of it was the Judd, Daisy contracts and a few others that pushed out quality players like Betts etc.
6. I totally agree about the new rules, we're screwed in the middle, a reason why I thought we should of grabbed Barlow as a level head in the middle to help direct the kids and at worst a good player in the VFL. But again that would be another risk.
7. Yes and no on trading our no.1 pick. It might have been a bit of a gamble that both clubs would finish closer to each other on the ladder but I think you'll find it's more that we are going to trade it for an established A-Grade midfielder. Let's hope we have one locked in already.
8. As far as our deficiencies go, yes we do have them but we still have a few key injuries that will address a few of these. But I think they just need more time playing together and more experience in the middle. I'd like to see more of Ed, Murph or even Lang when he returns in the middle to help the kids over the next few rounds.
It's not all doom and gloom yet though. If we are winless by the end of the year with little or no injuries then I'll help raise the white flag with you.
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