I think that we will be better than a lot of you are expecting.

Given a good run with injuries then I think that we will be around the top 6/second week of finals mark.

kast year we had the following players miss significant chunks of football - warnock, jacobs, waite, jamison, walker

rucks - warnock fit, jacobs fitter+hopefully injury free, hampson another year of education, kreuzer another preseason of strength/conditioning <- we will be much stronger here
mids - lost stevens, but benefit from gibbs+murphy getting stronger, betts/houlihan being a lot fitter, walker being injury free, inclusion of mclean (who along with hadley should ensure we have at least 1 hard nut in each game). <- Some might disagree but stevens is a significant loss but I think the expected improvements gibbs, murphy, betts, houlihan through this area will more than offset that. One balance I'd have us ahead of last year particularly given better service through the rucks
backline - jamison back, bower natural improvement will ensure we are around the mark. Question marks on armfield's fitness. <- provided non of the 3 talls go down we will be much stronger here than last year
forward line - loss of fev is massive but partly offset by sending waite forward+recruitment of henderson (we will get 50+goals out of the 2 of them). Much more unpredictable this year which will benefit the team - betts much fitter, yarran looking to step up <- hard to compare to last year given the loss of fev could potentially be offset by the unpredictability of the forward line (no long 80+% of entries to one player).

Of the 1st year players from 09 - yarran+robinson look to be much better players and should contribute meaningfully to the team, hard to comment on garlett though as he has been unsighted in many games (lack of opportunity)
Of our new guys - lucas has looked ok from limited viewing however the one that has impressed me is davies - imo will be entrenched in the 22 before the year is out.