With the new season starting now, what are your initial reflections on the 2024 H&A season?

PROS:

*Harry’s improved kicking. In fact, his improvement generally.
*TDK’s improved consistency. Grabbed the #1 ruck position and his upside looks exciting.
*E.Hollands. Exceeded my expectations. More importantly, he’s won the trust of his teammates. A bargain trade for us. Credit where it’s due to the list management team.
*O.Hollands. Had a few flat spots, but you can’t say he had the second year blues. Overall, backed up his excellent debut season.
*Late season exposure for Binns, Lord & Moir. Early days obviously, but all appear capable of playing at the level.
*Our leaders (Voss, Cook, Lloyd, Sayers) continue to represent the club in a professional and aligned manner.
*We made the finals (just!).
*Charlie. First 16 rounds.
*Cripps.
*Newman.
*June.

CONS:

*Injuries. @#$%&! injuries.
*Inconsistency.
*Not enough improvement across the board from last year. Aside from those mentioned above, no players advanced their reputation (and a number went backwards).
*Midfield guns Walsh & Cerra struggling with form and fitness.
*Too easy to score against too often, especially from stoppages. Our inability to defend stoppages is as chronic a problem as our injuries.
*We were well placed to finish top four and blew it in the run home.

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It's never as good as it looks and it's never as bad as it seems.

Well summed up ABNS.
Maybe could add to the positives that Wilson showed promise in the VFL and Cincotta has developed into a decent role player. Our supporters have been fantastic again.
On the negative side I was also hoping that Motlop might have progressed a bit more.

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In the Truth there is no news, and in the News there is no truth.

Add Moo to the list of big improvers.

I think TDK's breakout has been the highlight. And killing Geelong (fair bit of overlap there).

Ah yes I forgot Cowan.
Definitely a positive.

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In the Truth there is no news, and in the News there is no truth.

Thanks Humpers. Agree with you on Cincotta and our supporters.

Not sure about Wilson though TBH. Hopefully his skills settle down because I saw him butcher it quite a bit in the VFL.

And yep, Motlop is in that bucket of players who went backwards IMO.

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It's never as good as it looks and it's never as bad as it seems.

Good stuff ABNS . Season still alive .

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All my dangerous friends

Considering I think Richmond - who finished last - was the only other team with an injury list similar to ours, to be top 8 for majority of the year was impressive overall.
I was curious so dug through the CFC website.

Two players were gone for the season by the end of Round 1 (I still remember sitting on the couch going OMMMGGGGGG NOOOOOO when the Doc news came through).
We got a total of 11 games out of Martin, Marchbank and Cunningham (3, 3 and 5). Last year we got 33 games - 13, 8 and 12. Still terrible but a massive difference to this year.
Motlop only played 6 games this year (played 21 last year).
Cerra only played 12 games this year (played 22 last year).
Cottrell, Durdin and Fogarty all missed a good chunk of games this year. They played 14, 13, 15 games this year and played 17, 11 and 12 last year.
TDK played 17 games before getting injured (played 19 last year).

This is without even mentioning the huge number other players who "only" missed 2-3 games.

Also with Fog consider that last year he was always available but not chosen early on, this year he's first choice but missed half the games

Some great comments already on both sides of the ledger

I’d add

Matt Owies deserves a mention after another swag of goals - very reliable

Acres professionalism

Round 24 we fielded the second youngest team

AND building on positive comment about our supporters ……absolutely delighted we were number 1 for MCG and Marvel home game attendances….love that

And one negative - the moron that threw the bottle at the umpire last week

Weitering anyone?

Finally an AA guernsey!

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'People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.'
Soren Kierkegaard

It’s a well deserved honour for a terrific player. It’ll be interesting to compare how he goes at our B&F this year to last year, because I would have said he was better last year.

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It's never as good as it looks and it's never as bad as it seems.

I am very happy Weitering got an AA guernsey.
But agree he was better last year and probably lucky to get it this year.
I also love how clearly admired is our captain.
And, TBH, I think the selectors got it right leaving Curnow out. He has been floating along with no more than occasional moments of brilliance this season. Hopefully, he is fired up for Brisbane.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Yes , was better last year . Have the selectors got a guilty conscience ? belated recognition .

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All my dangerous friends

Wrapped for both of them and very grateful for their collective leadership and presence. They both seem damn comfortable in their own skin, it’s what you want in leaders.

As 17th posted, Crippa is clearly admired.

I can understand the non-selection of Charlie in the AA team, but I reckon he showed more than the occasional moment of brilliance this season. He was in genuine AA form up until the GWS game (Rd 17) IMO.

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It's never as good as it looks and it's never as bad as it seems.

Pros:
- First 15-16 rounds. Set a platform for top 2 or 4.
- Cripps’ season. Our best by a mile.
- Weitering another good season and finally rewarded with AA.
- Elijah Hollands recruitment has been a big success.
- Cowan’s progression has been good.
- TDK taking a step up before injury.
- Lord, Moir and Binns getting games late and showing good early signs.
- We at least made finals even if we should have finished much higher post the good start.

Cons:
- The fade out in the last two months of the season. Pending a finals miracle from 8th, we may have pissed away a chance at a flag this year on the back of home finals. It is made even worse that the fade-out started when the injury list was at its best for a few weeks there.
- The constant injury debacle. Every year it’s the same thing. The usual suspects breaking down - Martin, Marchbank, Cuningham etc. We might not be far from adding Cerra to that group. McGovern and Williams always in and out with niggles. We won’t do much until we clean this up. This and our lack of consistency is wasting a premiership window.
- Not too many established players, bar a few mentioned above, actually improved on the previous year. Walsh a big disappointment so far this year- probably injury related. Cerra a complete non factor due to injury. Charlie just flying by for most of the year although he was still kicking goals.

The fortunate thing is we’ve somehow fallen into finals so we get the chance to right a number of wrongs over the next few weeks if we’re good enough.

season 24 for me shows nothing has changed from 23 season ,still same shit game plan ,teams scoring easy goals, team defence hasn't improved yet we are lucky to play finals

The laws of maths tell me we're not lucky to play finals. We qualified.

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#DonTheStash

Umpire decisions are getting worse.
And that's all I will say about that!

the cons for me have just arrived - playing underdone players at the expense of the kids.

moir has x factor and the good lord has shown something, but its the same revolving door of players getting dropped or the sub, i'm quite disappointed at the selections for the brissie game

oh, and injuries.... b ut a pro is andrew russell going

and watching us destroy geelong before the wheels fell off

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my last one was rubbish