SurreyBlue wrote:
17th Premiership wrote:
Its the game plan!
No, its the players!
No, its the assistants!
No, its the culture!
This is what we know:
1) We all want the club to be successful, although we may disagree with the reason we have been failing for so long
2) Voss is the coach as we begin 2026
3) The best possible outcome is that next year heralds the beginning of a Richmond-like 2017-20 era or Geelong from 2007....
4) If we are clearly failing/flailing early in 2026, Voss will be sacked either during the season or at season's end
5) Worst case is a middling year where it is (still) difficult to pinpoint the problem
I say, for the moment, our best option is to take a leaf out of Voss's speech and get behind him, the players, the club and hope that GW's changes - as well as Voss's near-death experience - enable us to make that leap forward. I would rather be wrong about what I think the cause is and find that we start winning than be right and we continue losing!
We have our coach/coaches in place, we will have a team in place ...and we have no say on any of these.
There are plenty of cases of clubs in similar situations to us, or worse, and then turning it around very quickly from Geelong 2006, to Richmond 2016, Bulldogs 2014, Demons 2020, Brisbane half way through 2024 (13th!!), Adelaide/Gold Coast/Freo 2024, Hawthorn 2023 (remember how "irrelevant" they were then...), Collingwood 2021...
Does it hurt to be optimistic and see how we go??
We have no choice but to back Voss in. We don’t all have to have blind faith and not raise our thoughts, do we?
Just because we have concerns also doesn’t mean we are negative. It’s just a false argument thrown up by many to keep people quite, which is wrong.
I’m certainly not trying to keep anybody quiet.
But I also think we are going in circles, each putting our views forward for what ails us. The truth is there are plenty of valid arguments to be made for all of the various theories. Or most likely a combination.
Graeme Wright has looked into it more thoroughly than any of us could and has made a call. Maybe because he thinks Voss is the man. More likely, he is keen to give Voss a better team, and hoping for a clear run of injuries and see what he can do, or possibly just happy to see out Voss’s contract and start afresh if/when he fails next season.
But we are not going to resolve anything by arguing in circles. We all know all the different potential causes. We know what we all think. (Personally, I prefer 1 ruck….).
So, until we have more info via the first rounds of next season (or maybe more fodder from the upcoming draft), I don’t really see the point of continuing to mount the exact same arguments to each other. For the moment, the coach stays. The trading period and draft still has unlimited possibilities and, sadly, remains the most exciting time of the year for us!
But, of course, if people enjoy continuing putting forward their own personal views about why we are shit and evidence which we’ve all seen a hundred times, enjoy…. I have no desire to shut anyone down. I guess my rant above is just a rhetorical eye roll
