A few things....
Fraser is saying all the right things and certainly winning on the field. IMO, he should definitely be a part of the process. And I'm sure he is/will be. I suspect GW had him in mind all along... He has exceeded expectations, without doubt. However, the coming weeks will start to reveal a lot as opponents are able to gather more about how we are playing and have more of an opportunity to plan against it. I'm keen to see how we go when an opponent shuts down our run from the back half, or limits our uncontested marks, or finds a way out of our forwadline more easily. What do we do to overome these tactics?
The truth is it is very difficult to tell which of all the candidates will work best. That's why we are all relying pretty much 100% on GW / CD - they are clearly the ones who will make the call and we are backing them to be able to find the best option for us.
If it doesn't work, there will be a valid criticism in place - no matter which way we go:
- An experienced coach: It never works, we should have picked a new guy
- A young guy (not Fraser): Should have picked Fraser - he was right under our nose!
- Fraser: Well, he told you a thousand times that he wasn't ready! We got sucked in again by the 'Teague Train'...
So, we need to just make the right call. Unencumbered by the past. Not influenced by Board fetishes or fears. Or those of coteries.
Leigh Matthews has consistently maintained that the most important factor in a coaches success is the players they have to work with. Having said that, McRae was able to turn a bottom-4 list into Premiers in a couple of years, Mitchell looks like doing the same, Hardwick had to change his ways to turn an underperforming list into a Premiership dynasty, Fagan kept falling down at the last hurdle with his top-class list until he didn't etc... there are plenty of examples where you could point to the coach making the difference. (We could easily argue that Voss was unable to capitalise on our top-class list since 2023...)
I really hope they interrogate not just how the new coach will 'play the modern game' but how will they 'anticipate or adapt as the modern game evolves'!
Bottom line is there is no proven route to success. The winning pathways are often written in retrospect (David King says hello

) and were rarely subject to a proven route. We are putting a lot of faith in GW/CD. Hopefully, it works out!