my two cents wrote:
I believe that Ratten is / will be a reasonable coach but not top drawer on evidence so far, tho he needs quality help in the coaching box and fast. Also, given the talent at hand, the odds are that he will get us to the 17th.
IMO, a top drawer coach would have had us playing finals last year, entrenched us in the top 4 this year. The difference between a top drawer and reasonable coach is 1 to 2 premierships. Think of Geelong under Malthouse or Roos, pretty sure they would have won more than 1 premiership by now.
I just don't want us to be next Geelong, super list yet only 1 premiership to show.
Very presumptuous. We aren't nearly good enough to think that an ordinary coach will "yada yada" a flag. It doesn't work that way. St Kilda, Dogs, Cats, Pies have all had some fantastic teams over the decades, some of them well coached, and most of those teams got bupkis. Between them these 4 clubs have 2 flags in 200 years of trying.
Waiting for Ratten to become a reasonable coach is like waiting for Ellard to get promoted and play a few games - don't expect to be blown away.
We have 7 good older players with a future of 3-5 good years: Fevola, Judd, Thornton, Waite, Simpson, Carrazzo, Setanta (the last few are a stretch). We have 13 younger players with the talent to play 7+ years if they're good enough / improve enough: Walker, Murphy, Gibbs, Joseph, Bower, Jamison, Austin, Kreuzer, Hampson, Warnock, Yarran, Betts, Grigg. Maybe add Browne, Robinson O'Keeffe and you have a group that should
contend in 2010-2012 for September silverware.
The thing is, there are bigger, richer, hungrier, more professional clubs out there doing their best to do the same, yet you assume that a drover's dog could get this bunch over the line for a flag. Don't worry, even Melbourne, WCE and Freo will be good teams in 2-4 years.
I can't remember a year with fewer competitive teams. We've won one extra than last year, but apart from Judd getting fitness back and natural development of Kreuz, Hammer, Murph etc, plus the addition of Joseph, have we improved as a team? Flower it's been marginal.