Hawthorn Chief Justin Reeves communicates the facts and common sense to his Members and supporters, as well as, even if unintentionally, the wider football community whilst our leaders leave our club out to the constant media attacks and degrading of our Brand.
reeves said
Quote:
"our two first-round picks from the past two years are injured (in Will Day and Denver Grainger-Barras) and we had James Sicily, Jaeger O’Meara and Jack Gunston out of the team. The weekend wasn’t where we see our team being and Clarko and the team will review it today and pull it apart.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/hawthorn-v-west-coast-eagles-claim-38point-win-at-mcg-in-round-8/news-story/e6ddb6bf79f82223275236c4b8c7a913Our chief could have come out and set the record straight, otherwise we hear Teague's broken record and not laying blame. He could say something along the lines:
* we are not where we expected to be at this stage this year. We expected to take a couple scalps of last years and this year's top teams
* our 2 big recruits Saad and Williams have been playing under duress of injury, and its no secret Cripps and Casboult have played with injuries every game
* with injuries to C.Curnow, Gov, Silvagni, Fisher and Martin, 5 of our best forwards has been injured, key back, Marchbank, Newman and ruckman DeKoning have also ben out injured along with McDonald
*we had to play what we have, underdone, players carrying niggles, and we've had to blood young raw players like Stocker, Parks, Cottrell, and Owies who have impressed.
*we have been competitive against last years Premiers (Tigers), ladder leader (port) and finalist (Pies), and top 4 team (Lions) for 3 quarters, but that doesn't suit media's dialogue
* we have beaten sides we were expected to perform well against and won against up and coming teams like us, Freo GCS and Effendruggies
* we have lost our games by between 16 and 28 points; less than 3 goals to less that 5 goals, where turnovers have cost us between 6 and 8 goals in those games.
* the media haven't been too kind on carlton, nor have they highlighted the injuries to a third of our team this year, which have curtailed our season thus far,
* but we expect with the return of DeKoning, Silvagni, Martin and Newman in the next fortnight, followed by Fisher and Charlie in the next or so 6 weeks we should get our season back on track
*and who knows what impact the return of our first round players Kemp and Philp will bring.
* internally, we are aware of the bad luck this year, but we are excited with the list and what it will bring as they get to play together.
Then tell conclude and tell the public we have decided to rest Cripps and Levi to help them recover over the next 3 weeks (ie 2 games)