We aren't that good.

[ozzult]

We aren't as good as what we once thought. While we are still a good team, we aren't as good as what the media (especially Victorian) thought we were at one stage (strong premiership chance).


We will be a premiership contender, and I think the next three years 04, 05 and 06 will be our serious tilts at the flag. We still have a lot of improvement to go, defence especially. The maturing of our tall forwards is coming along nicely (McDougall, Staker), once our defence sets itself (hopefully Glass and Gaspar will be able to hold a ship down there), we will be a pretty formidable side.

Although, we are definitely not premiership chances this year (hope I'm wrong).

 

[daddy_4_eyes]

We have the cattle, we just need the experience and maturity. Most premiership teams have a core group of players playing at their peak (i.e. aged 24-28). Our core group for the most part is in their early 20's. The development of our KPP will go a long way to establishing us as premiership contenders, but its that current core group that will win us premierships.

 

[The Passenger]

if you look a break down of our list we have 9 guys who are born before 1978 (I.e. turned 26 or older in 2003), 12 guys born in 1978 and 79, 16 guys born in between 1981-83 and 7 guys born in 1984 or later.

So that is 23 guys who are 22 and under this year.

the guys which make up that list are Cox, Dean - Gaspar, Travis - Glass, Darren - Embley, Andrew - Hunter, Adam - Adkins, Damien - Haynes, David - Beeck, Zac - Rudeforth, Clancy - Lynch, Quinten - Kerr, Daniel - McDougall, Andrew - Humm, Jeremy - Judd, Chris - Munro, Kane - Nicoski, Mark - Seaby, Mark - Edwards, Aaron - Hansen, Ashley - Selwood, Adam - Staker, Brent - Johnson, Paul - Sampi, Ashley.

If you take out the rookies, there are 19, and those 19 have played a total of 172 games between them (averaging just over 9 games so far for this season).

So that means a little under half of the guys who have taken the field this year have been 22 or under, which means there is a lot of imporvement to be made on our list, which is a fantastic sign for the future.....

 

[The Passenger]

just two quick questions (first one should be easy), does anyone know how many players each club has on its list which are born during or before 1977.

I would be pretty confident, we'd have the least out of any club, if not, we'd go very close.


The second is a little harder, but does anyone know how many under 22 players each club has played this year per match (I.e. if you tallied up all the matches played between guys born in 1981 and later, and divided them by 19)

I too, would be confident that we'd be right up the top, or very close to it in this area as well.

 

[USAEagle]

Yes we are that good when we put a full strength side on the field.

You put a healthy Gardiner, Fletcher and Embley on the field last Saturday and we win.

We had two shots hit the post, and Fido missed one easy one - still trying to figure that one out, (and Willow's poster) and the game is a completely different story - with a margin of only 4 points.

Not bad for a team that is not that good.

Everybody says "Oh you can't use injuries as an excuse."

The fact is injuries are not an excuse, they are the reason.

An excuse is I couldn't find my boots or I didn't think it was my ball to chase down.

Look at the Chicago Bulls of the 90s. THree straight titles, Jordan quits, they go to the bottom. He comes back they win three more straight.

Look at the Bombers when Hird and Lloyd are out.

Every other team claims injuries when they have them, but when we are more than decimated with them, we can't point to them as a possible reason we are not performing so well.

How the hell do people expect us to perform when 8 out of our best 22 ( if you include Carroll, which we have to because he is playing a lot,) that is in fact 36%, are sitting on the sidelines?

No team would be as good with just one of those guys missing.

Look at what we did to Brisbane without Voss and Brown. SUrely that affected the final score - we might still have beaten them, but having those guys missing surely didn't help.

The fact is we had 28 fit players to choose from las t weekend, which is worse than our 2001 team. We played a hell of a lot better Saturday than we would have done then.

 

[Mead]

There are two ways of looking at the injury caper. The fact is truly awesome teams can absorb a certain amount of punishment- Port have had a pretty dreadful run with injuries, and are still the best team going about atm- in fact its pretty scary to imagine how good they'd be if Francou hadn't gone down.

As for how good we are as team? well one question that can be answered with some assurance, is not-as-good-as-Port.

But aside from that, at the moment we're in a rut that would happen to more or less any other side in the competition suffering from our injury losses. As for that excusing our last two losses- absolutely nothing excused the crap we served up against St Kilda- the way we played, we could have had Gardiner, Embley, Fletcher and Peter Sumich out there, and still lost. The game against Adelaide was a different story- we didn't actually play that bad- it was just a question of one side having significantly better cattle out there than us.

The Good News is that even after a month of injury woes and poor form we're still in the 8 and have (fingers crossed) got through the worst of it, and will start to get back some of our guns from here on in.
By the look of things against the Crows, I'd like to think we've had our slump and bottomed out in terms of form and fitness against St Kilda the previous week and are on the way back now. If that is the case, better that it happened at the end of July rather than the end of August!

If we can (and we should) win this weekend, then we'll go in revitalised and almost full strength against the woeful Dees at Subi. Then after a nice leisurely fortnight without any interstate travel, we'll bump up against Freo in a crunch derby for us- if Embley makes it back by then, I'd feel a lot more confident.

 

[Kenny_01]

Originally posted by Black Thunder

The second is a little harder, but does anyone know how many under 22 players each club has played this year per match (I.e. if you tallied up all the matches played between guys born in 1981 and later, and divided them by 19)

I too, would be confident that we'd be right up the top, or very close to it in this area as well.

We'd be well ahead of you here. Just quickly looking at the number of games played for the players 22 years of age or younger:

Pavlich 19
Hasleby 19
Haddrill 19
Medhurst 19
Headland 18
J. Longmuir 18
Polak 18
Woods 17
Hayden 17
Grover 16
Sandliands 15
Schammer 15
McPharlin 8
Haines 7
Siegert 4
Browne 3
Thornton 3
Webster 2
Cunningham 1

Total Games = 238

Avg: 12.52


WC
Judd 19
Haynes 19
Kerr 17
Embley 17
Sampi 17
Hunter 16
Cox 15
Glass 12
McDougall 8
Humm 8
Adkins 8
Munro 6
Gaspar 5
Staker 3
Chambers 1
Selwood 1
Johnson 1

Total Games: 173

Avg: 9.11

So we have are averaging 12 and a half players a game that are 22 or under, compared to your 9. It's fair to say we are a fair bit younger.

 

[Kenny_01]

I was interested in what Geelong's would be so I had a look at theirs.

Corey 19
Chapman 19
Ablett 19
Enright 19
Rooke 16
Kelly 15
Wojcinski 15
Spriggs 14
Chambers 13
S. Johnson 12
Bartel 11
D. Johnson 11
McCarthy 10
Slade 7
Moloney 6
Gardiner 6
Playfair 4
Hunt 2

Total Games = 218

Avg = 11.47

 

[Goldenblue]

Age is only a number.

Sometimes I think we rely on stats way too much.
If you have the talent and the skills, with the right players any club can win a flag regardless of what the average age is.

 

[drexel]

Originally posted by Kenny_01
We'd be well ahead of you here. Just quickly looking at the number of games played for the players 22 years of age or younger:

Pavlich 19
Hasleby 19
Haddrill 19
Medhurst 19
Headland 18
J. Longmuir 18
Polak 18
Woods 17
Hayden 17
Grover 16
Sandliands 15
Schammer 15
McPharlin 8
Haines 7
Siegert 4
Browne 3
Thornton 3
Webster 2
Cunningham 1

Total Games = 238

Avg: 12.52


WC
Judd 19
Haynes 19
Kerr 17
Embley 17
Sampi 17
Hunter 16
Cox 15
Glass 12
McDougall 8
Humm 8
Adkins 8
Munro 6
Gaspar 5
Staker 3
Chambers 1
Selwood 1
Johnson 1

Total Games: 173

Avg: 9.11

So we have are averaging 12 and a half players a game that are 22 or under, compared to your 9. It's fair to say we are a fair bit younger.

The stats you show are saying that our younger players have played on average fewer games... this technically means that we have more development left in our under 22's than Fremantle. so your reference to being younger is wrong.

A more useful comparison is how many of those younger players will actually be a quality player in the first 22 of each team. I count about 12-13 each. That is despite Fremantle having a choice of top draft picks ever since they began.

West Coast wouldn't be too worried about the young players as their all a year behind Freos in development... yet we're doing all right.

 

[Au_Blue#24]

Kenny, I know that you hold on to this idea that freo are much younger than WC with such exuberance, but I think you'd find your list is about on average half a year younger.

IT IS NEGLIGABLE !!

 

[Frodo]

The trouble is that youngsters tend to suffer at the business end of the season and the finals against battle hardened teams.
And that's one reason WCE are suffering and Freo will too against the Bombers and in the finals.

The stats game is meaningless. Quality of player is not considered and who can predict future injuries or who may be traded. It is also fact that a losing team will temd to play it's rookies to give them experience, not on merit.

ps I don't think Chambers is under 22

 

[marcy8811]

Personally, i think there is not much difference between a 21 year old and a 20 year old. Some guys develope later on, some guys earlier such as Judd and Pavlich. Age isnt really an issue, both west coast and freo have good lists. If a player hasnt played more than a few games by the time they reach 23, i think it usually means they are destined for the scrap heap. A team could have a list full of these type players and stillsay they were a developing squad

 

[Kenny_01]

Originally posted by Au_Blue#24
Kenny, I know that you hold on to this idea that freo are much younger than WC with such exuberance, but I think you'd find your list is about on average half a year younger.

IT IS NEGLIGABLE !!

I was only posting an answer to BT's question

No doubt we are a fair bit younger though. We don't have many experienced players who are above about 24 years of age in our team.

 

[dockertor]

Originally posted by Goldenblue
Age is only a number.

Sometimes I think we rely on stats way too much.
If you have the talent and the skills, with the right players any club can win a flag regardless of what the average age is.

Baby Bombers way back when??????