We should aim to win every game of football we play but we should also be smart and very strategic about looking towards the future.
I still don't see any point in playing the J-Pod this year. We should be giving those games to SMACK or Johnston and having ether of those 2 develop a partnership with Tex and JJ.
After going 0-3, I think it's safe to say we are not a legitimate premiership team. Yes we might make the finals and tomorrow's game will tell us much more. However, we still need to look towards the next 3 to 5 years.
Back to LJ or SMACK, they need to be given 20 games to understand what it takes. If they haven't performed up to the standard required, delist them. If they don't play again this year, we need to delist both.
No guts, no glory. The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward and that result may take a while but we need to find out if they can or can not play at that level. We piss around with this all the time. From Gary Aryes to Neil Craig to now Brenton Sanderson - the sane issues about player development are arising.
Unless we win a premiership this year, playing the J-Pod will be a monumental mistake because what is the point of playing him as he will either retire at seasons end and we are back to square one with Tex and JJ not developing any forward line relationship with either player.
We have beaten St Kilda and GWS - those were good wins but neither were won based on what the J-Pod has brought to the game. 2014 will go down as another baseless season that will see us finish somewhere between 6th and 14th. If we were brave, we could implement a development system that we could see who can and who can not play at that level.
The choices we make today will impact on the chances we have to win a premiership tomorrow (in the future) as we still don't know if Martin, Johnston, snack, Lyons, Thompson, Jeansch, Petrenko, Shaw and even Jenkins but as long as we have a yo-yo selection system, we will only ever be mediocre.
We will only make the standard 4 to 6 list changes again this off season and next year will continue to be the same. We need to be brave and implement a system that will promote kids that give us every chance at winning at demote players who just don't have it. Either ant more or not at all. If that means we only win 5 games, at least we know we will get a few good players who can then advance us quickly up the table.