- Oct 17, 2015
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Thankyou, Freshwater, most illuminating, if true, then most depressing. A touted element of the 2016 campaign was the unity of the playing group. Organisations work at their best when members are united, houses divided fail. This and the Hub rumours recall the 2004 Mike Sheahan article on David Thorpe, reproduced at the beginning of a now closed thread
https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/former-star-thorpe-slams-selfish-bulldogs-culture.124543/
10 Brownlows, 2 Premierships. It’s great that Libber is an elite inside player and Hunter plays outrageously good games, it’s not great that we get bundled out of finals, 2 years in a row, after missing out 2 years in a row. I hope ScottyDogg, maddog37, NBates and Ash1337 are right, I fear they aren’t.
I whole heartedly agree that being bundled out of finals is a clear indicator that something isn’t right.
BUT I would suggest that Hunter and Libba types are far from the problem. Coaching yes, selection yes, gameplay yes and some soft players, who aren’t quite up to it yet, yes.
But who here thinks you can perform to the standard that Libba and Hunter have, without putting in an enormous amount of hard work? And guess what, these guys have also stood up in important games. The ones that constantly let us down are the last 4-5 picked each week. Again, Roark, Dale, Gardener, Hayes, Red, Lipinski, Gowers, Schache etc. These guys may be good blokes and train hard but they don’t yet do the hard gut busting body crunching acts that win games. I would take Hunter and Libba’s on field example over a clean cut guy who trains well everyday.
Players like Stringer can be toxic because they were negatively influencing culture off field while not performing on it. Libba, Hunter and every other father son for that matter bleed for the jumper. We need a few more of those types, not less.