Can't bite my tongue any longer...
There are massive problems with the side, down to several reasons, being in my opinion:
lack of body strength: We often are out muscled and pushed off the ball way too easily. Added to this is if you don't have big bodies, how can your slight framed bodies tackle a big body effectively ? Just watch the NAB Cup game vs Geelong to see that we fail in the big body department.
kids: Our kids seem to take a long time to develop. Just look at new to the AFL Thomas at Collingwood, and the boys at Hawthorn. All are much more advanced than our kids I reckon, why ?
defence: We all know we have a shocking back line, Saddington may help, Livingstone may improve, but there are a few too many "mays" there for my liking. The rumpurs over the last two years that we may get Mal Michael and Wirrpunda sounded very good at the time, we need defenders badly. I agree with all those who say Thornton is shot..he is not tall enough, not fast enough, not strong enough...need I say more ?
the coach: why oh why do we play this long bomb to the forward line routine when we do not have a player capable of the big mark. Denis HAS to realise he does not have the luxury of a young Wayne Carey up there to mark everything. Very frustrating and disheartening to see the boys win it hard in midfield, then waste it by bombing long to a no contest..only had to see the glee in the eys of Scarlet in that NAB Cup game to see it is a wrong game plan. Also, why does Denis play the skilful players in stupid negating defensive roles ? OK, the theory is Walker will learn from the best by playing on them...wrong...it only shatters his confidence when he is soundly beaten by the best. Put him in a free roving role to display his skills, not to negate other players skills...what a waste of talent.
If Denis keeps the kids in the twos for most of the season while playing the duds (Houlihan/Wiggins/Sporn/etc) then he deserves to be sacked..YES, SACKED !!
Go for broke, play the kids, give them freedom to show their stuff...playing hacks and hampering the kids development will destroy the clubs morale. Teams like Richmond and Hawthorn are not scared to play youth from day one...nor should we.
players: They all need to knuckle down and stick up for themselves, approach Denis and staff and say why they are being flogged. The playing group really need a strong leader and to get their heads right (and MUCH MORE WEIGHT TRAINING)
Although Kouta was a great player in his day, he was no captain..way too quiet and introverted for that difficult job, Stevens wont do much better.
I want to single out Lappin to...from what I have seen of him so far...he does look disinterested and is playing for himself (stat gathering).
No doubt at all that he is a bit upset over the contract dispute he had..and is showing it by not giving enough to the team.
new players: Murphy looks OK, but frighteningly their are a few kids from the same draft listed below him who are more impressive ATM for their clubs.
Just hope the other kids can stand up very fast for us...we need them, badly.
We can only hope Josh Kennedy is something special, as Fev has been worked out by the opposition, DeLuca cant mark, or kick well. Possibly Setanta can be something, possibly.
All in all it is early days, but the writing is on the wall...there has not been an improvement since last winter, in fact the team play looks worse.
Apart from all that...C'arn the Blues !!! (maybe in 2010)....sigh.
