How far away are we?

[mattys123]

Thought with the season fast approaching (finally), I'd get your thoughts on how far away we are from matching the clear top 2 teams, Hawthorn and Geelong.

There is without doubt going to be one team that rises up and challenges these 2 teams this year, History has taught us that, but the question is, is that Collingwood.

I just watched the GF replay on 7, and the intensity and skill seemed a long way from where our boys are at.

I firmly believe we are still 12-24 months from a realistic crack at a flag, but would like to know your thoughts, so;

How far away are we from a realistic flag tilt?

 

[tess]

How far away are we from a realistic flag tilt?

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[Kick It 2 Me]

From the Sun? 146,000,000 kms

From a flag? 18 months

 

[abs_of_STEELE]

Probably another year.

 

[jerry springer]

Need Beams,Sidebum and Mcarthy to have a couple of season under them

and Obree will be gone by then

so 2011

 

[WinOrLoseILoveEm]

From the Sun? 146,000,000 kms

From a flag? 18 months

If it's any earlier it's because of sides' slump or bad lack ( the others in the eight and ours playing above ourselves.

MM doubters - pull your egos in. The Pies haters have good reason to hate us one because they fear us and two they are amazed at how we take for granted the plentiful September bounties we have feasted upon when others live on a regular diet of September bread & water and we still wine like little kids about the absence of Premewiereships.

MM will continue to get the best out of our boys and they will be better players because of it.

 

[jerry springer]

MM will continue to get the best out of our boys and they will be better players because of it.

and will continue to lose grannies.Its now 4 in a row,why not 5?

 

[FuManchu]

You can measure how far away we are in a number of ways.

The ten goals that hawthorn beat us by twice last year, and maybe add a few more if they have improved. Have we bridged that 10 goal gap? Structurally we havent, we are relying on improvement to bridge it as you cannot expect draftees to fill gaps and be on level terms with far more mature opponents

The second way is to look at where we are deficient against top sides.

1/ A good ruck duo
2/ two speedy, strong bodied and experienced mids
3/ one more key forward ( if Rocca stands up, then OK)
4/ two mature experienced key backs ( one if presti can last the season )
5/ a better game plan.

 

[Dylz48]

You can measure how far away we are in a number of ways.

The ten goals that hawthorn beat us by twice last year, and maybe add a few more if they have improved. Have we bridged that 10 goal gap? Structurally we havent, we are relying on improvement to bridge it as you cannot expect draftees to fill gaps and be on level terms with far more mature opponents

The second way is to look at where we are deficient against top sides.

1/ A good ruck duo
2/ two speedy, strong bodied and experienced mids
3/ one more key forward ( if Rocca stands up, then OK)
4/ two mature experienced key backs ( one if presti can last the season )
5/ a better game plan.

Nice to see you as optimistic as ever Fu

 

[FuManchu]

Nice to see you as optimistic as ever Fu

or as the sycophants would have you say: we are the best team ever, no faults anywhere, the flag is a cakewalk.

mmmmmmm I wonder who is closer to the mark

 

[Jedi01]

If it's any earlier it's because of sides' slump or bad lack ( the others in the eight and ours playing above ourselves.

MM doubters - pull your egos in. The Pies haters have good reason to hate us one because they fear us and two they are amazed at how we take for granted the plentiful September bounties we have feasted upon when others live on a regular diet of September bread & water and we still wine like little kids about the absence of Premewiereships.

MM will continue to get the best out of our boys and they will be better players because of it.

Well 18 months would make it next years flag so if we can win that we can win this years imo.

MM (am a fan) will be judged, like all coaches, on flags and he has not produced one as of yet.

 

[collingwood_ole]

I reckon we could be a chance this year, its the hawks that we need to rise up and challenge, however I believe 2010/2011 no excuses imo.

 

[rose jam]

the thing that hurt us last year against the Hawks was the stoppages. They kept flipping the ball out back with about 5 handballs and then carved through us.
Got to bring the right intensity to that part of our game more often. It fluctuates way too much and that's why we keep dropping games to teams around 8-12 too much. That consistency in intensity will only be improved by having a more physical midfield.

 

[Dylz48]

or as the sycophants would have you say: we are the best team ever, no faults anywhere, the flag is a cakewalk.

mmmmmmm I wonder who is closer to the mark

Yes we do have faults some major ones(rucks) but you are so negative all the time. You must admit we have a lot of upside and we are closer to wining a flag then a spoon.

 

[Jedi01]

You can measure how far away we are in a number of ways.

The ten goals that hawthorn beat us by twice last year, and maybe add a few more if they have improved. Have we bridged that 10 goal gap? Structurally we havent, we are relying on improvement to bridge it as you cannot expect draftees to fill gaps and be on level terms with far more mature opponents

The second way is to look at where we are deficient against top sides.

1/ A good ruck duo
2/ two speedy, strong bodied and experienced mids
3/ one more key forward ( if Rocca stands up, then OK)
4/ two mature experienced key backs ( one if presti can last the season )
5/ a better game plan.

Well you just listed 5 things that 15 other teams also want.

 

[FuManchu]

Yes we do have faults some major ones(rucks) but you are so negative all the time. You must admit we have a lot of upside and we are closer to wining a flag then a spoon.

the gap between 4th, which is realistically our best possibe finish this year, and 1st, is bigger than the gap between 4th and 12th.

At the end of the day, 4th means nothing, 12th means the same as 4th, same result, just better picks at years end. We have not recruited anything that will allow us to bridge that gap this year. Some fool was telling me that by years end Beams and Sidebottom will have fixed the midfield and be competitive with the likes of the Geelongs and Hawthorns! And that is just one area where we lack. Pendlebury and Thomas have shown us that it takes 3 or 4 years to get anywhere near that level where they will hold their own, over a match and over a season.

So its not pessimism, its realism to say we are short in so many areas. Brown is not ready to assume the number 1 key back role, if presti gets injured we are in trouble. Even worse, if we are relying on Presti to be our key back then we are trouble as he is not a dynamic force like say Scarlett . Presti negates, he doesnt propel you forward. We need a dynamic force leading the backline, like Clement was.

Our rucks are woeful. We lack in the midfield. Rocca and Rusling are injury prone and not reliable. So either Reid or Dawes needs to fill that key role up forward and they arent setting the world on fire as yet.

So improvement must come from within, not from drafting or recruiting if we want to win a flag this year. Do you believe, based only on improvement from within, we will bridge those gaps? In other words we need to be able to double our score or half Hawthorns to win this year, let alone contend with Geelongs mids, backline, Ottens/Blake and maybe an improving forward line for them as well.

If people actually stopped fantasising and stood back and analysed what happened last year, they might stop som eof this dillusional garbage they little this site with and have realistic goals for the club. hawthorn and Geelong set the bar last year. We have matched up well with geelong recently, but if they have improved and we havent as much, they will do to us what happend the other night. Hawthron will have improved too, as they are still building and arent all that much different from us in terms of youth and development.

 

[FuManchu]

Well you just listed 5 things that 15 other teams also want.

you mean 13 other teams, the top two have enough of these elements to win flags, we are chasing them. We are behind them in all of those aspects.

 

[rose jam]

I think it's also worth noting some of the things that hurt Geelong and Hawthorn;

Geelong
- Goal kicking small forwards. One of the key reasons we can do well against them. The backs cover well for each other, but they aren't agile or quick.
- Tall forwards that play around the 50m arc. Scarlett will blanket a forward playing deep but with plenty of ground around him he looks a different player, and that means they've got Harley or Harry Taylor - re: Travis Cloke v Geelong.
- and probably the mix is what gets them, but few teams have that (Pies and Hawks most notably)
- forward line - needs midfield domination which unfortunately it gets consistently
- Game style, owns the centre corridor, so defending this area is a real key and our good efforts against them has been when we have been disciplined to hold the middle line and force them wide. When you do this their midfield goals dry up and their forwards aren't really capable of making enough by themselves. Easier said then done

Hawthorn
- defense relies totally on their game style to slow the ball down coming in. 1 on 1 they can get done, especially in the air, but getting the ball through the corridor will hurt them (re: Kangaroos style verses them)
- speed, slow of foot generally like Geelong, so stoppages and the flip out the back handball is their drill. For some reason, teams never set up with someone on the attacking side of the stoppages anymore, but this seems like an obvious tactic against Hawthorn who robotically handball backwards without looking
- midfield lack of goals - don't know the stats here but I would think it's reasonably poor compared to their overall total goals, so if you can hold a zone around 20-60m then the talls are going to find it hard and the goals should dry up a little, but this gives their defensive zone a lot more power on the way out. So probably russian roulette here.
- one on one - seems to still be the best way to break their zone, seems like the only way to stop their easy touches coming out of the backline and reduce their inside 50's, but gives a little more power to their tall forwards. Really then, the tall forwards are key because without them their zone style just wouldn't produce goals (re: Port in the Tredrea days who gave the zone it's big out)

 

[person_pitch]

I guess how much the current core group of younger players are able to achieve will depend a bit on the timings of retirements and age-related drops in form...

Hopefully Leon/Didak etc. are still killing it in a few years, when our younger players hit their peak.

And I think there is a lot riding on the development of Dawes/N.Brown/JA/Reid... if Rocca and Presti retire in the next couple of years without immediate replacements then we could get worse rather than improve.

This year and onwards should be really enjoyable though, we should win lots of games. In fact it's hard to see our side playing worse than it did last year in the next 5 years or so, and we did pretty well last year.

 

[mattys123]

The one positive to come out of the last few years has been the exposure our young players have got to finals. So far we have 3 years in a row in finals, with 3 finals wins thrown in to show we can do it.

While Carlton and Richmond believe they are the next contenders, they have no finals experience and this will count in our favour should we meet in a final.

We all know our deficiencies, It's really a question of the development of players in the 18-21 age group developing to assist our current core of players.

Backs: Reid, Brown, Dawes, Anthony, Reed
Mids: Cook, Sidebottom, Beams, etc
Forwards: Anthony, Dawes, Dick, Rounds etc

These are the groups that will decide if we are capable of winning a flag before Fraser/Davis/Didak are past their best football.

 

[swiftdog]

Depends when you consider the start of the tilt for a flag, is it the start of the seaon or the finals series? I'm going to go with 6 days.

Realistically we can expect a Top 4 finish in 2009. Once we're in the top 4 any comment's such as "Geelong and Hawthorn are xxx ahead of us" and "We're not good enough yet... 2010 is our year" is just a cop-out. No doubting who the two-yard sticks are for the year but they have flaws and can be beaten (some of us seem to forget this).

Seriously, if we manage to make it to a qualifying final, or better still, a preliminary final (making any of these finals would indicate that we are one of the top 4 teams), what realistic excuses could we come up with for losing these games? That our rucks suck and our backline is unstable?... well shoot me dead we made it that far with these flaws so there's no excuse for losing on the day.

If we don't make top 4 I'll be disappointed. We are a realistic shot for the flag this year. If you want to throw in the flag before the first bounce is... bounced... then that is up to you. Personally, I'm sick of all this two-horse race bullshit, anyone who truly believes that you can pencil in a Geelong vs Hawthorn grand final hasn't been around sport long enough.

 

[Pedro]

Depends when you consider the start of the tilt for a flag, is it the start of the seaon or the finals series? I'm going to go with 6 days.

Realistically we can expect a Top 4 finish in 2009. Once we're in the top 4 any comment's such as "Geelong and Hawthorn are xxx ahead of us" and "We're not good enough yet... 2010 is our year" is just a cop-out. No doubting who the two-yard sticks are for the year but they have flaws and can be beaten (some of us seem to forget this).

Seriously, if we manage to make it to a qualifying final, or better still, a preliminary final (making any of these finals would indicate that we are one of the top 4 teams), what realistic excuses could we come up with for losing these games? That our rucks suck and our backline is unstable?... well shoot me dead we made it that far with these flaws so there's no excuse for losing on the day.

If we don't make top 4 I'll be disappointed. We are a realistic shot for the flag this year. If you want to throw in the flag before the first bounce is... bounced... then that is up to you. Personally, I'm sick of all this two-horse race bullshit, anyone who truly believes that you can pencil in a Geelong vs Hawthorn grand final hasn't been around sport long enough.

We should have been top 4 last year. Before we worry about Geelong & Hawthorn, we need to eliminate our habit of losing games we should win. Brisbane and North last year, as well as Carlton twice. Essendon late in the year. It absolutely kills any flag chances when you have to try and win it from 8th, instead of 3rd or 4th. Personally, I think were still a fair way off those sides. Having said that, the Geelong of 2006 was rubbish, and they won a flag by 20 goals in 2007. Things can click into place pretty quickly if the core is there.

 

[swiftdog]

We should have been top 4 last year. Before we worry about Geelong & Hawthorn, we need to eliminate our habit of losing games we should win. Brisbane and North last year, as well as Carlton twice. Essendon late in the year. It absolutely kills any flag chances when you have to try and win it from 8th, instead of 3rd or 4th. Personally, I think were still a fair way off those sides. Having said that, the Geelong of 2006 was rubbish, and they won a flag by 20 goals in 2007. Things can click into place pretty quickly if the core is there.

We should have been but we weren't quite there yet, top 4 teams shouldn't lose to bottom 4 teams. My main point is that if we make top 4/preliminary final then there can be no excuses for not going on to win the flag. I think that the improvement will come from within a la Pendlebury, Thomas, Cloke etc.

 

[Snag Breac]

We are years away from a flag, if not decades, and most people on this board are just delusional spuds. (Rohan C. to supply the graphic)

And anyone on here trying to have a bit of fun, or trying to make themselves feel good by talking up our chances, is a dead set loser - just like Collingwood.

We don't follow footy to enjoy ourselves FFS.

 

[Pie eyed]

We are in the position to have a tilt at a flag now.

Whether we do win a flag this year is another matter.

If things go our way as far as injuries, close games, the weather and luck then yes we can win a flag.

At no time now or ever in the future will there be a period when we will definitely win a flag.
No coach, player, midfield, forward line or back line is going to guarantee a flag.
No amount of change, recruiting, planning or gambling is ever going to guarantee a flag.

No matter what any of the cynics and skeptics say no statistic, game plan or conjurers trick can guaranteed a flag.


The best we will ever have is the chance to win a flag and the opportunity to take that chance.

Right now we have the opportunity.