Why is it that when things go awry football supporters in general always blame the coach but when clubs are winning the players get the praise? Doesn't make sense to me that approach.
And in our case why is it that we have beaten three of the current top 4 in Port, Fremantle and Sydney, yet have really only had one bad game that we should have won, being this loss to Brisbane? Of our other losses, Collingwood and Geelong are higher placed than us, Essendon were bound to come out defiantly in round 1, Gold Coast is level with us on the ladder and Adelaide in Adelaide was always going to be a hard ask. (Make no mistake, they are no duds, Adelaide, as Port has just found out.)
I am not making excuses; rather I am trying to put some perspective on our performance this year.
If instead of beating Port, Freo and Sydney, we had instead beaten Essendon, Adelaide and Brisbane (this most recent game) I would certainly be saying we really have not improved and maybe it is time to make a change.
But we have improved, because firstly we have beaten three of the top four and secondly we remain in the 8.
My view is that Saturdays exceptionally disappointing performance is in the mindset of the players. In my view our club is not yet mature enough to be able to be consistently up at the level we need to be win these sorts of games and prove ourselves to be ready to really challenge. We are so much like the Geelong of 2005 to early 2007 when *bomber *thompson (must never forget the *) was in the firing sights at Geelong. He could have easily got the flick and the era that Geelong has just experienced may never have happened.
We need someone within the playing group now to give the players the Paul Chapman spray, ironically given after we beat them in the David Hale 8 goal game in 2007. From that moment on they never looked back, handing out some horrendous floggings immediately after to I think, Richmond and Melbourne.