There's a couple of things I'm really keen to see how they pan out this year. The obvious one is to what extent Walsh can iron out our team defensive issues. This is really the key to me and its damning, for example, that a fringe defender comes here from Hawthorn and instantly stands out as far more competent in playing a team defense than the rest of our list.
Secondly, given Walsh was apparently instrumental (according to their midfielders) in lifting port's midfield this year from good to very good, will he be able to weld our midfield into a damaging UNIT? For mine we have one of the better midfields going around on paper, especially when Smithers moves in there, but we have never looked like a damaging unit like other sides' midfields do at times. Its more of a collection of individual efforts with us and I have always thought if they played with more structure and drill they would be easily a first tier midfield. Can Walsh replicate his efforts at port and get our midfield up and about?
The flipside of this is what his loss will mean to the power midfield. Will Voss be too matesy with the players? Will they respond to his personality? Will he change anything in their training regime that effects their performance? Will definitely be keeping one eye on that.
Obviously I expect us to improve. I expect us to be lodged comfortably in the 8 come finals. I think most of this improvement will come from having someone pro-active in the box on gameday for the first time since Bails. It will give back a whole new dimension to the footy, actually seeing a coaching battle unfold and taking interest in moves from the box which has been sadly lacking from the AFC football experience in the last two years.
I also expect that their will be no more not turning up to play. Too many times we used the first quarter as warm up time and I heard Roo being scathing about us laughing and carrying on when coming out of the race instead of being tuned in and switched on when its time to perform. I'm certain he would've made clear to Walsh that that shit needs to disappear. Team defense/two-way running and basic team footy heavily utilising blocks, shepherding and TALKING (which Phil seems to be big on and we have been like sheep out there when shit has gotten real in recent times) will see further games won. In fact when I look at our draw I can see us winning ~14 games if we're not insipid in our approach.
There is a lot of love out there for Gold Coast atm. Most (including themselves obviously) seem to think this is the time to take the next step and they've ditched the development coach for the veteran campaigner they think can take them deep into finals. So I'm keen to see how they go. I've given us two wins against them so hopefully Eade doesn't taste too much success.
Random prediction: Tigers to miss the 8 and say sayonara to Damien Hardwick.