Review Rate Our Season

[PattyKwasagun]

What will measure our improvement next year won't be wins (anywhere from 10 upwards would be acceptable in my view), but the overall consistency of the team. We've had far too many thrashings by the good sides this year, and barring perhaps one or two aberrations, that won't be acceptable next season.

 

[karix]

What will measure our improvement next year won't be wins (anywhere from 10 upwards would be acceptable in my view), but the overall consistency of the team. We've had far too many thrashings by the good sides this year, and barring perhaps one or two aberrations, that won't be acceptable next season.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Rather than looking at wins (although they don't hurt), I think we'll be looking at how competitive we are against the big boys and trying to win or at least have strong games against the other teams in our 'rung'.

 

[Skoob]

What will measure our improvement next year won't be wins (anywhere from 10 upwards would be acceptable in my view), but the overall consistency of the team. We've had far too many thrashings by the good sides this year, and barring perhaps one or two aberrations, that won't be acceptable next season.

Pretty much what I was trying to say

 

[TheRoyLuckClub]

I think winning the next 2 games are required for a better than pass mark.
I can be a bit slow sometimes so it wasn't til quarter time last week (whilst cursing our failings)
that I came to the realisation that to that point, 7 wins meant nothing.
When you consider that even though we were 3 wins up on last year, you must remember that there was no GWS in2011. So take 4 wins of last year and our extra 3 are 2 against GWS and an extra against the Suns.
Suddenly 3 more wins on last year is no great feat. After the Adelaide game, we have improved by 1 game in terms of wins.
That said, we have so many new players that are showing great potential and wins should not neccesarily be expected. In terms of our future, wins this year are of little value to me. 2012 has been a very long training drill as far as I'm concerned and next year they should begin to play. I would like to see wins in the next 2 to consider this year an "improvement". If that turns out to be the case, I would expect only 10 wins again next year but closer losses against top teams.

We Only played gws once this year

 

[Swanny10]

Yeah and we did play GC twice last year but managed to beat them twice.

So even if you take GWS out of the equation we have already more than doubled our wins.

Should also mention that champion data rated the difficulty of each team's draws st the start of the season and ours was in the top 4 most difficult in terms of who we played and where.

 

[Bert Man]

Rather than being the Sydney Swans, can't we be 2001 us?

rather be us in 2001

 

[RU_]

We are like a trampoline, you go up, but then must come down. Inconsistency is the issue.

 

[Skoob]

We Only played gws once this year

I stand corrected.

Yeah and we did play GC twice last year but managed to beat them twice.

So even if you take GWS out of the equation we have already more than doubled our wins.

Should also mention that champion data rated the difficulty of each team's draws st the start of the season and ours was in the top 4 most difficult in terms of who we played and where.

We have 8 wins.
If you take out GWS as you suggest that is 7 (not more than double). My comment stands that 1 extra over the Suns is no great feat.
We also had 2 against Melbourne who were an absolute rabble. (they only had 2 wins before playing us a second time, one of those against GWS)

Don't get me wrong, I am reasonably happy with The Lions this year and wins are wins. But I would rate them just as a pass mark for the seaon and hope to win the next 2 to consider it a true improvement. I would not overvalue the extra wins thus far on last year too highly.

 

[LIONHART]

While it has been promising and satisfying to get to (hopefully) 10 wins, I believe our losses have been very disappointing overall.

A more interesting question would be: where should we be next year? I'd be hoping we are at the stage of contesting for finals and being considered a genuine chance right up until the final rounds of the season. (Slightly better than a 2012 Richmond).

we should not be basing our year on the fact we have won more games, the games we have lost have been heavier defeates than in previous years, the level of consistency has been worse, when we have been good we have been very good, when we have been bad we have been abysmal. we seemed far more competitive in a greater number of games last season than we have been this year.

i started the year with the expectation (given all the pre-season hype) of scrapping in to the bottom part of the eight. given all that pre-season hype, i feel the year has been another disappointing one.

realisitically the club should be saying ' we should have done better', & that is probably fair enough.

 

[dlanod]

I like that:

a) we haven't lost a game to a club beneath us. It's been a long time since we could say that, even when we've been hanging around the bottom of the ladder.
b) we've beaten a couple of clubs in the top 4.

I don't like that:

a) we had very few close games in the losses.
b) we haven't been able to beat any of those clubs in the clump above us (Richmond, Saints, Carlton, Essendon, Fremantle).

 

[Grimreepah]

We also had 2 against Melbourne who were an absolute rabble. (they only had 2 wins before playing us a second time, one of those against GWS)

Overtaking Melbourne should not be dismissed. If we continue to improve more teams will fall behind us.

 

[dlanod]

Overtaking Melbourne should not be dismissed. If we continue to improve more teams will fall behind us.

Exactly. Alternatively, if more teams become rabbles at the rate of two a year (Bulldogs and Melbourne) we'll practically be guaranteed finalists in a couple of years.

 

[cmt26]

I'm a little shocked to see people say that we haven't improved this year. Considering we lost Clark last season and heading into this season, many outside people rated us as one of the bottom 4 to hold up the ladder.

I think that we have managed to move ourselves past Melbourne & WB and into the mid-tier of the competition, albeit in the lower part of that mid-tier. We've taken two top four teams scalps, which we were a fair way away from last year. We've regained respect within the competition and the Gabba is starting to become a disliked place to travel to. (Maybe the pride culture has played a role in this? Home pride?).

More importantly, externally to this club and forum, people are beginning to admit that we do have a promising young team coming through and are starting to take notice of our young stars, rather than just assuming that Black does everything in our midfield.

At the start of the year, I said realistically 8 wins would be a win for our year, we're currently on track for 10, barring any mishaps.

The majority of our young players have taken large steps forward, Golby, Hanley, Redden, Bewick, Green, Harwood

We've uncovered some promising young players Yeo, Crisp

And we still have more to come from guys like Docherty, Longer, Bartlett

Our list has improved depth wise, we have more competition for spots, and our reserves have shown that strength by finishing top 2 in the NEAFL.

Compare this to where we were at the end of the 2011 season and there is a huge difference. That's an improvement.

 

[Fatcat08]

Personally I think our blowouts against teams this year vs our closer scorelines last year are the result of us attempting to play a more attacking style of footy for longer. Last year I thought that in games against sides higher than us that we were pretty conservative pretty quickly and that helped limit the damage. This year I think we have stuck to our guns for longer to see if the guys could hold up the style of play we want to under pressure and against adversity. What has been shown is that we can only do this about 15% of the time. Conversely trying this tactic more often and not going on the defensive so quickly has led to two upsets over top 2 teams, which shows the potential to make it work is there. Conversely when it hasn't worked and we've been unable to sustain it its looked pretty bad. However the difference between the two results isn't as far as many would believe.

If we look at last week's game, had it been last season after the 1st qtr we would have gone defensive and probably lost by 15-20. This year by playing our more attacking style we managed to get back into the game and eventually win, however had we been unable to carry out the game plan then a 60-80 point loss would have been the result.

Hopefully these two seasons of contrast will mean next year when we should be able to maintain our game plan and limit damage for 40% of the time we will see less blowouts and a few more upsets. Also hopefully we will develop the ability to switch quicker between the two, something that will only come with experience, because while a coach can tell them what to do within a qtr its really up to the players to control this. You can tell a team mid qtr to go on the attack, but if they're not experienced enough to trust that they can, then the result will be a half baked effort which is far worse than one or the other. Experience to gain trust in thier abilities and trust in each other is the thing that will make this possible.

With that in mind so far I've rated this year a pretty good success. Had we been able to beat the saints as well after leading most of the game it would have been a few notches higher as that would have further cemented our belief under pressure. As most have said it can be all undone by the last two games however I think after this win the players will have that little bit extra belief that they can maintain their structures in any circumstance and will result in us winning the last two games fairly well.

 

[Fluke]

I think your KPIs should have been expressed as follows Panthera.

1. Be considered amongst the better clearance sides in the comp.

2. Have an A grade midfield in place.

3. Have very few goals kicked against us.

4. Have a young key forward in place who is not Jordan Lisle.

5. Have a goalkicking small forward in place for an entire season, thereby allowing them to score the requisite number of goals.

I don't have any problems with you rating the season as a 5 out of 10. About right IMO although I have us closer to 6/10.

You said you wanted improvement but, based on your comments, you really wanted excellence.

I suggest again that the club has made improvement/progress against all the things you identified. The improvement we've experienced may not meet your standards but if it had, I suspect we'd be talking finals right now. If we were a top clearance side with a great midfield, a watertight defence, a gun young key forward and a genuine goal kicking small forward, we'd be the Sydney Swans.

I probably wasn't going to sign up just yet, but I had to say this post was awesome.

Is it worth mentioning too that next year we will have the Fevola money back in our cap? Add that to the improvement shown this year and things could be looking peachier next season.

 

[Haso]

I probably wasn't going to sign up just yet, but I had to say this post was awesome.

Is it worth mentioning too that next year we will have the Fevola money back in our cap? Add that to the improvement shown this year and things could be looking peachier next season.

Glad that you did decide to post, Fluke. Welcome aboard

You are correct, the Fev money is back in our cap, which means that we are in the position to make a play for a big $$$ player. This time around though, I think the general consensus is that of conservativism.

 

[Gibbo_88]

I'm pretty happy with the season, we got an ok amount of wins and knocked off two top 4 sides to give everyone the belief that we can beat anyone. The biggest thing for me is the fact that we really do rely on 3 midfielders that have only done 3 full pre-seasons, Black has been a support act this year. There is no other club that relies so much on the form of 3 midfielders that haven't played 300 games between them. Really happy with the development of a lot of the players.

 

[cmt26]

I think for where we are at, we have done better than expected, that means it's got to be an 8 or 9 out of 10. Think of it in comparison to pre-season expectations of us and there's no doubt for mine.

 

[Fluke]

Glad that you did decide to post, Fluke. Welcome aboard

You are correct, the Fev money is back in our cap, which means that we are in the position to make a play for a big $$$ player. This time around though, I think the general consensus is that of conservativism.

Cheers mate.

I think we'll probably see Sauce drop back again if we bring in another strong forward. And you only had to see the job he did on Tippett (name drop!) to know we'd probably have had less put on against us with him back there.

(Not to say we should've had him back there, as people have said, this was definitely a good warm-up season for 2013 )

 

[matwt73]

Ok. now time to review.

Based on where we are and where we wanted to be C+.

C is for 10 wins. The plus is for all the young talent we got some games into.

 

[lions_den]

8/10

 

[PattyKwasagun]

Pretty happy with it all in the end. Didn't lose anything we should've won, so it's definitely not disappointing. Won two we shouldn't have, so that pushes it up to promising. As I've mentioned previously, the big challenge next year - and it's a big one - will be to stop the thrashings. We can't be taken seriously as a football club when we're getting pumped by some top clubs every few weeks, regardless of whether or not we're beating some of the others a week later. Consistency in effort and application is vital.

 

[cotter101]

We have certainly improved.

We have won 6 more games than we did last year and beat two top 5 teams as opposed to none last year.

We have had a more even spread of goal kickers which means we are relying less on Brown.

Our Midfield has shown it can cope without Black, but still needs to work on a few things (Inside fifties and Clearances, which can be helped through trade month)

Our Reserves team has showed that our younger players are starting to develop and step up. This also helps our depth.

We are starting to develop a versatile list by experimenting with players in different positions, see Karnezis and Harwood.

Overall I would give us a 7.5/10

 

[Harris Specter]

We have certainly improved.

We have won 6 more games than we did last year and beat two top 5 teams as opposed to none last year.

We have had a more even spread of goal kickers which means we are relying less on Brown.

Our Midfield has shown it can cope without Black, but still needs to work on a few things (Inside fifties and Clearances, which can be helped through trade month)

Our Reserves team has showed that our younger players are starting to develop and step up. This also helps our depth.

We are starting to develop a versatile list by experimenting with players in different positions, see Karnezis and Harwood.

Overall I would give us a 7.5/10

Sums it up for me as well. Solid post

 

[pauldrc]

Watched the game with 8 other (Vic) non Lions supporters.

All were very much impressed by how much we seemed to have progressed, thought we will probably go deep into top 8 next year.

Nice to see we have some optimism beyond out own little group....