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Realistic expectations 2013

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Topkent

Topkent

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I was gonna bump the old one but I couldn't be bothered so I ask quite simply

After what we have seen so far what do you realistically wanna see for the rest of the year?

Right now it looks as if we might now win a game outside the expansion teams again and even the Gold Coast game Is not a gimmy , the dogs will kill us in the middle and the saints have had it over us since the 06 elimination final ( I think )

I'm not happy with us just developing slowly anymore because If gws and Gold Coast catch us they are gonna be more dominate than the port bris domination of the early 2000s and our premiership wait will be another 20 years

We are rebuilding At the worst time and we need to start winning games

I personally need to see us win a couple of games that aren't against expansion sides and put in some big efforts against top 4 sides

If we finish with less than 5 wins again I fear for the future
 
Watching the Brisbane game I just thought. "This isn't a team that isn't trying or going half-arsed. This is a team that doesn't know how to play with each-other." What I mean by that is that we had 14 new players put into our side last season, a lot of our players haven't been able to play with each other due to having injury. If you look at the players who played yesterday who were in the majority of our games last year you would see, Jones, Grimes, Trengove, Howe, Watts, Mcdonald, Frawley, Sylvia, Mckenzie, Garland, Blease, Jamar. That's only half a list and some of those are there simply because of their experience. We had periods where players didn't know how to help each other out, Sylvia hand balled to an under-pressure Pederson looking for the 1-2 switch, Trengove would go after the ball on the wing and our players wouldn't be there to help him. My realistic expectation right now is that by the end of the season the playing-list should start to look like a team, they should know how to play with each other and know how their team-mates go about their footy.
 
Realistically, I don't expect this team to win more than 3 games.

They SHOULD beat GC because like the GWS team Melbourne still has much more firepower. But GC has Ablett. And they are no gimmie anymore.

Can't see them beating the Saints with their established mids and strong talls.

Bulldogs imo are being hurt badly by injuries but their young mids have plenty of run and get into good space. They also play with confidence despite their poor start.

If this team can't string together a win against a team other than GC or GWS -- and it's a strong possibility they won't -- then it is undoubtedly one of the worst teams ever, and Neeld one of the worst coaches ever.
 
I've been thinking about this question, but I just can't come up with anything. I don't think I have any expectations.
 

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If it weren't for the expansion clubs last year we would have finished dead last with 1 win. We had 4 wins, 2 x GWS, 1 x GC, 1 x Druggies.

This year, if we take the expansions as wins, it’ll be 4 wins again, 2 x GWS, 2 x GC as we play both twice. Please forgive me for stating what every knows already but...

The way I see it is we need to better our non-expansion club record than last year. If we win the 4 expansion and one other, that’s 5 wins which betters our overall total from last year. But to me, that is a failure as it is still equivalent of coming last with only 1 win when taking out the expansion clubs on the ladder.

We need to win at least 7 games for this year to be anything other than a complete failure. That is, 3 wins against non-expansion club teams. I can’t see that happening at this stage.

At the start of the year, my realistic expectation would have been to beat 4 or more regular teams. But my revised is 4 wins total (GWSGC only). And I will think of that as last with no wins.
 
I think people are underestimating the value in beating the Gold Coast this year. I find it unlikely we'll beat them twice and if we do beat them that's as good as any of the other bottom six. They're improving, they have the best player in the comp and are looking like a team.
 
For the team,
  • No more losses over 60 points
  • Defeat GC both times and GWS again
  • Win 1 out of 2 against the Bulldogs
  • Win one other game
That gives us 6 wins. Not unreasonable to expect - a 2 game improvement on last year.

I'm looking particularly at our last 7 rounds. We have Brisbane, North, GWS, Gold Coast, Fremantle, Adelaide and Western Bulldogs. Even though only one of those games is at home, we should win a couple here, and not lose any of them by more than 40~ points. Finish the season strongly and take confidence into pre-season.


As far as PLAYERS go,
  • Taggert and Kent must debut
  • Toumpas should push for senior selection after the bye
  • Gawn needs to play out the season (barring injury)
  • Frawley, McDonald and Trengove need to get their form back
 
Bluelegs said:
Brisbane at TIO and St.Kilda at the MCG are both winnable games.
Click to expand...

Maybe... if they're both riddled with injuries. Realistically, right now, I don't see any winnable games left.
 
Bluelegs said:
I think people are underestimating the value in beating the Gold Coast this year. I find it unlikely we'll beat them twice and if we do beat them that's as good as any of the other bottom six. They're improving, they have the best player in the comp and are looking like a team.
Click to expand...
That may be so in terms of their improvement. But I don't think beating GC is that much to be proud of, it's not a sign of the Melbourne side getting better. We should be better than them and it should be a gimmie. GC should never have improved fastet/better than Melbourne.
 
I want to see Clark and Dawes become a formidable forward combo in the second half of the year.

I also want to see our midfield finally become better than D-grade
 

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It's funny how in 2011 we didn't know what to expect week to week, would it be a 80 point loss or an 80 point win. These days I still don't know what to think, will we be beaten by 50 points, or will we be beaten by 150. If this continues, Neeld has no choice but to say that the players aren't on the designed path he had intended, because if this is as far 'back' as we needed to go to move forward, Neeld never would've been assigned as coach.
 
PureFooty said:
if this is as far 'back' as we needed to go to move forward, Neeld never would've been assigned as coach.
Click to expand...

I got a text message from Jack Grimes after the 2012 season (generic text to all members no doubt) saying that 'the only way from here is up' or some such.
Clearly he (or the boffins at the club who wrote that) were wrong.
You are completely right, how can we be going backwards to move forwards after last year!
 
My expectations for the rest of the season? Get to the end with the club still intact. I just don't want it to implode and I'm currently not confident of that happening.

Is that asking too much?
 
I'd love to post positive expectations but they would be hopes rather than what I genuinely expect. Perhaps the continued improvement of Nathan Jones and a couple of others. Otherwise my predictions are pretty bleak - continued uncompetitiveness leading to a cleanout of the clubs hierarchy.
 
On top of the onfield stuff already mentioned, I'd love to see both Sylvia and Frawley stick around the club, and find their form again. Sylvia has so far had a fairly good year, Frawley has been under scrutiny but hasn't been too bad. I just don't want us to continue haemorraghing players.
 

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I'm getting depressed reading this board at the moment. That and tired.

Expectations? That the club doesn't turn it's 30,000 odd members into alcoholics by season's end, if they haven't already!
 
I have an expectation that people will hang in through all the this. To be fair most people here aren't going no place, but our supporter base in general. Melbourne fans get a bad rap but we were getting worse crowds a few years back when we weren't so shit. As for expectations for the football side, I haven't a clue.
 
I expect that after the by we turn a corner, our team will gel a bit more and our two key forwards will be back - I'm expecting a couple of good performances against good teams and no blow outs (8+ goals).

I may be a fool to expect this, but it makes me feel better.
 
Can remember a thread about "best 22" on here , would like anyone here to tell me that their best 22 has been on the park together yet. Mine hasn't ,not even close . Some clubs have depth to cover that,we had to import them in , am not surprised the team is taking a while to even looked settled.
My expectation is that Neeld will coach us this whole season ,and then we can realistically decide if he should continue or not.
I don't believe he has "lost the players" , and i think if we can get our best 22 on the park at the same time and they have a chance to gell , things will improve .
First things first , need to sort out the CEO etc , the shenanigans that have come from our admin since 2009 is a big part of the reason we are where we are right now .
 

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