Realistically, where should we be?

Aug 30, 2014
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I've been giving this some thought over the last few days and there is no doubt that our list definitely not at it's peak. Let's face it, to win a GF you need a team relatively close to it's peak.

We've added three first year players and they've been somewhat inconsistent which could be expected for a first year player. We've got I'd say 3-5 players who are still developing and building their craft.

At this point in time, we're probably a better side with Polec and Wingard but long term I'm happy with the recruiting.

We have a core group of experienced players but they come with some inconsistency.

So the question is. Where should we be? My thoughts are that we are probably a 13-14 game team with what we have. That would put us in 6-7th position with a home or away game against Essendon or GWS of which is probably 30-70 chance of winning. It would be nice to play finals but realistically, there is no way we have a premiership side out there when we've got a number of players still not at their peak.

Moving forward we have some very challenging times ahead and while I think the pain will come, we need to prepare for 2023 and beyond now and not allow us to be in the same position Adelaide are in right now. I won't put it in this tread but we need to move a couple of players on each year. I think we're going to be looking at bottom 6 for a few years.
 
We are performing in line, if not slightly in front of peoples expectations pre season. iirc, most on here had us finishing 12th. Most on here agreed there would be ups and downs.

The weekly results have been in line with my expectation so on face value i'm not too concerned by our ladder position. What has been concerning though is the way in which those results have come.

- Losing to an injury ravaged Richmond at home should not have happened
- Losing to Brisbane in the manner we did in Brisbane was unacceptable
- Losing to Brisbane at home in the manner we did was unacceptable
- Losing to GWS at home in the manner we did was unacceptable

With my pre season prediction of 12th with some up ands and downs I fully expected that we would be playing Marshall most weeks, that guys like Drew and Atley would get significant time, that someone like Ladhams or Frampton would get significant time, that Sutcliffe would remain an SANFL only player, that Garner would work his way into the side and stay there, some more development into someone like Farrell.
Fair play, we've actually dropped under performing senior players this year and that is something that would not have happened in the past. I doubt anyone would have expected guys like Dixon, Rockliff, Wines, Westhoff, Ryder, Motlop to all have played SANFL this year.

So overall I think we are on par with what I was expecting.
 

El_Scorcho

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Let's look at the top 4.

We flogged 1 and 2 off the park.

3 and 4 we should have beaten earlier in the year but lost because of terrible selections and poor strategy. Lost both in close games in exactly the fashion every Port supporter and his dog could see that we would on selection night. Both 3 and 4 killed us in the return leg once we got into our patented late season collapse.

We should be in that mix. We're clearly good enough when we show up and we don't make obvious, repeated structural errors.
 

El_Scorcho

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We are performing in line, if not slightly in front of peoples expectations pre season. iirc, most on here had us finishing 12th. Most on here agreed there would be ups and downs.

The weekly results have been in line with my expectation so on face value i'm not too concerned by our ladder position. What has been concerning though is the way in which those results have come.

- Losing to an injury ravaged Richmond at home should not have happened
- Losing to Brisbane in the manner we did in Brisbane was unacceptable
- Losing to Brisbane at home in the manner we did was unacceptable
- Losing to GWS at home in the manner we did was unacceptable

With my pre season prediction of 12th with some up ands and downs I fully expected that we would be playing Marshall most weeks, that guys like Drew and Atley would get significant time, that someone like Ladhams or Frampton would get significant time, that Sutcliffe would remain an SANFL only player, that Garner would work his way into the side and stay there, some more development into someone like Farrell.
Fair play, we've actually dropped under performing senior players this year and that is something that would not have happened in the past. I doubt anyone would have expected guys like Dixon, Rockliff, Wines, Westhoff, Ryder, Motlop to all have played SANFL this year.

So overall I think we are on par with what I was expecting.

Agree with this, but this is on par with what I was expecting given i'd have sacked the coach in 2017.

What should we be achieving with this list if the coaching was making us at the very least, the sum of our parts?
 

Harlott

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Did anyone hear that dude on the Wildy/Malcom show tonight say both Riewoldt and G Lyon have said finals teams would hate to play Port in a final as we've played the best footy this year? I heard Riewoldt said something to this effect but is it true Lyon did as well?
 

Coobk001

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I thought we'd finish about 12th. I've learnt 2 things since then

1. Our competition isn't as good as I thought it'd be.

2. If you told me our team would be top of the league of clearances and inside 50's at the start of the year, I would've said holy crap, we're going to have a good year.

We are sitting 10th, likely to be 11th possibly 12th by this time next week, so we're about where I expected. However as Macca said it is the way we're losing.

Statistically we are clearly a damn good team in a lot of aspects, however the coaching staff have been unable to harness our strengths and utilise them to get results.

I may have thought pre-season we'd be about 12th. However right now looking at the competition we should be sitting in the top 6.

And I mean if you take out our fluke wins against WC and Geelong, and our season looks terrible, we've basically only beaten the real bottom teams.

We should be better than Adelaide,
We should be better than the Bombers.
We should be similar to Brisbane's level, but will conceed Geelong, WC, Rich & Coll have us covered.
 
Aug 30, 2014
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With a better coach and selections we win the Richmond (home), Bulldogs and GWS matches. We'd be fighting for a top four spot after taking four bogey scalps through the season (West Coast, Geelong, Adelaide, GWS).

13-15 wins should have been the average win count with this squad. 3rd-6th.
That's all good and well, but the ability to win the big games in finals would still be an issue irrespective of w/l record.

I couldn't see us beating Richmond/Collingwood/Geelong or West Coast in an away final.
 
Aug 30, 2014
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I thought we'd finish about 12th. I've learnt 2 things since then

1. Our competition isn't as good as I thought it'd be.

2. If you told me our team would be top of the league of clearances and inside 50's at the start of the year, I would've said holy crap, we're going to have a good year.

We are sitting 10th, likely to be 11th possibly 12th by this time next week, so we're about where I expected. However as Macca said it is the way we're losing.

Statistically we are clearly a damn good team in a lot of aspects, however the coaching staff have been unable to harness our strengths and utilise them to get results.

I may have thought pre-season we'd be about 12th. However right now looking at the competition we should be sitting in the top 6.

And I mean if you take out our fluke wins against WC and Geelong, and our season looks terrible, we've basically only beaten the real bottom teams.

We should be better than Adelaide,
We should be better than the Bombers.
We should be similar to Brisbane's level, but will conceed Geelong, WC, Rich & Coll have us covered.
A point worth noting is that the AFL has evolved into a game that does not suit Ken's brave gamestyle. If we had 6 players in fwd 70m of goal like it was in the 80s, we would be top 4. The game has gone s**t. How many times do you see a side clog up the defense and concede 3-4 behinds against a very good side, and then get an easy goal.
 

SupportMe

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That's all good and well, but the ability to win the big games in finals would still be an issue irrespective of w/l record.

I couldn't see us beating Richmond/Collingwood/Geelong or West Coast in an away final.

Well, the only way to correct this - is to get into that position first.
 
I predicted we would win between 10-14 games when people were saying we would drop to bottom 4 and in March in the predictions thread where I predicted wins per position, I said we would finish 7th with 13 wins at end of Rd 23.

Given how we played against WCE, and given we didn't just blindly ******* bomb the ball to McGovern like so many times in the past, then if we were good enough to correct our past stupidities in that game, and Ken picked a proper structured forward line in others, then we should have beaten Richmond in Rd 4, should have beaten Brisbane Rd 3, should have beaten Fremantle and should have beaten GWS. That gives us 12 wins and win 2 of the last 4 gets us to my peak position of 14 wins.

Hinkley has to take responsibility for some rubbish selections, and if he could coach us for adjusting and improving our inside 50 entries for the WC game then that should be repeated for all the other games where we have dominated possession and inside 50's but lost games.

We actually did ok, as good as expected between Rd's 7 and 12 when we had between 5 and 8 first 22 players out.
 
Aug 30, 2014
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I predicted we would win between 10-14 games when people were saying we would drop to bottom 4 and in March in the predictions thread where I predicted wins per position, I said we would finish 7th with 13 wins at end of Rd 23.

Given how we played against WCE, and given we didn't just blindly ******* bomb the ball to McGovern like so many times in the past, then if we were good enough to correct our past stupidities in that game, and Ken picked a proper structured forward line in others, then we should have beaten Richmond in Rd 4, should have beaten Brisbane Rd 3, should have beaten Fremantle and should have beaten GWS. That gives us 12 wins and win 2 of the last 4 gets us to my peak position of 14 wins.

Hinkley has to take responsibility for some rubbish selections, and if he could coach us for adjusting and improving our inside 50 entries for the WC game then that should be repeated for all the other games where we have dominated possession and inside 50's but lost games.

We actually did ok, as good as expected between Rd's 7 and 12 when we had between 5 and 8 first 22 players out.
If you watch the replay of the Eagles game, they didn't rock up, and we did. I don't suspect that would happen again quite so easily. They clearly weren't running both ways.
 
If you watch the replay of the Eagles game, they didn't rock up, and we did. I don't suspect that would happen again quite so easily. They clearly weren't running both ways.
That maybe so, but we actually delivered the ball differently to the normal way we used to, but didn't keep that tactic up for the rest of the season.

You could also argue the opposite in games we lost, we were expected to win, but didn't turn up, ie Western Bulldogs game, crows home showdown and Brisbane at home. We weren't favourites against Collingwood and Hawks but we didn't rock up.
 
When we play well there isn't a team in the league I would say I'd be scared of.

We should absolutely be at least 4 wins better than what we are right now. That we are not is why people are angry.
 
I thought we'd finish somewhere between 12th and 16th. I thought if we had a bad run with injuries, etc, that a 6 win/16th type season was potentially on the cards. In the end, we're probably going to slot in at the top of my predicted range and finish 12th.

Considering the state of our list (ie a list in transition with a huge amount of older players past their best, a huge amount of younger players not quite up to it yet, and bugger all in between), we've made a good fist of it this year. I guess the frustration comes when the same old failings rear their ugly head - lack of home ground advantage, poor forward setup, continually losing close games, etc.
 

ctpower

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I’m most alarmed by the irrational gamestyle, selections and playing individuals out of position. The complete lack of improvement up forward and the failure to develop a key forward are major blights on this coaching group.
The skill level pj.
It hasn’t improved since the day he arrived.
 
I had us finishing 13th, but I just assumed that following on from sacrificing Pittard, Polec and Wingard for youth, we’d be engaging in a serious rebuild in certain positions and pumping games into a host of kids.

Instead it’s been the same old improvised whimsy that will see us end the year with 10 wins and with a raft of kids who are a season behind in their development.

Cool.
 
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Depends on when the question is asked. If you asked me this at the end of 2014 when we had a great list, possibly the best under 23 player in the game in Wingard, would add Ryder that off season, had booming attendance and membership numbers, I'd have said if it was managed correctly and the players developed as they had from that point, and we were coached well enough we were the next Hawthorn/Geelong waiting to happen. We all know what has happened the 5 years since.

As for this season I always thought and have said with the youth movement we'd go as far as the senior players would take us. In that group we can't fault Boak, Robbie, Clurey, DBJ and Lycett this season. Rozee, Duursma and Butters have been fantastic in their first year, they can't do anymore. The rest of the youth movement we were going down has been stifled or thrown by the way side and not given enough chances in Marshall, Frampton, Garner has shown a bit but has been in/out of the side, same with Drew so I don't believe the youth movement is as pronounced as the club is pushing out there.

Personally I don't think it matters much what we do with Hinkley in charge going forward, but that is another topic in another thread.

For this season we are where I expected us to be. Sitting 10th, fighting for 8th spot but we won't be good enough for 8th.

What I wasn't expecting was the club to start a apparent civil war between Koch, Ken & KT which depending what way it all goes dictates our membership, attendances and fortunes for 2020 and beyond, I find the whole thing embarrassing now with all of the statements the three are making, and the obvious leak by Ken and his management in the Tom Morris story on Fox Footy last night.
 
I had us finishing 13th, but I just assumed that following on from sacrificing Pittard, Polec and Wingard for youth, we’d be engaging in a serious rebuild in certain positions and pumping games into a host of kids.

Instead it’s been the same old improvised whimsy that will see us end the year with 10 wins and with a raft of kids who are a season behind in their development.

Cool.
Exactly this. So many senior players given unmerited chances and guess what? We still have to blood a bunch of rookies in 2020 because we didn’t this year
 

King_Tredrea

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Considering all the diabolical losses we’ve had, I would say if we were half-way competent we’d be pretty comfortably nestled in the 8 right now, with 7th-8th being the lowest we could finish with a poor last month. The question is probably more.....Did you think we would finally “turn a corner” this year, or not? To which I think most people agreed we would not.
 
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