Yeah you have to live in hope.
We added a backup ruckman and a tall defender. Injuries in these two areas really hurt us last year. No more Teague playing on ruckman and no more Prenderghast running around like a chook without its head.
Fev was injured while Stevens and Kouta were carrying knees. We've got guys like Scotland, Sporn and Houlihan who went through terrible form slumps. A fit Thornton and Livo will help. Add O'Hailpin as a crash bash player. Put five kilos of muscle on Waite, Walker, Davies, Simpson, Bryan. Hope Murphy can play straight away and Bentick can continue his consistent improvement. All up, I don't think looking at what went wrong last year (i.e. injuries in out weakest area and particularly severe form slumps amongst some players) and then looking at our recruiting and the fact that some of the boys will begin playing at men's size and its not out of the question to play finals. We need some luck with injuries, but even so, we are much better placed to cover the loss of a Thornton or Barnarby than we were this time last year. If Kouta or Steven go down we will struggle though.