Problem is, outside 2013, the round 23 win against Sydney in 2014, the 2015 wins against Hawthorn and Fremantle when the shackles were released, most of these wins have been ordinary. A pair of two-three goal wins against a then inferior St Kilda last season, followed by a round 22 win against a down-and-out Essendon by 18 points last season and against an inferior model two weeks ago are not great football.
And then there is the matter that Hardwick is clearly outcoached each season by Chris Scott, Brad Scott, Paul Roos. Melbourne have been a s*** truck and managed to dismantle us with ease in 2014 and 15 - and again this year when they were better. Watch the Saints defeat us in a few weeks' time.
What more evidence do you ned that Hardwick's game plan and style don't cut it! To quote the man: "Our best is good enough to beat any side." Well get busy producing it - and you won't with the farcical, stubborn, inflexible, tedious and out-dated approach he serves up.
Yes, the wins against Hawthorn and Fremantle have been great - as was Sydney this year - but why do we not follow up and take that approach into games against Essendon, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Collingwood, all of whom we have nothing to fear.
I'm sure if we beat Hawthorn by 30 points or even 50 points as we have done in recent seasons, you can go out and reproduce that form against a lesser team (and on recent form there are 16 other lesser teams) and win by 50 points. But I get it, you are a Hardwick supporter and by extension, like the man himself, an "excuse maker". What is it, we don't have Newman, Jackson, Foley, Petterd. Before that he spent near three quarters of a season blaming the absence of Jake King for our bad start even though he played all of about three games the previous year. Like give me a f***** break!
