Land of the Giants
Premiership Player
Is there any point in even writing this preview?
It's not just that if we beat St. Kilda other results have to fall our way for us to qualify for finals. It's a question of whether we even want to be there.
It's clear the playing group did not take the resumption of the season seriously after downing a near full-strength Richmond in the pre-season, then Geelong in Round 1. The difference in attitude with what followed afterwards is obvious. How else to explain a team so laden with talent losing to North, Adelaide, and Sydney?
When things got going again, a lot of people in the AFL community asked the same question - "Is this a real season?". Well, it certainly has been, and you can bet the AFL will have learned a great deal about scheduling when this is all over. Reports that our playing group hated living the hub concept demonstrate they just didn't buy into the revamped competition idea.
To repeat, we can still make finals if we win, and Collingwood lose to Port, and the Bombers beat Melbourne (and those two results are more plausible than us beating St. Kilda). But we have a lot of attitudinal issues to solve in the off-season, and we're probably better off in the long run getting to work on them as soon as possible.
If the players don't want it, why should we?
Rant over. I still hope we win and keep going.
It's not just that if we beat St. Kilda other results have to fall our way for us to qualify for finals. It's a question of whether we even want to be there.
It's clear the playing group did not take the resumption of the season seriously after downing a near full-strength Richmond in the pre-season, then Geelong in Round 1. The difference in attitude with what followed afterwards is obvious. How else to explain a team so laden with talent losing to North, Adelaide, and Sydney?
When things got going again, a lot of people in the AFL community asked the same question - "Is this a real season?". Well, it certainly has been, and you can bet the AFL will have learned a great deal about scheduling when this is all over. Reports that our playing group hated living the hub concept demonstrate they just didn't buy into the revamped competition idea.
To repeat, we can still make finals if we win, and Collingwood lose to Port, and the Bombers beat Melbourne (and those two results are more plausible than us beating St. Kilda). But we have a lot of attitudinal issues to solve in the off-season, and we're probably better off in the long run getting to work on them as soon as possible.
If the players don't want it, why should we?
Rant over. I still hope we win and keep going.