Watching the prelim finals confirmed my thoughts as to the reasons why we're not there.
1. Hard/mature bodies - we don't yet have the mature bodies to stand up in and stick tackles with any regularity.
2. Skills - the best teams protect the ball, especially coming out of defence, a lot better than we do.
3. Defensive pressure - we have our moments when it's very good but the last 4, along with Adelaide, are able to suffocate the opposition for sustained periods without sacrificing any of their scoreboard potential in doing so. We too often allow teams to take the footy the length of the ground, largely uncontested.
There are some others for sure, no doubt, but IMO these are the three critical areas we need to improve on over the next couple of seasons to get to the stage where we become a contender.
#1 is something that will come with experience/pre seasons, but the other two can definately be worked on, though 3 may be partly explained as a result of 1. My only concern is that over the last few years our players seem to put on a lot less muscle than their counterparts at Brisbane, WC, Adelaide etc. I'm not sure if this is a result of the physical make up of the players we draft or we have less of an emphasis on weights.
It is also worth noting that the lack of 1 and 3 is felt most acutely in our midfield. This is the area we need to get right more than any other.
The positive to come out of the Adelaide loss was that we were clearly exposed in all of these areas so it should provide the reality check we need to take that next step (though I'm sure the coaching staff were already well aware of these deficiencies - but it might help them get the message to some players who may have got ahead of themselves).
I know some on this board see some similiarites between us and the dogs when Eade first took over. IMO this is reasonable. They perhaps had better skills than us but struggled defensively and looked like boys against men, as we often do. They were able to correct these deficiencies relatively quickly and while they are a more skillful team (at the same point anyway) we have a much better KP stock to build around, which gives me a lot of confidence in where we might be in two or three years.
I also think this off season will be huge. We are losing Lovett - will we be well compensated? Will we snare a young star (a Higgins clone, please) with our first pick? Or will we roll the dice on Burgoyne getting back to 100%? Or will guys like Myers, Houli, Lonergan, Prismall and Reimers progress to the point where this off season is no more important than any other?
Either way, the club has a lot work on, but at least we aren't like richmond in 2001 where we think we're not that far away. We know we are far away, but definately have the potential to get there, if everyone is willing to work hard enough and fortune is kind to us.
1. Hard/mature bodies - we don't yet have the mature bodies to stand up in and stick tackles with any regularity.
2. Skills - the best teams protect the ball, especially coming out of defence, a lot better than we do.
3. Defensive pressure - we have our moments when it's very good but the last 4, along with Adelaide, are able to suffocate the opposition for sustained periods without sacrificing any of their scoreboard potential in doing so. We too often allow teams to take the footy the length of the ground, largely uncontested.
There are some others for sure, no doubt, but IMO these are the three critical areas we need to improve on over the next couple of seasons to get to the stage where we become a contender.
#1 is something that will come with experience/pre seasons, but the other two can definately be worked on, though 3 may be partly explained as a result of 1. My only concern is that over the last few years our players seem to put on a lot less muscle than their counterparts at Brisbane, WC, Adelaide etc. I'm not sure if this is a result of the physical make up of the players we draft or we have less of an emphasis on weights.
It is also worth noting that the lack of 1 and 3 is felt most acutely in our midfield. This is the area we need to get right more than any other.
The positive to come out of the Adelaide loss was that we were clearly exposed in all of these areas so it should provide the reality check we need to take that next step (though I'm sure the coaching staff were already well aware of these deficiencies - but it might help them get the message to some players who may have got ahead of themselves).
I know some on this board see some similiarites between us and the dogs when Eade first took over. IMO this is reasonable. They perhaps had better skills than us but struggled defensively and looked like boys against men, as we often do. They were able to correct these deficiencies relatively quickly and while they are a more skillful team (at the same point anyway) we have a much better KP stock to build around, which gives me a lot of confidence in where we might be in two or three years.
I also think this off season will be huge. We are losing Lovett - will we be well compensated? Will we snare a young star (a Higgins clone, please) with our first pick? Or will we roll the dice on Burgoyne getting back to 100%? Or will guys like Myers, Houli, Lonergan, Prismall and Reimers progress to the point where this off season is no more important than any other?
Either way, the club has a lot work on, but at least we aren't like richmond in 2001 where we think we're not that far away. We know we are far away, but definately have the potential to get there, if everyone is willing to work hard enough and fortune is kind to us.
