What are reasonable expectations for next year?

[carnthedons07premiers]

what the title says, your thoughts

 

[Longy413]

Re: What are resonable excpectaions for next year?

The same as ever year.

A finals finish.

 

[kelvin_sheedy]

Re: What are resonable excpectaions for next year?

I'm expecting finals.

Anything less and I'd be bitterly disappointed.

Our older senior core of Lloyd, Lucas, Fletch, Mal should still be playing really good football and our younger guys should be taking another step forward.

 

[monty1104]

Re: What are resonable excpectaions for next year?

Im expecting maybe pushing for a finals spot. In reality though, our best 22 probably wont change that much, so we need to hope for alot of development from the guys not in out best 22. That is what we need to become more competitive IMO.

 

[Merv]

Too early to know as we haven't traded, recruited, delisted, appointed a coach etc etc etc

 

[boms]

10TH-13TH imo

Just another re-building season until 2010

 

[retroparty]

I would like finals but might not happen. We will probably be better in 2009 when our players from the super draft have developed more and can consistently play in the 1's and dominate!

 

[DaSawx]

learn to to kick to leads inside the forward 50 properly, we showed a glimpse in the 88th quarter of the year, that would be a nice start

 

[Jono B]

Finals.

 

[wasupwidat]

7-10 depending on how our young players go n how injuries go

 

[Crave]

Hoping for finals, but Im tipping bottom 4-5 again.

 

[jdwood]

Sings of improvement would be nice. Namely better game-plan care of new coach, improvement in clearences etc... AND I don't want to push my luck here but some more targets hit / less trunovers would be heart-warming. Otherwise just to see some more of the kids come of age and cement a spot - ladderwise, I'm not expecting any better than this year.

 

[Bomberland06]

finals should be on the cards next year so i reckon we can finish anything from 5th to 13th, top 4 is out of the question still need time to develop our young list.

 

[SOT4]

Finals finish should definitely be on the cards. Top 4 isn't out of reach if things go our way. Although as Merv said our trades/coach/draft could impact on it.

 

[bomberstomake8]

if we have a good run with injuries there is no reason why we cant push for finals.... davey will slot back in nicely.. NLM played some good footy towards the end so he will help us out.. the big question is who will take it up a notch in the midfeild... i think winderlick will go up another level personally, but it could come from houli/hislop/jetta.. theres no question our midfeild needs a realtackling focus in this preseason and needs to work on defensive aspects.. our disposal isnt too bad when you take guys like peverill and watson out.. those two players need to really work on their disposal.. if it werent for there shithouse kicks they could really be elite midfeilders..

 

[Don Envy]

Considering that our best player just retired, you would think that we should go backwards. With a new coach (and gameplan), you never know. While most of the time we've looked pretty ordinary, other times we've shown a capacity to blow teams apart in a short amount of time.

The question is, will the new coach be able to bring this out?

 

[Longy413]

Considering that our best player just retired

I'm actually starting to realise what opposition supporters mean when we overrate James Hird.

I love James Hird, but his form when he came back from injury was sub-par.
Whilst he still had the ability to do the sublime, he also made monumental errors.

His foot skills let him down, he had a kicking effectiveness was down around 60%.

His experience and aura will be missed, but don't confuse that with his output. He wasn't our best player, in the first half that was Scott Lucas, with Watson and Davey not far behind. In the second half it was McVeigh who stepped up to the plate and in the last couple of weeks Matty Lloyd took his game to another level. And over the course of the year it was probably Dustin Fletcher.

Will we miss James Hird, of course we will. He's the best footballer we've had in the modern era. But he wasn't our best player in 2007, others have already began to step up to fill the void.

 

[Smokin]

Im optimistic - Ive been relatively optimistic for the 08-09 seasons for a while now.

I always maintained that games targets, ladder position ie were irrelevant this season - it was always about development as this year was a very important year for transition for us. Im not even sure many Essendon fans realised how important this season was for development from a holistic view.

We have a huge bunch of kids, many quality ones too - however they were not developed to the point that we needed - sure a bunch of em were rookies, or near rookies, but we have others as well. What happened this year IMO was a GREAT development year, dont listen to the imbeciles out there.

Basically, in 22 rounds, we have integrated many younger players into our best 22, including Winderlich, Ryder, Nash, Laycock, Slattery, Davey (a bonus and a half), plus we got continued consistency or improvement in form in a key area - guys with over say 50-100 games and/or 21 years of age - Watson, Stanton, Welsh, McVeigh, NLM (when he played) etc. Lovett and Monfries seemed to blossom late, but I will put them down as dissapointments as far as the season went (IMO). Im not sure where to put McPhee either - but I still think he makes our best side.

What did all that mean? It means the whole chunk of ageing players which we will (may) lose this off-season, ie JJ, MJ, Pev, Campo, Heff, Bolton were phased out of the side anyway. JJ is contracted, so we may lose him next season - but the point is much of our "aging" list were forced out of our side anyway due to a great development year (IMO).

We will be adversly effected by the lose of Hird only (irreplacable obviously) - the guys in the previous paragraph will effect our depth, but I have no doubt the improvement in the dozen or so young guns we have will compensate for that easily.

The older which we rely on are simply Lloyd, Lucas, Fletcher and MM. That is it as far as Im concerned. Yes, we must address the succession planning for these guys - but there is no huge rush - The two forwards will have AT LEAST two more full seasons, more than likely 3, and I think Fletcher and MM can play at the same level for at least one more, probably 2.

It is this which gives us a window - if our younger guys can improve (which we have to expect, as every club does) while these 4 pillars are there, we have a little window of opportunity opening.

I was worried this year would see us improve, but short term improvment on the back of not only the main 4, but JJ, MJ, Pev, Campo etc would have rang alarm bells for the future. But what happened was a great transition which saw improvement based more on the young than the old. Yes, we were inconsisent, we had some shockers, had some great patches. But when you inject so many new and young players, it has to be expected.

I think too many Essendon fans expected too much this season, to be honest. Yes, we have issues to address and further improvement to make - but I will tell you one thing, we are in 10x a better position now than 12 months ago - regardless of ladder position or results.

And if you re-read that, the only player I mentioned from our "super draft" was Davey. I am extremely confident that batch, plus Ryder and Dempsey (hammie willing) will create the core of a baby bombers squad who will acheive great things. Best bunch of rookies I can remember since the early 90s, thus far.

 

[drew_j]

New coach will take a broom through the place, kids from last years draft will be core, bottom 4 finish.

 

[Smokin]

New coach will take a broom through the place, kids from last years draft will be core, bottom 4 finish.

these sorta comments make no sense to me.

Who are they gonna clean out who hasnt already been effectively cleaned out anyway?

 

[drew_j]

these sorta comments make no sense to me.

Who are they gonna clean out who hasnt already been effectively cleaned out anyway?

Have a look at any number of the who to delist threads in this board. New coach + New game plan + list change = bottom 4. Anyone who thinks we'll make the finals is deluded.

 

[Bombs Away]

I'm tipping finals for next year, thought we were a chance this year aswell though.

For finals to happen need the following to play most if not all games and have a great pre-season
Fletcher
Lucas
Lloyd
Mal
Laycock
Watson
Hislop / Stanton
Davey / Winderlich
Lovett / Dempsey
Spike

They are the important players to me, the spine and the guts

 

[Smokin]

Have a look at any number of the who to delist threads in this board. New coach + New game plan + list change = bottom 4. Anyone who thinks we'll make the finals is deluded.

Yea, but many of those threads are full of comments which dont make sense.

Fact is, these contracts are up at the end of this year:

Mark Bolton
Kepler Bradley
Scott Camporeale
Richard Cole
Ricky dyson
Chris Heffernan
James Hird
Mark Johnson
Sam Lonergan
Andrew Lovett
Nathan Lovett-Murray
jay Neagle
Damien Peverill
Adam Ramanauskas
Andrew Welsh

How many of these definitively are in our best team?

NLM, Lovett, Welsh. At worst, the rest effect our depth (many of which will be kept anyway, some are obvious keeps and simply, you cant get rid of 15.)

Which is my point - the club has effectively "swept" through the list as it is. Youth has replaced much of the old.

 

[mxett]

You would have to say that Lloyd, Lucas, Fletcher and Michael are in the tail end of their careers. They are only going to taper off in form and contribution. Whilst I love Lloydy, his best years are over now.

A lot will depend on the youth that is coming up. I don't think we can expect anything significant from Gumbleton or any other drafts in the last year or so. We will need Stanton, Watson, Ryder, Winder, Lovett, Monfries, Laycock etc to start to become the players we wish that they can be. If they do we will possibly finish 7th to 10th, with no injuries. If most fail to improve we will finish 10th to 13th, with no injuries. If most fail to improve, and we have a bad year of injuries we will finish bottom 4.

With Lloyd and company finishing within 2 to 3 seasons, this prediction may be true for the next 3 to 4 years.

 

[Kaiser Powser]

I'd be happy with another year like this one.

Lots of good close wins and the promise of finals right up until round 21, but then get a top 6 pick so that we can keep building up talented youngsters.

Obviously finals would be better, but if we were to miss, I would rather we got pick 5-6 rather than 8-9.