I'd give it another few years before I declared Richmond as the modern day trendsetter. As of now they've won one Premiership after a dream run with injury, I saw them play Collingwood the other day and they aren't anything to get excited about in my opinion. Footscray's flag was much more impressive given their injuries to key players and winning finals on the road against all the odds, but two years down the track and they battled to beat a depleted Carlton. Richmond could win it again given that their injury count is still low and that there isn't any real standout team, but they could just as easily not make the grand final.
Richmond are a textbook example of a champion team as opposed to a team of champions. Looking at their list, you think they're average, but when they play together, the whole is much greater than the sum of their parts. They beat the Pies by 7 goals plus change.
If this is a team that isn't anything to get excited about, I hope our team also fails to excite you, very very soon.
Boy, you have to feel sorry for Bolts - not yet 40 years old, and that dinosaur brain of his refuses to dig the new breed - is it possible the game has passed him by ?
Cunningham was playing off the HBF and wouldn't chase nor tackle, Garlett was playing wing HFF and would not chase or tackle. Why do they get a game again?
If there had not been changes then Bolton would of been criticised for not putting players out who won't put in.
Jed Lamb might have been one of the forwards referred to by mbb. I can't remember exactly what was said in the pre match thread.
I guess we could settle this once and for all by hosting a "Talking Tactics" session between Bolton and forum members. I give each member 5 minutes before they get shot down in flames.
It's nonsense to think that the MC isn't cognisant of the issues being discussed here wrt team selections. They won't always get it right, and I think there are many occasions when selections are a gamble. You don't have to agree or like their decisions, but they have reasons behind who's in and out, which we may not even know exist.
Our skill errors, poor decision making, youth, and lack of leadership are what kill us, and all the team selection theory in the world can't save you from that.
If Kreuzer is ready to go, I'd play them both with Phillips taking the centre bounce and Kreuzer as a midfielder and the pair sharing around the ground duties.
OK so we haven't yet reached that critical "flex" or "click" point yet where we suddenly start showing improvement? The Tigers may be a good example to give us a glimmer of hope as it doesn't seem long ago that we joked about their talent for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Now, with a cup in their cabinet, they specialise in just grinding teams down into submission with relentless pressure footy.
The future is wildly unpredictable, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't try to do things the right way, or at least a better way.
There are several pundits I've listened t saying the same thing. I think most of us would accept that a rebuild such as ours takes time but I would think that to see a few signs of progress along the way in terms of improved performance would not be too much to ask? Is progress happening if there are no visible signs of it?
I think the problem with progress and decline is that neither is linear and both can be hard to detect. We finished 11th in 04, won the preseason cup in 05, and I'm sure people thought we were on the up, but clearly we weren't. Tigers finished 13th in 2016 and looked gone for all money. Predicting all this is the stuff of nightmares.
I didn't realise it at the time, but with the benefit of 6 rounds of footy, it seems as though this season is the "recession we had to have", the dip before the rise.
Bartel on Access All Areas saying that Bolton should not be under any pressure. Said that he hopes the Blues fans are patient and "get their heads around the fact that a rebuild doesn't take 3 years anymore - you pay for past mistakes................" - reckons it's 5-6 years and for players like Charlie to get to 100 games.
A couple of points Paul, Lods has hit the money shot, all these players (not Gibbs,Buckley or Yarran) played games last year, most this year. But also most of them left in the Mick era, Bolton inherited a club who was bereft of mid age leadership. There was no choice but to start again it was inevitable. The ones that really irk me are that Rice didn't choose us, he may well turn out to be a bust but he picked the 'Aints, and we had Lambert under our nose, he has now played in a premiership (as has Grigg!!!). It's no good going down sorry street, because it is what it is, and it aint pretty. But for me it explains why we are here. By the way Paul, Eddie is so much more than a "good" small forward.....we lost our soul when he left.
Hanwell, thanks for the clarification. There is still some conjecture surrounding Betts' departure, and the way it unfolded.
I'll tell you one thing - if Grigg or Lambert were still on our list now, we would be complaining about them much the same as we do about our other players. Guaranteed. They have a premiership medal - good luck to them. Right place right time and all that. But they are ordinary foot soldiers IMO. Anyway, Grigg's contract ends at the end of this season, when I believe he becomes an UFA. Maybe we can lure him back.................not.
