I am quite surprised that Elwood used nous and Fevola in the one sentence. What we need is a leader in the forward line, the go to man. The Hawks had a problem when they had Buddy in that they became a bit one dimensional. His leaving opened up the options and opportunities, however Roughhead has been their main man since he left. We need a team approach to our forward structure but we also need a leader. My biggest criticism on Waite and Henderson was that neither had the character to be the leader. They both were happy to be the second banana and that is why they will be happy in their new clubs.
This is definitely a glass half empty post. I think our mid-field is fine, barring injuries, Murphy, Gibbs, Cripps, Graham, Curnow, Thomas, Kerridge with plenty of others able to have a run through the middle. I also expect our rucks to be stronger, particularly if Kreuzer stays fit. I think our weaknesses are we do not have a power forward who commands the game, we do not have a key defender who we can put on opponents main man and we may be a bit slow across the ground. Hopefully with Bolton and the wholesale changes to our list, we may overcome our other main weakness which was the team didn't have a red hot go week in and week out. I always found in competitive sport that if you play to win you can be surprised by how often you actually do win. Maybe not the flag this year but I expect us to be a hell of a lot better this year than last.
As the only person who got Touhy as a possible contender I am going to claim some knowledge about football until I make some prediction which actually demonstrates my complete lack of understanding and knowledge. All those who are advocating a scorched earth policy should recognize that if we had retained Kennedy, Waite, Gartlett, Betts, Jacobs, Robertson, Laidler and probably Maclean, and kept them with our core playing group of Murphy, Gibbs, Simpson, Kreuzer, Touhy, Buckley, Henderson, Yarran, Jamison, Walker, Docherty, Everett, Curnow, Bell, etc. we would have a team that would be challenging for the Cup this year. But because of impatience and poor decision making, we have added to our cutlery draw. I think we should be building from what we have got and trying to take the opportunities as they present themselves instead of constantly changing and throwing the baby out with the bath water. Keep Gibbs, Murphy and Kreuzer and stop eating our own.
One thing we should consider about Fridays performance is after we play North this week, we will have played seven of the top eight teams over the past nine weeks. The two teams we played who are out of the eight are the teams we have beaten. Our draw has been tough. Put together with our injuries and the six day turn arounds and the travel to Perth provides some context, however it is not an excuse Additionally we have played forty players so far this season so I would suggest that we are looking at our list and determining who is staying and who is going to stay. There will be some pain, but this is what we want.
It wasn't all doom and gloom, the bay I sit in won chooklotto! On a more serious note, there are seven players out because of injury, Walker, Menzel, Gibbs, Armfield, Graham, Thomas & Carrazo. Wouldn't win the game with them but would have made us more competitive. On top of that over the past four weeks we have had two six day breaks, a trip to WA and then another six day break. Once again it would not have changed the result but once again would make us more competitive. On top of this we could consider the players we should have had available if they hadn't left or been traded, Waite, Gartlett, Betts, Jacobs, Robinson Hampson & Maclean. I think if we are start putting all this together, I believe we would make serious inroads into the gap between Hawthorn and us. We have consistently wasted our draft picks, we have mismanaged our playing list and we have failed to develop our players skills, leadership and there commitment to put the team first. I believe we currently have a club that has four different factions vying for Board control which is impacting adversely on the football department as a whole as well as the individual coaches and fitness staff through the lack of development and security for them, and which is infiltrating into the psychology, beliefs and attitudes of the players. We need people who will unite the Club's administration and provide certainty for the football department so that the players can gain some certainty around there careers.
