mpal6
Norm Smith Medallist
The golden run injury wise we’ve had over the last however many years has actually come back to be a curse this year. Not only has our luck run out in that aspect, but because we haven’t had to (and because we have chose not to), expose any of our depth we’re now finding out we don’t have a whole lot.
Couple that with the fact a large number of senior guys are well done on their past form, which in some instances may be permanent given some of their ages, it’s not exactly hard to see where things are starting to fall down.
This doesn’t even start to question mentally how the group would be feeling. Getting so close after a number of years, only to blow it at the end. Come back to the new year and everyone patting them on the back, saying we just had to turn up and we’ll be back there on GF day. Round 1 comes and we lose our most important ball user and injuries have just got continued to mount from there with results heading the same way.
I honestly shudder to think how bad the second half of our season might be if we are out of contention and subsequent motivation by then.
It'll be good for Fagan actually. He won't be burdened by needing to make finals etc and will make some experimental changes. For example I'd love to see what a midfield minus Neale would look like. No disrespect to the brownlow medallist but he's 31 this may and we need the next-gen to be coming through soon. We could throw in a Rayner, Dunkley and Tunstill midfield and see what happens etc.