CA, there's lots we don't know in terms of the inner workings. This we know for sure: they might have wanted Marcus Adams, but they didn't pick him with the first pick at 27. Neither did Western Bulldogs at that stage. He 'slipped' to 35, but we had the 38 pick. From all accounts Roly was disappointed that we didn't get a crack at him at 38. Balic was taken as the next best available. Yarran was a ready made forward, but that doesn't mean he's a ready-made AFL forward. Only time will tell, but I'm optimistic he can get his body right under the Freo programme. As for Bennell, by all accounts the GC strength and conditioning programme was woeful, leading to the soft-tissue vulnerability we see in Bennell now. Roly has referred to Harley in terms of a long-term frame, so they're clearly taking a softly-softly approach with him. Remember, Roly is contracted to 2020 so he wants a long and productive career out of Bennell, as do all of us. He brings genuine pace and is a genuine star.
Now, for something controverial, rhetorical that we will probably never know the answer to: who knows where Mora's career might be now if we didn't have him play 23 games as a 19 year old in 2010. All I'm saying is that people who know much more than we do, even as interested fans, plan the direction of our club, so there's not much we can do but trust them to do it to the best of their ability. Doctors, strength conditioners, rehab people, who are all skilled at what they do. Apparently Jason Weber was likely to be poached last year, but was convinced to stay. Besides, given what went on at Essendon, just be thankful we don't have a Dank-like svengali or a coach like Hird that will fall for anything.
As for the 34-year-old legend returning, I doubt that he would have if he didn't think we had a realistic shot at the flag this year, which I think (or is that hope) we do. We came close last year, but couldn't get over the Hawks. Interestingly, on the Footy Show last week, Shane Crawford was convinced that if Freo made it to the GF, we would have beaten the Weagles, even without Fyfe. I, too, have felt the same way. McPharlin and Co. would have shut down the Weagles tall forwards, and from the way they played as deer-in-headlights, I can think of several finals teams that would have beaten them last year, us included. When we played the Hawks in '13, at least we made a contest of it.
