I think we have become far too reliant on Sandi's dominance in the ruck and as good as our midfield is they haven't been coached to try and read where the opposing ruck is going to put the ball, this was evident in the last two thirds of this year, as good as Hodor was, he only split the ruck 50 50 and our midfield was found out, Hodor has about 4 years of development ahead of him before he becomes a truely dominant force so once Sandi retires, we are still going to have a gap where unless we can learn to poach more clearances we are going to struggle.
That said, if we had a decent game plan I reckon we could match most teams as was evident by our close losses to many top 8 teams this year.