Drubb, please enlighten us to those games this season when we fielded our best 22 and ended up on the receiving end of a shellacking (I.e. Plus 10 goals)?
Sure we dropped off after round 9, but that also coincided with the loss of Sandi & Langdon - two very important players for us in the preceding games, IMHO.
We copped a flogging from Adelaide in Adelaide in Rnd 10 (no orphans there as they beat 8 sides - including the eventual premier- by 9 goals or more at home).
Apart from the Brisvegas game, we didn't lose to a team lower than us on the ladder (as at round 23), beat the eventual premier at home (one of only 2 teams to do so) and lost to the second placed side away by a stray Walter's kick on the siren.
I'm not attempting to paper over some horror performances at the back end of the season when the kids tired and the stars were buggered from carrying the team all year - but that's what happens to teams rebuilding.
We saw glimpses of what Bennell can offer us late, esp in the Essendon game, and I reckon the addition of Wilson to our defence will make a huge difference to our ball movement out of centre-back to use a 'Roly-ism'.
I'm not blindly accepting performances like the Sydeney & Richmond abominations - but unlike other periods in our history when we've been in similar positions - at least the light at the end of the tunnel now isn't a train coming the other way, IMHO.
Should we start next season like we finished this one with no obvious improvement insight - then that would indicate the playing group has stopped listening to the coach. I don't believe that to be the case (doesn't seem to have happened in Roly's 10 year senior coaching career to date), but there's always a first.
My point is, I'll support the club no matter who's the coach, captain, president, CEO, list manager, etc.
Maybe that comes from being a 6th generation Fremantle product and my entire family following Fremantle WAFL teams (sadly, mostly Souf's), but I'll bleed purple until the day I die.
In the meantime, I find it more enjoyable focusing on the positives. If others want to focus on the negatives, that's their prerogative.