I’m finding it just as hard to read Dockerland these days as the mainstream medja (MM).
I expect the MM to stick he boot in, belittle us and generally make the case for kicking us out of the comp. Funny how the premiers of 2016 seem to be spared the same attacks even though they have fallen away as bad as any recent premier (or GF side) - even worse than us after 2013.
But then again, they’re Victorian and must be protected at all costs.
What I saw yesterday was a seasonded side full of high drafts picks (mostly poached from others - Treloar, Hoskin-Elliot and Taylor to name a few) dismantle a team of kids.
That some on here want to burn the club down based on this just goes to show how entrenched the ABR faction is on here - like everywhere else.
Can’t believe I’m uttering the words, but Karl Langdon made a good point in yesterday’s paper about rebuilding clubs who changed coach midstream versus those that didn’t - despite an avalanche of criticism for the sitting coach to be sacked.
The ones that did - Brissie, Carlton and St Kilda - are welded to the bottom of the ladder. Those that didnt - Norf, Collonwood and Richmond - are now going ok.
Any team that allows 60+ i50’s is going to make their backline look ordinary. I agree they haven’t been as good as earlier in the year but we had no one in that zone with more than 87 games experience (Wilson) - and he’s still finding his feet in the team.
You simply cannot blood as many youngsters as we have (8 so far this year - the highest of any team) and be bereft of experienced KPPs (Cox is 19, A.Pearce has played 32 games, for example) and expect to compete against anyone other than fellow battlers.
To me this is just like 1994-2002 - get smashed by all and sundry with the occasional win against the odds. Back then, we would consistently lose to teams below us on the ladder and that explains why we took a decade to play finals.
Maybe we should just hand back our AFL licence and only agree to rejoin if we get a deal like GWS or GC in terms of draft picks. We could then do a Port Adelaide and pay blokes like Fyfe, A.Pearce, Son Son to play WAFL for a season or two while we squeeze out a deal.
But back to reality...
I am prepared to wear the pain of days like yesterday so long as we continue to expose our full list of kids to the rigours and reality of AFL football. We don’t have the luxury to develop these kids in the WAFL - especially when we’ve got so many first choice players out injured (Darcy, both Hills, Tabs, Logue, Grey & Sandi) - so we need to suck it up and keep backing them in.
I will not join the lazy chorus of ‘sack the coach/board/administration’ as every time we have done that in our past has turned a bad situation into a disastrous one. Albeit with the exception of the recruitment of R.Lyon.
If we could attract a proven coach of the caliber of Clarkson, the Scott brothers or Longmire then I’d consider it.
But to play Russian roulette with an untried coach like Bolton, Watters/Richardson, Voss/Leppitsch/Fagan or McKenna/Dew is not something I’m prepared to countenance and our history in that regard is self-explanatory - it simply doesn’t work.
That being said, it going to be a long few years before we compete again with the tops sides - regardless of who is coaching/running/leading the club.
