Just a question for the assembled minds. Does anyone see anything wrong right now with the structure? I know there is an embedded notion that we don’t have people forward, but that’s not what I’m seeing most weeks. Most weeks I’m seeing players forward, but they aren’t the most talented bunch, don’t seem to be in quite the right spots, and our decision-making and skills entering the 50 have been poor (except when our best players like Walters are doing the kicking).
Our forward line on the weekend, for the most part, was made up of Cox, Jones, Giro, Langdon and Sutcliffe. That’s a combined total of 2.3 goals a game based on their career averages. I know people like to blame Lyon for the structure, but what structure lights up the scoreboard against a good team with that lot? With the exception of Langdon, and perhaps Cox in two years, it’s dead-set WAFL grade. What does a bunch of WAFL players with no history of playing together look like? They look like they aren’t quite in the right spots and lacking skills and make poor decisions.
Perhaps Lyon wouldn’t get the best out of Roughhead, Breust, Gunsten, Puopolo etc, but the margin for error would be a fair amount greater.
I reckon you'd need to go back to 1998 to find a forward line with less talent, but I reckon a forward line with a broken down Peter Mann, Kingsley Hunter, James Clement, Brodie Holland, Gary Dhurrkay and Clive still has a bunch more firepower than our current lot.
