2018 - What do you expect from the club?

[Baggers]

Code:

In the past two seasons we went after and failed to get: Tomlinson, Kelly, Rockliff, Smith, Lynch, Saad and maybe another 'name' or two...

Very simplistic analysis.

Tomlinson we almost got. deal didn't get done at the 11th hour. he stayed put. Ditto Kelly (and 2020 looms  ).

Marchy >> Tomlinson.

Rockliff - meh, wanted massive dollars and is clearly a highly divisive individual. Not a good fit for our young group.

Smith - didn't he fail a medical? Small forward, is he any better than Lang - very unproven.

Saad - meh, one half decent season. Prefer Garlett every day of the week. More skills, more tricks, far more versatile.

Lynch - who knows...nothing was ever going to happen by now in any event?

...and Hopper...

It wasn't an analysis it was a statement of facts. Port went after Rockcliff and got him, cheats.com.au went after Smith and Saad and got them, GWS upped the anti and Kelly, Tomlinson and Hopper stayed. We failed to get people we went after. It's not a criticism, though it may sound that way, it is simply a statement of facts. Of course there are reasons, excuses, justifications, rationalisations and so on, but highly successful organisations get what they want, mostly. Look at the highly successful clubs in recent history (Dawks, Fluffy Ducks etc), they get their man... no matter what. Like it or not, we're a bottom club with potential going through enormous change.

HOWEVER, our time will come. We're clearly not a destination club at present and no matter how good SOS is, the lure of going to a club that plays finals is much stronger than being part of a rebuild... It won't take too long, I believe, before we are once again where we should be - playing finals regularly and maybe, just maybe, a few blokes who declined our advances may soon regret it.