05-01-2018, 10:09 AM
(05-01-2018, 04:55 AM)Lods link Wrote:Murphy wasn't supposed to be missing... and the addition of players like Kennedy and Lang and the drafting of Dow plus an expected improvement in SPS should have given us a close to break even....otherwise Gibbs was some sort of super player.
Now fates have conspired against us...but lets assume down the track, towards the end of the season, we have all these players fit and available.
We should have a better mid-field.
Docherty's the bigger loss....I suspect he would probably have spent some more time in the mid-field...but what we really miss is his setting up attacks from the half back. It would have been the key to the more attacking game plan.... and the fact we tried that without his contribution was brave but obviously not very successful.
Gibbs is a seriously good footballer. Grossly underated by these boards and Carlton Fans in general. Most likely from frustrations that he hadn't won 4 brownlows and led us to 6 premierships. Yeah he wasn't hard like Dusty Martin, but he was composed, clean, a great field kick and a bloody good footballer.
He is a player that can have 43 touches, 8 Marks, 10 tackles and kick 2 goals in a game.
You can't replace that with Kennedy (19 games), Lang (44) who couldn't crack the Cats Midfield, Dow (0) and SPS (21). It's like trying to replace Steve Smith with Renshaw, Burns, Handscomb and Travis Head. Yeah I know Gibbs isn't Steve Smith
The decison to trade Gibbs was always going to be a step back, to make up better in the long run. 6 months long run? No. 3-4 years.