Reset Rants

[hitman]

I’ll admit it… I’m a rebuild sceptic...a rebuild denier even!
I have been from the start. I saw the announcement that we were rebuilding as a delaying tactic to ward off criticism of our position at the time. It came at a time when we were getting confident messages from the coach at the start of the year, only to fall in a heap in the early stages of that season.
It came in the middle of a power tussle that eventually saw the demise of the coach. You could tell that as far as he was concerned ‘rebuild’ was a bit of a dirty word.
2015 was a bad year made worse by that turmoil. After Malthouse left the agenda was probably more designed towards ensuring the best draft pick possible.

So once you start on a rebuild/reset you virtually have no choice but to follow it through. It’s not something you can change your mind about once you cut deeply into a list.
Silvagni and Bolton were, on the surface, pretty obvious choices to be the builders. The process for choosing Bolton was transparent and thorough.

My concerns are…
Have we cut too deeply leaving no depth or experience?

Would we have been in a better position with a less radical approach?

Have we made the right choices in terms of building a balanced list?

Has our deplorable development of young players improved? Our skills and decision making still seem to require more work.

Are our medical folk on top of things given some of the injuries, which seem in some cases to be overuse injuries. You can’t help rolled ankles but you can allow proper strength and conditioning to ward off soft tissue injuries and also allow adequate recuperation before putting a player back on the park.

Are we asking too much of certain players to the point where we push them to breaking point? I’m concerned with our management of Weitering who I suspect was asked to play on through injury a) because he was good and b) in an attempt to harden him up. Cripps carries such a heavy workload, especially in the absence of Murphy, that he’s also in danger of breaking. With nothing to lose this season we could even give him some weeks off.

How does Bolton go tactically on match day. Does he need assistance in the form of a mentor?

Some of our match day selections seem confusing. Is the focus development rather than results? At some point the latter must take precedence.

How do I feel two years and 6 games into the rebuild?…still sceptical but prepared to give it a little longer!

Love this post. Well done. Been sharing similar thoughts but so deep is the cave I have been in relating to footy and CFC haven't posted for ages..
My thoughts..
6 games in confirms you can't go inexperienced in so many key positions on the ground and expect to have depth in the twos. I only hope they stop playing guys who have been injured back in the ones so quickly.
If we don't find some pacey forwards who can impose pressure both in defending the ball in and impacting the score board on our current list, this must become a recruiting priority!
We still need to inject more pace.
As far as Bolton goes. I really like his focus and energy. I can only hope like many supporters he has the confidence of the players. What they are saying versus what they are showing makes me concerned. The effort in round 2 versus Gold Coast was atrocious. Hasn't improved too much since. The lack of tackles last game confirms this. Stats don't lie. 13 players had between 1-2 tackles for the match. So you combine lack of effort with lack of pace and you are miles behind. If the effort meter doesn't improve I'm not sure we are heading the right way. Games and experience certainly counts, but if the effort and skill doesn't then what are we achieving this year?