For Discussion

[crashlander]

We will win more than 4 games.

Absolutely. We will be disrespected until teams find out the hard way if we can play or not.
But the biggest things will be how our list holds together. If we get the injuries we got this year, we are cooked. They are correct, we are very short on experience. If guys fall over, then we will be in trouble.
However, having Gibbs, Thomas, Byrne, Sheehan, Kreuzer, Murphy and Graham in and contributing, where Yarran, Henderson and Menzel did not or could not, will make us more competitive.
I do not expect miracles, but if we can keep something like our best 20 odd on the field, we will win games against 'good' sides. And that is not considering any reasonable contributions from our newbies.
We beat Port and should have beaten Adelaide before our list fell apart. Both of them are rated much higher than us. We will win games. But if we have to depend on our new chums and rookies, then we are in trouble.

I am not sure why we have been hit so hard by injury in recent times, but having Murphy and Plowman already have operations does not bode well. But it is something most teams will face. Take the best 6 players out of Hawthorn's lineup and they don't win either. In fact, the team on the bottom usually has a significant injury issue to players it cannot afford to miss. Looks at Gold Coast this year and in 2014: no Ablett and they were worthless.