For Discussion

[Lods]

We were asked to be patient, we asked for no quick fixes, so why have a go at an article that is probably right and fits in with the clubs plan?

If you accept the "no quick fix/patience" line then it's probably a bit rich to have a go at the club.

On the other hand if you feel it's more a line to lower expectations...then it's quite reasonable to expect a bit more.
The club has nothing to gain by talking up a rapid improvement if it can convince people to sign on with the promise of a steady calculated rebuild.
Folk are signing up anyway...and many of those would be signing because they see some positive signs.
They don't think it will take as long as has been suggested.
It suits the club to say "it will take time".
On the other hand produce an 8-12 ladder finish next year and it can be 'pats on the back' all around and a "look how well we've done".
(That's actually what I'm expecting and I suspect it's where the club's real target is.)

We finished with the spoon...Is that a real indication of our ability?
Well that's where we finished I guess.
But we had so much off-field crap last year and it would have created a great deal of uncertainty among the playing group.
We had players who were already ''elsewhere'' and playing accordingly.
...and we had injuries to key players as indicated by Crash here..

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.

For me the real problem is our attack.
We had few, if any functioning forwards for much of the year.

Over the last three years the number of goals kicked has been...

2013-304
2014-276
2015-219

Down nearly 100 goals in 3 seasons!
(We all know where they've gone)...but an attack that scores only 219 goals :

That's our worst ever under the 22 game a year system (since 1967).
Fix that one area alone with a few contributors and you're well on the way to solving a big part of our problems.