RD 7 : Blues V Giants (Pre-Match Pre-Amble)

[PassIt2Carrots]

Sucess in the future can only be possible if a team starts to conduct itself in the way that it wants to be right now. Playing the kids is the mantra of the loser. It says we are not good enough now, so we hope that by gaining experience we will somehow get better. In a team sport that is a recipe for continued poor results. It nurtures an environment where losing in the present is acceptable in the hope that tomorrow will be better.

But then there's GWS that proves all that wrong. Losses in the past mean absolutely nothing once those boys get 80+ games into them.

Know what?  Tomorrow never comes and losing begets losing. And bringing in ill prepared young players to such a mix retards their development. Senior players figure they can coast along as the team is in rebuild mode, and first round picks figure they get a game cause they 'need experience' but never fully grasp the level of commitment required to earn selection on merit. So let's all lose together and explain it away.

That is a wishy washy argument based on assumption. Senior players feel they can coast? You're just clutching at straws now.

The best footy teams (like any succesful team in any walk of life) hate losing and are filthy about it when they do. It's great to learn from mistakes but once losing is acceptable for a team then the rot has set in and it spirals down. And the exchange of a team losing a few games for the gain of getting experience into individuals is a lousy trade off.

Once again, GWS proves this wrong. But also, once again you're assuming that teams will constantly lose when they pick the kids. St Kilda and Footscray are two examples in the current season that have bucked the trend, and when you look at our form, we could do not much worse.

Anyway, rant over. Hoping for a good performance against the Giants. If our midfield work hard enough we may get a decent spread and some clean ball forward. We saw a couple of glimpses last week when this happened.

I think we should account for GWS with this side myself, but if we play blokes like Boeky and Nick Graham we can still win and get these young blokes playing together for another game which will be of great importance down the track.

Get Mick away from this list before he does any further damage.