05-18-2015, 11:03 AM
Long time reader, first time poster, reserved seat member since early 90’s, I go to 14-16 games per year. I feel compelled to post because of some of the rubbish I am hearing in the media. Everyone is getting blamed for our current predicament, from the coach to the leaders to the list managers to the Board. Not easy to determine what the truth is. So I thought back to a glorious night on September 8 2013 at the G where I sat in a massive crowd and watched us come back and win an Elimination Final against Richmond. We played exhilarating football in the second half, and with some exciting young players we looked forward to good times over the next few years. In the car on the 90 minute trip home we actually discussed what we need to press for top 4 in the next year or two. How have we got from there to where we are now?
So I searched today and found the team from that night, just 16 months ago. Of the 22, we still have 15 on our list (D Armfield, T Bell, E Curnow, B Gibbs, L Henderson, M Jamison, C Judd, M Kreuzer, T Menzel, M Murphy, K Simpson, Z Tuohy, A Walker, R Warnock, C Yarran). While Tom Bell has clearly improved, and possibly Ed Curnow, it is hard to make an argument that any of the others have improved since 2013 (apologies to Juddy – hard to improve from the level he started at!). This is a blight on our player development.
Of the 7 players no longer on the list, we as a club decided to delist 3 of them (J Garlett, A McInnes and M Robinson), 2 have retired (N Duigan, H Scotland), and two were lost to free agency (E Betts, J Waite). Any half decent club would be able to cover the retirements, which are beyond our control. Scotland was an excellent player for us, but I think the recruitment of Docherty was very good, and he has shown that he is stepping up to that role. Duigan was a bit player, and his retirement can hardly be regarded as the cause of our demise. The delistings of Garlett and Robinson haven’t helped us, but I can understand where the club was coming from, although we seem to handle such incidents worse than every other club (in terms of the outcomes for the club).
The loss of Betts and Waite to free agency is a clear result of investing a massive component of our salary cap on Dale Thomas. This was a club decision, reportedly driven hard by M Malthouse.
If we try to remove emotion and look at the facts, I can’t understand how anybody can say M Malthouse doesn’t have to shoulder the blame for this. To those that say it’s not his fault because the list is so bad, we still have 15 players who won a final 16 months ago (most of which he should have improved between then and now), and have lost 2 players to bring in his pet player, who has given us nothing, and 2 others who annoyed him but have gone on to make significant contributions at other clubs. And don’t get me started on Jeremy Laidler…
So I searched today and found the team from that night, just 16 months ago. Of the 22, we still have 15 on our list (D Armfield, T Bell, E Curnow, B Gibbs, L Henderson, M Jamison, C Judd, M Kreuzer, T Menzel, M Murphy, K Simpson, Z Tuohy, A Walker, R Warnock, C Yarran). While Tom Bell has clearly improved, and possibly Ed Curnow, it is hard to make an argument that any of the others have improved since 2013 (apologies to Juddy – hard to improve from the level he started at!). This is a blight on our player development.
Of the 7 players no longer on the list, we as a club decided to delist 3 of them (J Garlett, A McInnes and M Robinson), 2 have retired (N Duigan, H Scotland), and two were lost to free agency (E Betts, J Waite). Any half decent club would be able to cover the retirements, which are beyond our control. Scotland was an excellent player for us, but I think the recruitment of Docherty was very good, and he has shown that he is stepping up to that role. Duigan was a bit player, and his retirement can hardly be regarded as the cause of our demise. The delistings of Garlett and Robinson haven’t helped us, but I can understand where the club was coming from, although we seem to handle such incidents worse than every other club (in terms of the outcomes for the club).
The loss of Betts and Waite to free agency is a clear result of investing a massive component of our salary cap on Dale Thomas. This was a club decision, reportedly driven hard by M Malthouse.
If we try to remove emotion and look at the facts, I can’t understand how anybody can say M Malthouse doesn’t have to shoulder the blame for this. To those that say it’s not his fault because the list is so bad, we still have 15 players who won a final 16 months ago (most of which he should have improved between then and now), and have lost 2 players to bring in his pet player, who has given us nothing, and 2 others who annoyed him but have gone on to make significant contributions at other clubs. And don’t get me started on Jeremy Laidler…