(05-15-2017, 10:01 PM)jeza link Wrote:Doc, Marchbank, Plowman, Williamson, Byrne... then Rowe, Silvagni, White aren't young but they aren't 34 either.
You can't form the best defence in the afl then immediately pull it apart because they aren't all 18.
We need to worry about getting the mids working as well.
That is a very good point Jeza, also note the top teams tend to have a defence full of players in the last few years of their career.
Hawthorn have made a habit of finding aging/mature defenders or players and turning them into the cornerstone of a solid defence. In defence I'm not taking this too literally, because I think stoppage setups have a defensive aspect. There is no doubt it's the older blokes that often setup on the defensive side of stoppages which Hawthorn miss most this year!
They are two old blokes short! ;DIs Silvagni our first along those lines?
It's an important consideration, seeing what the loss of two experienced players has done to a club like Hawthorn. Yet we apparently have too many and need to cut them now, what will that do to us? :o
Finally, Rowe was a late starter, I have no idea why Lyon wasn't playing Silvagni but Ross is a different sort of cat, White's a year younger again and Simmo looks like he could play another year or two. Over time we'll naturally see Weitering, Plowman, Byrne and Marchbank displace them and the club will bring in more youth but they look good to go for a few years yet.
We may even find Sheehan and Jones making inroads on the defensive side of things, and Lamb and Sumner look a class about the others at VFL level in regards to mids. Form shows our list is not as bad as everybody predicts. The media are saying we'll have another massive list turnover, I suspect not! For me BB is two or three pieces of the puzzle away from having significant options.
"Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck ....... Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck"