Lol there is no excuse for conceding 34 points a game, mate....you keep throwing injuries up as an excuse, but the reality is we were at our absolute worst after our troops had come back when we were practically at full strength. When your team is getting worse and not better as key players come back, that is a huge red flag that you have a coaching issue and a playing group that is struggling to buy into the coach's vision.
We are looking better for next year? People said the same thing before the start of this year.
How are we looking better anyway? We have added Crichton and another centre who is coming off a long drug ban and is very much an unknown entity at the moment... even if he goes well, he's only a centre.... we seem to have lost more forwards than we have added at this stage. We have added more utilities than any coach in his right mind would know what to do with. We have various ex players coming out in the media and either criticising the coach's methods directly (Davey) or hinting at too much player turnover and instability and how excited they are to be heading to a new club (Waddell). So what exactly is it that you think is looking so much better for next year? And who is this deadwood you are talking about? We've lost some players we are better off without (TPJ) but also players like Avo - who is a very good prospect we will probably regret letting go, and Waddell, who showed more spirit and had more impact than anyone in our pack last year in terms of bending the line... an area we are seriously lacking in.
You think it was smart to let JMK go because he copped a few injuries? Injuries happen. If he had stayed at our club he would have been playing to a completely different schedule and who knows whether those injuries would even have occurred? When he did play, he ran rings around Mahoney this year. He offered more spark, better vision and was 100x better in defence... and we probably could have kept him for a fraction of the price. How was it a smart recruitment decision?
Don't need a "grub" like Elliott - yet I bet you are excited about Xerri despite his history, and would probably be frothing if we signed AFB - a bloke who was previously charged with, and pleaded guilty to assaulting his partner. Elliott is apparently the worst bloke in the world because he hooked up with a mate's misses after a night on the turps, yet we have no issue forgiving and forgetting when it comes to AFB - who admitted in court to pushing and kicking his partner after a night on the turps, because we think he would add to our pack. The double standards are honestly astounding.