After listening to the Bellamy interview on Monday night he made it pretty clear that the new rules have had a major impact on team performances and he acknowledged he had in his squad the right mix of players to take advantage. He also talked about how little time teams had to adjust to these off season rules.
His answer was in the context of a coaches ability to influence results this season.
Barrett had a bottom 4 squad (if not the worst) before these rule changes - no team came out of it worse than us after these changes were implemented, in terms of skill, power and the ability to play heads up footy - you only have to look at the infringements to see that we just don't have the cattle to compete with the increased speed of the game.
Next season will see us address this in part, however, expectations of making the 8 is ambitious albeit not impossible - considering we are finishing 16th this season, I think a fair target for next year is a top ten finish.
We are still 3-4 players short in key positions before we can expect to compete with the heavy weights - until we can find those players we will a fringe 8 team.