2005 is dead and gone and living in that era is counter productive as much as basking in the glory is fun. We had a core group of highly skilled individuals surrounded by solid team performers in 2005. That group was nowhere as skilled or diverse as this group. This group is also the most flexible we have had at the club with so many players capable of playing in so many positions. What clubs have been able to do in the last five years is pick players who exploited our lack of pace. This is not a problem anymore as we have had a rather large injection of pace ourselves. Each side picks a core group of players, Collingwood pick Pendlebury, Swan, Cloke, Shaw etc. We know this is going to happen and the coaches have far more flexibility today than ever before to pick players who match up positively on those players while picking players that they are going to have to match up on as well. This is not reactive it is reality. There is no such thing as a set board anymore, the Pies don't have one nor the Cats. It might be nice to use less players as has always been the assertion but it may not always be possible in todays game.
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