Expectations

[Cpt. Kirk]

Before the season started i thought it would be good to get a discussion over what you expect players, especially younger ones to be achieving by the end of the year. (injury free)

What i think Gary Rohan will be trying to achieve by the end of the year is to play a bit more through the midfield build up his tank, average more disposals then last year and kick more then 20 goals this season. I really think he could play in the Dangerfield type role he just needs to bulk up and build his fitness.

Luke parker should play the same role as he did last year with more game time and get more possessions and perhaps go forward and kick some goals on occasions, it would help the team if he plays a Jude Bolton type role and look to take some workload from Jude.

Sam Reid to keep on doing what he has been doing perhaps find the ball some more and get more accurate in front of goal, i reckon he should better last years goal total and perhaps kick above 35 for the year at his best.

Lewis Jetta should get more possesions and attack the ball/player harder, he needs to learn when to run and go with the ball with his pace. His decision making should get better and his good kick should break apart some defenders.

Alex Johnson should continue to improve on last year and perhaps become more of a link up player, whereas last year he was already doing enough to try keep his player from getting into the game he might be able to focus more on getting the ball out of the backline.

I haven't seen enough of jed lamb and the other new draftee's to discuss what i think they could improve.

I am interested to know what other people think about my expectations and discuss their own.

[grarmy]

I like your take. However, we lack consistency and skills among the mid-ranked players. The kids coming through are great. At the top end, you lose Goodes, Mummy, Bolton through injury and you lose, period. We are not there yet.

[wolftone57]

I don't actually agree with you Grarmy. I think we have much more depth now especially in the mid field. The one thing that hasn't changed is our Forward Problem. I believe when the Spang gets back on the park we could have a chance of building a very dangerous forward line. But it will take some big performances from the non-key position players. We need to be able to bring in a Lamb, TDL or Nipper and have them firing. We have the potential to do this but standard of the reserves comp is a problem. I think if we had a comp that was the same strength as the VFL, SANFL or WAFL we would have a better chance of bringing players in to perform a pinch hitting role.

The North-Eastern Conference needs to be made up of the best teams from ACT, NSW, Qld & NT leagues. The league works on a relegation basis, the two bottom sides drop out and the top sides from the other leagues on aggregate come in.

I think we have the potential to do very well this year but I think we need to take a few risks with the game plan. Longmire said he is frustrated with the players not executing the game plan correctly. Maybe he is not communicating well enough his plan. I was under the impression the plan was to just bomb it in as many times as possible and we would pick up at least 30% of entries. Obviously not! He was bemoaning the lack of direction in the long bombs, not giving our forwards advantage. He is right, you don't want to kick the ball into the forward line just to see it come back twice as quick.

[swansrule100]

I think we are a key defender short of the top sides, but at our best we can cover that. I think the gap between our best is worst is bigger than the top couple of sides, but I am actually feeling very positive about is year and beyond I think we have started the last year or two to really blood some good youngsters where as back in the day we traded for 25 year old players.

Recruiting under longmire (ok its only two years) is better than Roos, wether that is reflective of the two coaches I dont know.