Quote Originally Posted by barry View Post
It's not pessimistic at all. The stats don't lie.
We finished 15th. More importantly we played like a 15th ranked team. That's a poor season. The second biggest drop behind Melbourne.

Anyone who thinks that's good is not doing the club any favours.
The nature is statistics is that they purport to state facts objectively. Such an attitude attributed to a footy team is neither doing the team or yourself justice. Supporting a team is about passion in spite of the facts, about being bullish when the naysayers are pointing out the obvious and about seeing the future through one-eyed, rose coloured lenses.

It’s true we finished in the bottom 4 but as has already been stated even that can be viewed positively, a top 5 draft pick, a better draw and a chance to look a lot of the youth on our list.
We were unable to win contested ball at stoppages and we consistently failed to stop scoring from their back half. One of the reasons we regularly lost possession at stoppages was because of the injuries to our fragile talls. This is an important phase of the modern game and to lose control of the hit outs so dramatically took its toll. However we saw late in the season the emergence of AA and Sam and their ability to neutralize the hitout advantage through their work around the ground was to me a really significant step forward. This especially evident in the final few matches when we accepted our lot and looked to other means of winning the ball.
It’s already been observed that our backs did very well and Rampe, Mills and Allir rightfully deserve a lot of he credit but I believe O’Riordan and McCartin please over very valuable as well.
Dawson, Hewitt and Rowbottom provided amazing highlights and augur well for next year. Blackey, Hayward (if he can get back his kicking mojo) and Papley ( hopefully he will stay) were great for us at times through the year. Sam stayed on the paddock and we did it mostly without Franklin.

Lots of reasons to be cheerful.