2023

[Bruce G McAbee]

So, my thoughts regarding this season. First of all, I am not expecting much this season as I believe this is an assessment year for us with virtually every game a practice game for the future of the club.
RL will be seeing, as many have been saying, who will be staying and who we can let go or trade for the right price. There will be experienced players who won't be part of a future successful club, but who we simply can't let go of yet because we need the experience for the younger players. The 2023 trade period and draft will be the most exciting part of this season and in many ways, next season maybe like 2001 to us, though we are a better side then we were in 2000.
Our recruiting at the end of 2019 wasn't a disaster, though we did pay too much for some of the gains. I mean, none of us were complaining about it when we made the 2020 finals. However, our recruitment at the end of 2020 was incredibly bad where we picked up too many top up players who were in fact nowhere near worth it.
I believe we got ahead of ourselves and thought we were a lot better than we were in 2020 because we made the finals, when we were still just an above average side and didn't do any recruiting to improve that. The alarm bells first rang for me at the start of 2021 when, despite the fact we made the finals for the first time in 9 years, we had the oldest list in the AFL, which doesn't reflect a team on the way up, but had probably peaked and was on the way back down.
So, I do predict a fairly long season for us this year, where we will win anywhere between 6-10 games and I expect our second half of the season, depending on how healthy our list stays, will be better than our first half of the season.
What should be exciting will be our young draft picks ofrom 2021 and last year showing us an exciting nucleus t build a team around.

[Banger9798]

If we had even an average injury list...2 or 3 players, we would be in the hunt for finals.
I reckon there is a negative bias with the perception of our list due to our injuries and who is available.
What is difficult to know is whether those players like Billings, Jones , Coffield, King , who have been especially challenged at getting on the park, will ever get back and play good footy.
Certainly looks like a tough season ahead, but I don't think we need to hit the rebuild button just yet