More to the point v Sydney, if Ross had not dropped a handball fed to him and Battle had not dropped a mark he should have held
And the list goes on
Across 100 minutes of game time there are many incidents you could highlight but the 2 I have referred to led directly to Sydney walk in goals which were also demoralising
I am not too sure about the expectations put on Hayes given his history in getting to an AFL Club
Hayes will be honest and will do a job
But I don’t expect him to be the difference between a middle ranking side and a premiership side
We have to work on improving our List, where we have Marshall, Steele, Sinclair, Hill and King who are elite
Then we have the parts being Howard, Wilkie and Crouch who are at the standard
Then we get to those we need to grow to impact players pushing to elite
This includes those impacted by injury starting with Coffield, Clark, Gresham and Billings
Then the likes of Long replicating Sinclair - along with others and including those who debuted in 2022
Higgins, by way of example, needs to bring his early season form (until concussions, plural)
Unfortunately our 30 year olds do not cut the mustard as competition elite - and are holding us back
It is interesting that media are all over players leaving Clubs to go to the likes of Collingwood and the other “big” Clubs (so not the likes of St Kilda)
So is this speculation to sell papers and attract readers and listeners?
We need a couple more elite players from somewhere
Noting we know where the gaps on our List are - and they are glaring
Marshall
Moderators: Saintsational Administrators, Saintsational Moderators