The Hydra ~ Caro rears her head again

[burnsy17]

If you are someone who doesn't think we can finish 15th... well... enjoy your world, it's a nice place to live.

And what a lovely world that is. Its a world where pessamists dont exist and logic reigns supreme...

[Johnson#26]

She's about the only person that can come up with shit like that and not be on drugs. Hate to think where she would have us if she was on drugs. Perhaps relegated to the VFL?

And Richmond to not drop a game and win the flag. The little respect left is dwindling...

...15th. My God. We are sooooo much better then that. 100 times better. Two Grand Finals. Then a mental and physical downer. What is she on? And then she says Richmond will finish 11th. If they finish higher then us......

....I won't have to worry about that, as it won't happen.

Are we the 15th best side? No. More like the 5th or 6th.

[slangman]

whats all the fuss about?

In 2002 we were evaluated in much the same way and by the same people as this year.

Im sick of hearing about lack of depth.

Brisbane (last few years anyway) and Port aside NO OTHER TEAM in the league has the depth to cover major and long term injuries to its key players.

Take out Gehrig and Reiwoldt for 6+ games each a year and St Kilda will struggle to make the 8.

Harley and Scarlett the same at Geelong.

Neitz and Davey
Pavlich and Farmer or Bell
Judd and Gardiner or Cousins
Lloyd and Hird
Tarrant and Rocca
Fevola and Lappin or kouta
Hall and Goodes
Ricciuto and Goodwin
Darcy and Johnson
Everitt and Crawford
Thompson and Harvey (N.M)
N Brown and dare I say it....Richo

The point being that if you take out the 2 players most important to their teams structure, they will struggle to make th 8.
As we witnessed with our win against Freo in Perth, you can win the odd game with a suprise tactic and structure, but over 22 rounds of hard football you need your best players on the ground 90% of the time.

Buckley reportedly earns $800,000
Rocca $450,000
Tarrant $450,000
----------
$1.7 Million

With a salary cap or $6Mill approx. means that they are worth 28% to the team. That means that we were playing at 72% of our capacity.

I understand that other factors have a bearing also, but I think that figure should put things into perspective a bit.

My ladder prediction for this year has been postponed until the completion of Rd 22.

......I have a headache!!!!

[Clemo]

Is there a link to the article ?

[Lazza]

For what its worth, I agree with Cam. That's not to say that I think we will finish 15th but agree that it IS a possibility. There are SO many intangibles during a footy season that you just CANNOT predict an accurate finishing position, merely have a wild guess at it. I thought most of us would have learnt our lessons about this after last season but obviously not.
Also, people here always tend to confuse a person's realism with pessimism. Lets face it, we are mostly one eyed, bleed black & white, extremely fanatical, biased and have unrealistically high expectations of the club & the players. This is a very hard surface to crack if you happen to be a feet on the ground, realistic fan like me and a few others. Nothing new by the way.
Everyone has a right to their opinions for sure but like anywhere else, some opinions carry much more weight than others. To me, realistic ones usually out perform the "pie in the sky" expectations & predictions.

[Cakewalk]

It is obviously not beyond the realms of possibility for us to finish 15th this year , but having Caroline Wilson predicting anything about the actual game of football is laughable.
She may know alot about what goes behind the scenes in the AFL and the politics behind it but her knowledge about the game amounts to SFA , I still chuckle as I recall her referring to Jason Cloke as very skillful a couple of years ago on Talkiing Football.

[Johnson#26]

Clemo, unfortunitly there's no link on the Age site, although they do have the Essendon one up.

[Nath]

QUOTE: I admit that we haven't recruited 'overly' well in the off season.

Don't people rate Morrison & Carracella??

In a couple of words......not really.

One has a dodgy knee, the other a dodgy shoulder.
Caracella is a top player but has looked awfully good in fantastic teams such as the Baby Bombers and the best team in the last 20 years.

Morrison would have struggled to get a game in the West Coast team this year and they wouldn't be crying in their cereal knowing they lost Chad but picked up Tyson Stenglein now would they.

Have to agree with Cam too in a sense, we could well finish 15th, just don't want Caro to be telling me.

[molloymagic]

I had to laugh when I saw the segment on 'the footy show',*rofwl*. They did 'talking footy'(for those who didn;t see it). Was the only interesting thing about the show *lol*.

[uuuuu..... The LoneSTAR]

I think picking up 2 players that will most likely walk into our 1st XVIII is a better than fair effort during the off season IMHO - And although we are a little off topic here Blake can only play in the teams his in and is Chad's 'dodgy knee' any worst than Lica's??,..... maybe,..who knows?

Sure, we 'could' finish 15th,.. even 16th IF we have injuries, shut down mentally & the wheels fall off for example.
If you're going to look at it that way, perhaps the same could be said for most teams this year?? 'IF' only has two letters,.. but gee its a big word!

In the end, i think its fair to say that we are certainly going to be a better side than 15th,....... although i'm happy to agree to disagree

[burnsy17]

Agree 100% with you LoneSTAR... When one makes a prediction, its made with what is presented infront of you:

1. Our list (stonger in 2005 than 2004 IMO)
2. Our Form (2nd round Wiz + def last years premiers - better than last years pre-season...)
3. Current Injuries (almost a full list to pick from bar 3 maybe 4 players - better than last year)


Logic would say, excluding all the IF's, BUT's and MAYBE's that we'll have a better season than last year, and hence, not finish 15th....

AND, on the topic of Caracella and Morrison - If they dont waltz into our first 22 and wont make a positive difference this year, Cam isnt pointing his finger at us every time we look at one of his posts....

[chalky]

Our position on the ladder is in relation to other teams. How they fare can affect the rise and fall. Caro predicts IF everything goes wrong at Collingwood and everything goes right at all the other clubs then Collingwood will finish in the bottom 4 (just like 2004!). Genius!!
Talking of 2004, how many times did we play without our first choice goal to goal line? In fact I remember a game with no Prest-Wakelin-Buckley-Rocca-Tarrant. Come on guys, 2004 was an abberation. No team can suffer like we did 2 yrs in a row. We consistently had 5-6 key players out. As slang has shown just 2 key losses at other clubs makes a huge difference to their chances, geez we had triple that on a regular basis. We have recruited well- senior bodies - Morrison, to share the hard yakka with Burns, Woey and licca. Caracella to add that permanent threat and class on the forward line.
15th!! what a load of crap! Even if we had an AVERAGE run with injuries and everything else remained the same we are still top 8. Our improvement 2004 vs 2005 doesn't have to come from some dramatic form leap or certain players playing "out of their skulls" but rather putting a reletively consistent team out on the field each week. It really is as simple as that. Finals beckon

[uuuuu..... The LoneSTAR]

Thumbs up Chalky

LOL @ Burnsy17,......... Cam's finger pointing!
That avtar is a thread on its own!

[Cam]

Hey YOU!

[David]

well she does write for the Age after all ... you aren't going to get much worthwhile out of that newspaper