They are not worthy premiers. This is an AFL era of mediocrity. There are too many clubs and the talent, which was probably in limited supply anyway, has been spread too thinly. It's worse than that, really. The talent may have been simply wasted and lost, as GC and GWS screwed up the bodies or footy educations of a generation of kids. Meanwhile, NBA etc. lure kids to the dark side, which did not happen 30 years ago.What'sinaname wrote:What are they not?Pies4shaw wrote:Except that they’re really, really not.
Rich's main achievement is to be virtually injury-free for four years. For the first two years, they were injury-free the entire two years. Last year, it looked like they'd finally have injuries (and they played like wooden spooners in that period), but magically they had all recovered when finals rocked around. This year we're at the pointy end of the season, and if reports that Prestia and Lynch are in full training are correct, they again are almost injury-free.
It's disturbing the other clubs haven't worked out the injury and fitness stuff. Normally secrets don't last more than about 18 months. Ideally, the bottom clubs would have poached Rich's fitness and medical staff by now.
I don't know how clubs expect to win finals against a club's full senior side when they are playing half of a VFL side because of their injury carnage.