Interesting points.
- props, agree we are short in this area. Begs the question as to why Bunty Isn't starting with Barnett coming off the bench. Worked well for us during the season and lessens the load on AFB, even if its just 20 minutes from Bunty at the start of games.
- Tohu and AFB fatigue. as above for AFB, Also need to play Volkman at 7 if SJ is injured for this next game so that that Walker can go back to 14 and that helps out Tohu as well as giving us some better options in attack. We don't have a big forward pack and that interchange of passing in the middle makes up for it. Without it we struggle to open up gaps anywhere.
- SJ is such a big part of the way we play. Not just his creativity and threat with the ball, but his organising, experience, kicking game and defensive efforts are going to be hard to replace in the coming seasons. Be interesting to see the bandwagon fans when we are scrapping it out for 6 - 12 place. This would be the first season in a long time he has played that many games in a row?
- players have had career best seasons. As you say, it is to be expected that they can't maintain that high level of performance. I also think that we have been able to mask over some obvious flaws in players through our results and combined effort against weaker teams. We caught the competition on the hop this season. They weren't expecting what we have delivered and now the good teams have done their homework on us more and exposing our weaknesses.
- I'm not sure if we front loaded the start of the year or not. There may be an element of that. I do think that teams are doing their homework on us more. I think we have a number of players with obvious flaws that we have been able to mostly cover for during the season. I also think that it has gotten a bit much for some of them with all of the work we have had to do to get up to the standard of the top teams in the competition. We seem to have improved on one facet of the game, moved on to the next and improved on that, then moved on to the next to improve and the first thing we worked on has slipped. We have only had the one preseason and this year to work on a number of things that need to be ingrained in to our play. For example our defensive structure and resilience was what we worked on first and that seems to have slipped away in the later part of the season. I do wonder how we will go next season and if we can transform in to a consistent club year on year, or whether some players have reached their level this season and there needs to be a longer rebuild period.
It has been a phenomenal year that has bought a sense of pride back in to the club and fanbase. That also brings increased expectation. Will Andrew Webster have a case of second year syndrome or can we build from here further. I think its going to take quite a bit more than RTS coming in for us to do that.
