You don’t need to completely rebuild with a list that has the all Australian full back, 2 recent Coleman medallist’s in their prime, Cripps who might win the Brownlow, Walsh and TDK (who by the way last night showed once our moronic coaching staff entered him into the game what a point of difference he is even off one leg).
All of the above players have plenty of good football left. No what this needs is a game plan adjustment along with better small forwards and outside run and ball movement. Apart from the players I listed I’d have anyone else on the trade table to land us 1 or 2 better small forwards and 1-2 outside mids/wingers with elite footskills. A D’Ambrosio type or two who doesn’t cost the earth but can put the footy on a 20 cent piece coming off the back of the square, the square or the wing is what this team needs, and a pre season adjusting our leading patterns. Our wingers at the moment are Acres and Ollie Hollands and as hard as both of those guys run and work for us their footskills are atrocious so when we do get the ball outside we can’t cut up anything or anyone because our skills don’t allow it. The same happens with our mids … Hewett Walsh and Cripps aren’t good users.
So between Acres, O Hollands, Hewett Walsh and Cripps we don’t really carve teams up do we? Add small forwards who can’t crumb or apply pressure and you get where we’re at.
This team needs an injection of speed and kicking skills. We have some pieces to move to make this happen. Austin just needs to get creative and the coaches need to change the game plan. The base is definitely there for at least another 3-4 seasons with cripps, Walsh, Tdk weiters Charlie and Harry we just need to get creative on the periphery and creative quickly. This is all on the coaches and administration to make the necessary tweaks starting this pre season.
