Sydney won't be bottom 4. We almost certainly won't be in the 8 either (though I'm praying for another year like 2003, and when you look at it, the similarities are there), but we won't be bottom 4. Kirk is showing no signs of slowing down, Jude Bolton, Ryan O'Keefe and arguably Adam Goodes are coming off at least equal-career-best years, so they aren't slowing down either, Bird, Jack and Grundy took another step, White showed he has at least a 50-goal year up his sleeve, Goodes has shown he can play true CHF as well as any other position, Smith is settled in the backline....
....and we're losing MOL. How will we ever cope?! I'm not counting the others because Kennelly, Fosdike and Hall were all lost well before the end of the year, and we've already shown we can survive without them, while Leo and Crouch wouldn't have been in our best 22 with no injuries (Leo only barely scraped in as it was). MOL was also in far from career best form. As for Murphy, he never cracked a game. Unfortunate looking to the future, but no loss to our current side.
It's easy to look at a long retiree list and think we're screwed. It's only a little harder to actually examine the effect of these retirements and realise they won't have much influence. But evidently, it's too hard for most. If anything, we stand to gain from these retirements as the extra list space it will create means we will get an influx of new talent and depth. We played the entire year minus Kennelly and Fosdike, half the year without Hall, and almost the entire year without Leo, who only recovered from injuries in time for the last couple of games. We were stretched for depth at times this year, so compared to halfway through the year we're basically getting 3 extra players for free (I'm not including Leo because he was injured, and that's cheating, because I could name any injured player).
....and we're losing MOL. How will we ever cope?! I'm not counting the others because Kennelly, Fosdike and Hall were all lost well before the end of the year, and we've already shown we can survive without them, while Leo and Crouch wouldn't have been in our best 22 with no injuries (Leo only barely scraped in as it was). MOL was also in far from career best form. As for Murphy, he never cracked a game. Unfortunate looking to the future, but no loss to our current side.
It's easy to look at a long retiree list and think we're screwed. It's only a little harder to actually examine the effect of these retirements and realise they won't have much influence. But evidently, it's too hard for most. If anything, we stand to gain from these retirements as the extra list space it will create means we will get an influx of new talent and depth. We played the entire year minus Kennelly and Fosdike, half the year without Hall, and almost the entire year without Leo, who only recovered from injuries in time for the last couple of games. We were stretched for depth at times this year, so compared to halfway through the year we're basically getting 3 extra players for free (I'm not including Leo because he was injured, and that's cheating, because I could name any injured player).
