That's all fair enough, to a degree. But I'm not buying the idea that this team is going even as well as last season's early incarnation at this point. The performance against the Suns was truly reprehensible. If that's what 'a response' looks like, I'd hate to see a team that just can't be bothered to provide a response. And even if you don't include the game against the Suns, these next two games are the quintessential 'easybeats' of our pre-bye fixture. So if we're not winning both games, I don't see us being a factor at all come the end of the season.It's interesting comparing things to last year. I don't think there was a win that told us much until the winning streak. Which makes the whole "scrape to at least 4-5 or 5-4 by round 9 and then make a charge" concept somewhat palatable.
The Pies comeback in 2022 was great, in some ways if we converted some last quarter goals in the Blues game this season then the game could've been equivalent. The performance however probably wasn't miles away from that Blues game if you consider the absentees. We probably played as well against Brisbane in 2022 as we did Collingwood 2023, but in the latter were playing a better side away from home where we simply didn't have the legs (especially after the 3 in-game injuries) to run it out. The Gold Coast game this year resembled the Hawthorn game last year as far as how disappointing it was against a team we should have beaten. The Sydney game we were bad. The Freo game at Geelong we were bad. The St Kilda game we started well but it ended up being a poor performance.
By round 9 we had taken care of 3 easy beats (Essendon, GWS, North), held off a decent side at Geelong and had that lucky/miraculous comeback against the Pies. Then 4 pretty terrible performances in losses. With, can I emphasise, a much, much lighter injury list.
It would not surprise me at all if our form line by round 9 this season reads like that except we didn't win our late comeback match (Carlton this year) and we had a lot of players picking up knocks early on. Perspective helps.
Injuries (down back and in-game) have been particularly unkind. But the midfield obliteration and the inability/unwillingness to defend the ground on transition are glaring issues that simply cannot continue if we are to be truly competitive. I don't see how we even get to 4-5 without a significant improvement in those areas over the coming weeks.
In relation to some of the games last year, I totally get that hindsight is 20-20. But we actually had that Hawks game shot to bits after starting abysmally, and then stopped to a walk. The 'Buddy' game was just a non-starter from the opening bounce, as we capitulated to being nothing more than a part of the theatre. The Freo game at home was really bad, until we totally put it together late and should have won. And the Saints game was dominated by us for large periods, and lost in about 12 minutes of utter madness in the third term.
So, all that to say, I see us as demonstrably worse than early last season at this point. Could be recency bias with the Suns debacle, but I didn't feel as deflated as I did on the weekend after any of those galling losses early last year. That was not just a bad loss; it 'looked' like a really bad loss, with so little fight and no discernible system of play that was remotely effective.
Says it all to me at this point that I'm reduced from admiring the beauty of 16 as a number to just praying we can get back to 'one in a row'. We really have fallen that far to start this season, and we would need a far better level of output from just about the entire group (and an almost miraculous avoidance of the injury curse) to get on any sort of meaningful winning streak as things stand. The point that some have raised is entirely valid...how many of this group is actually even holding their level of form from early last year? The number would have to be painfully low, I believe, and that's the crux of our problem right there.
I hope as you do that we get to something like 5-4 after nine games this season. I'm just failing to see too many signs at all (apart from the knowledge that we were actually irrepressible six months ago) that suggest it is in any way probable at this point.