I agree re finishing positions. But percentage of games won and % does give some sort of substantial clue to how well you are going as well.
2016 maybe it is just me, but what I saw was Houli, Deledio miss half the season, Maric just about the whole season, Conca most of the season, McIntosh missed most of the season, Chaplin trying to play when he was finished, Hampson playing a whole season about as physically imposing as a hippy wearing daisy chains, the 3 key forwards not working, some never good enough players playing loads of games because the kids weren’t ready, BUT all the guns staying and the promise a lot of these kids showed I thought gave some real hope, especially as they seemed to have a lot more dash about them than a lot of our fringe players who played bulk games.
Just about everyone on the list was given a game eventually and it was clear the club was working out who to keep and who to dump while maxing its trade hand from mid to late season. Loads of youngsters were thrown into unsuitable roles where they were smashed in a team that generally wasn’t functioning well. But I do recall vividly thinking Rioli, Short, Castagna Menadue and Markov in particular showed plenty enough to be encouraged by in their first or second seasons.
I just thought it is as simple as this, we get a physical ruckman up and going, pick up a good player in the trade period as was foreshadowed, have a bit better run with injuries and they sort out which of those kids are worth investing in and they kick on, we have a team capable of finishing top 6 at best or maybe just out of the 8 if a few things go wrong. I wasn’t thinking flags but I thought the pessimism around Richmond was astonishing. King’s comments about our list just made me think what a f*cking idiot, Mike Williamson’s Jack the blind miner can see that isn’t right.
