SPOILER - We could learn something from...

[chammond]

Originally posted by NMWBloods
Based on how lists currently are, we will struggle to maintain a solid 5th best team unless we improve a lot. Even if we do, we should drop further back from St Kilda and Geelong, hence being 5th or 4th best may be quite meaningless. We need to improve a lot if we are going to become a threat.

Can't see any evidence to support your pessimism NMW?

We finished 1-1 against St Kilda, Brisbane, Geelong, Melbourne, West Coast, Essendon, Fremantle and Kangaroos. That suggests to me that we deserved to be in the top eight teams.

We won't lose any key players for 2005 (which is not the norm for Sydney) and we've plenty of promising youngsters in the wings.

Why would we go backwards next year?

[NMWBloods]

It's not necessarily us going backwards, but I can see some other teams improving.

The most important ones are Geelong and StKilda, as they are above us so need to be beaten.

Now Geelong is difficult as they may simply have had a single good year, so next year will be interesting. Main thing they need is a key forward.

StKilda is loaded full of players with lots of talent, so it's hard to legitimately expect they will not improve a lot next year.

West Coast has a lot of young, talented players so you'd expect them to improve too.

Fremantle was very disappointing this year, but is still loaded with young talent.

For us, we have some good talent, but a lot of the more skillful players are split betweem the older group and younger group, rather than the middle group. Some of the young guys, who have the potential to be very good (eg: McVeigh) will still take some time to improve significantly, while the older group (eg: Hall) are unlikely to improve a lot. This puts a lot of the onus on the middle group, say the 100 gamers (eg: Mathews, Crouch, J Bolton) and I'm not sure if they can improve to the extent of some of the young guns at other clubs.

That's not saying I think we will dive next year or anything, however it will take a lot of work and some useful trades to push up next year to a position where we become a legitimate threat. Otherwise we will continue to remain a 4th-7th side, competitive but not a serious challenger, like the '97-'99 years.

Note also I said how lists current are - so that is excluding the impact of trades. Without a couple of key trades then I think we could drop back a bit or struggle to remain in place. With the right trades we could take a big step. It's a very critical trading period for us I think.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by swansrule100
i think u need to be on the swans recruiting staff! and im not taking the piss here ... i think u have the right ideas about improving the list!

I think quite a few people here would have serious problems with that idea!!

[chammond]

Originally posted by NMWBloods
I think quite a few people here would have serious problems with that idea!!

Makes as much sense as most of the stuff posted here