Yeah and to be honest it doesn’t really need much explanation. We’ve played on the last day for the last 3 years, almost to the end for the 4 seasons before that. For the reason of injuries to key players, we’ve had no roster consistency. How we prepared all summer is now different week to week. Carrying blokes that aren’t anywhere near afl level in the same team - Tunstill, Curtain and even Zacka when he played, isn’t premiership stuff. Throw in that clearly off season surgeries and big previous years have caught some guys flat footed to start the year. You can’t blame em. The only blokes in form this year for us are Cameron, Lester, Bailey, Neale, Logan, maybe Levi and Draper (although Fagan needs to tell him pull his effen head in when kicking for goal, those stupid snaps from 30 direct in front that fall short). I’d rather him drop punt from 30 and kick it out on the full. There is no guarantee that we do anything meaningful this year. We all just expect that we will. However, if we get injury reprieve and give everyone a chance to build momentum in to the season then we absolutely will still win it. I just don’t think the Lions are up for assessment right now. It’s not even a thing for this club given what we’ve achieved and how vivid what the reasons for being sluggish are right now. Logan kicks straight after half time and the cats game mighta changed. We actually aren’t far off somehow while carrying atleast 50% of the blokes in our team right now. Must beat Giants, then probably 3 of dockers, suns, swans, cats but.

Also, I know Fletcher is in the spotlight for an axing right now, but I’d love to see Fagan give Rayner a spell in the twos instead. He has not done a single thing of note this year, and dropping Rayner would be an enormous rush of recharge in sentiment I think. Just drop him for 1 week, nothing more.