Ok then, What hope does the Eagles and Dockers have of improving their position on the ladder next season?

Question

Is it the hope of getting some quality draft picks or finding a new coaching strategy or what? Remember I'm not a hater just a very concerned footy fan who believes both west coast teams are a long way from being a serious premiership contender.

Answer 1

Ok.  Lets turn the question around the other way. Lets look at the teams currently in the ascendancy and ask - how did Geelong get better?  How did Hawthorn get better?  

Teams go through periods of rebuilding.  Its the way the comp works, and with the draft season it works well.  

Of course it doesn't help when you have great players that split on you even when they are the captain, or those that are picked out for special punishment for taking drugs (when no others have been).   But such is life.  If we are still sh1te in 3 years, then your question might be worth responding to.  We will get better when the current batch of new players get some experience, we can field a team fairly consistently, and the current top teams start to lose their star players to age.

I predict you may very well be asking the same question next year to fans of the Lions, the Swans, the Bulldogs, the Kangaroos, and the Crows.  And possibly the Saints too.  

Answer 2

I think West Coast are going to struggle even more than they did this year but Fremantle will get a lot better because of the young players they have. They finished the season strong because the young players got a lot more experience and still finishing near the bottom they will get another high draft pick. And people are saying that this draft will be better then last years draft with the likes of Palmer, Rioli and Cotchin, so Fremantle will pick up a good player and MIGHT cause an upset to sneak into the eight.

Answer 3

What are you getting at with your questions on these two teams?

So what if they did finish down the ladder this year. They don't "need" to merge. What about Carlton a year or so ago, they were embarrassmnets to the league. Richmond were the same last year. Hawthorn were hopeless & a laughing stock a couple of years ago.

What goes around comes around. All teams, under the current system, will have their day. Some may take longer than others, that's all.

Answer 4

well, firstly, clean outs, Freo are already on it, but both sides need to get rid of a lot of the deadweight they are carrying, after that, both sides need to work out a game plan then recruit and build they're sides around that game plan, its going to take a couple of seasons but that the only way they can get back towards the top of the ladder

Answer 5

I think we will be in the top four in 2012!

Eagles being the NOW youngest team, after players retiring or being axed, 8 players debuting year and about 13 players under 15 games, 16 player having season ending surgery. And still with some great experienced players with still many year left in them, such as: Andrew embley, quieten lynch, Darren glass, dean cox, Daniel Kerr, Adam selwood, Ashley hasen, Adam hunter and David wirrapunda.

You wouldn't have watched every game which eagles have played in this season and would have just know the scores, yes this is the worst year in our great short history, but you have to watch in a follow the team to truly understand what we see as supporters! To give you the low down, we have:

Ben McKinley

Jamie McNamara

Scott selwood

josh Kennedy

Matthew priddis

mark lecras

Sam butler

Brent staker

Shannon hurn

Ryan Davis

Chris masten

tony notte

brad Ebert

William Sullivan

Mitch brown

Tim houlihan

Eric Mackenzie

Patrick mcginnity

will schofield

Matthew spangher

beau wilkes

Right there, there are 21 players who are 18, 19, 20 or 21 years old and there is bound to be a couple i have missed in that list.

plus natinui or rich =]

You probably wouldn't have heard of or know most of them unless you follow the club or just know everything about footy! BRIGHT, BRIGHT FUTURE AHEAD BOYS! Lets just hope you all stay for the ride!!

Answer 6

only freo can most of there best midfeilders were out and the eagles r really a discrace to wa footy

Answer 7

Well, I can only speak for Eagles coz I couldn't care less about Freo.

1) We will get back some of the 15 -20 injured players so we have a bigger squad to choose from. Our injury list was second only to Essendon by seasons end.

2) The fact that we have played so many young guys this season will benefit us in the coming season as they will be ready to play if required.

3) Mighty Royals, if you could read the comments made over the last few months you will notice that the gist is always "poor Melbourne, they'll be back" and then " Eagles: bunch of druggie losers" We are, quite simply, easy targets coz we are going through a rough patch, the same as the other teams you mentioned in your response. The same questions would be posted if Crows and Power were both down there and most Victorians are perfectly happy to Bribane languishing down the bottom also. But, we'll be back. It's the nature of the game. and then we'll see a lot of these posters crawl back into the woodwork....

Answer 8

They can ONLY get better!!

Answer 9

why haven't you pointed out Melbourne? they finished on the bottom of the ladder. OHHH thats right, they're victorian.  

Answer 10

To be honest i don't know why they are in the AFL at all

Perth is one of the remotest capital city's in the world

to far away for anyone to give a stuff about

its more like Ballarat or bendigo

the both wont make the 8 for 5-8 years

Answer 11

I think that they are going to have that time like carlton, where the other teams have older and more experienced players than carlton. they will be there for a while collecting good draft picks then be back in the top 8 before you know it. It happened to Hawthorn a few years ago and i supported them even when they were s.hit

Answer 12

Good question, because its something i do think about a fair bit. This year has not been a wasted year for the eagles, its been an opportunity to get the younger players to play at AFL level therefore intensifiing the way in which they play and to improve their skills, next year is a year to bring out the younger players at west coast and showcase their skills that they got to develop this year in 2008.

Dockers - Stop depending so much on players, afl is a game where the whole team needs to work hard for eachother in order to create a goal, fremantle depend too much on players such as Pavlich - he gets immense pressure and that is why i think he hits the post in so many nailbitters so many times, because the pressure on him is huge and no one else on the team has to suffer the pressure he does.

Good Luck WA in 09!

Answer 13

Dockers run this season reminds me a lot of Essendons run the past few seasons; often losing by a very small margin. I think it has been a smart move to have a "clean out". Hopefully they can get themselves together next year.

The Weagles have got some good young talent already. I think that McKinley shows a lot of promise. Once they get over the whole "We lost Judd and Cousins" thing, they might actually get their heads together and start playing more competitive footy.