rodgerfox wrote:Where are we going to improve?
Teams under us will improve, teams above us may not.
If we don't improve, we won't move up the ladder. If we don't improve, teams will overtake us.
I'm unsure where this improvement is going to come from.
If the Saints play as last sighted in the H&A 2008, that would be a genuine improvement on 2008 as a whole.
The Saints had an incredibly bipolar season (2nd half, only Geelong was better). I couldn't give a toss about the final 2008 ladder (with 3 teams well seperated from a very tight pack with little to seperate 4th from 6th, and the position decided in the late stages of a game against Essendon on %), but the right teams played off in the prelims, and the right teams played off on grand final day.
The problem isn't that if we don't improve for 2k9 we'll be overtaken - a drop from 4th to 13th would signify the Saints themselves had gone backwards, the league in general hasn't improved
that much - the problem is if we don't improve, we'll definately be on the outer again on grand final day.
Where to look for improvement? Plenty of places - Armitage, Geary, McQualter, Raph and Xav Clarke, Robert Eddy, Matt Maguire, James Gwilt, Leigh Montagna, Jason Gram, Stephen Baker, Luke Ball, Nick Dal Santo, Adam Schneider, Jack Steven, Sam Gilbert, Justin Koschitzke, leigh Fisher. Even Hayes and Goddard have shown better form than was sighted during the Saints run home. Most of them won't improve so much as to turn games (and improvement may be balanced by someone going backward), but there's plenty to like about the '09 Saints when you get past predicting the premiers (and after teh Cats and Hawks, daylight would be next fav as of now).
Really, only Max, Reiwoldt and Fisher would be showing up for '09 without improvement being expected as they prepare to tackle the season.
When the papers start their preseason writeups, one thing a lot of them will suddenly notice is that taking the AFLs oldest player out of a list who's average age was middle of the pack will display a young list - it's challenge is to produce real impact players from lower draft picks to complement a quality core in it's prime. That's the mystery of St Kilda, they really need the 2nd tier to step up, and are short on guys in that range who have really looked likely to, but there are plenty of contending individuals, and they only need a couple to do so.
While I'd see a premiership prediction as January optomism, and even a top 4 prediction as being premature, I think to write the Saints out of finals is incredibly pessimistic. We're not closer, but we're closer than half the league.
