I think our close losses are easily misinterpreted.
We're like a midget being held at arm's length by a giant.
We can swing away, we'll get close, but we won't win. The giant is always able to control us with very little effort. Did Sydney have to work hard for their win? Hawtorn? Richmond? All of these sides played rubbish football safe in the knowledge that we would play worse football.
And we did.
I didn't leave any of those games feeling that we
should have won. It was always just a case of
if this and
if that. Not "gee we threw that one away".
If the narrow losses are giving some of the more fragile younger guys confidence, then great. But I don't think the way we're playing at the moment is pointing to any brighter days on the horizon.
Fact is if we do get close in these games we have one absolute gamebreaker who can get us over the line. He did it in 3 consecutive games in 2004 and disguised a pretty average season as an OK one.
Fev is the only guy we have, the
only one that can rip a game apart and take us from losers to winners. I still can't understand why anyone even considered trading him.
Until we develop more guys that can do this, we'll struggle to do more than snatch a few games every season.
Still, I reckon we'll have a better year than the bombers. My early tip for the spoon are going to push us for it all the way
