TOPIC:

Our biggest problem this year is timing of injuries (AGAIN). Top 7 most valuable players have to be Jones, McKenna, Eyres (only ruckman), Tropiano, Sinclair, Spencer White and Colledge. We have only had all of these players on the ground at the same time in the first quarter of round 1 and we all know how that went.

Great teams have players in the wings ready to replace in every position. We simply don't. Do we have too many list blockers at reserves level and if so who are they?

Yes injuries are hurting us again this season. We can't seem to get our best side on the park. In saying that though if they were fit our younger players wouldn't have got the same opportunities that they have over the opening seven games of the season.

In my opinion it's our backline that has suffered the most this season because of injuries to key players. In 2016 our backline mainly consisted of the following players. Sinclair (20 games), Edmonds (20), Taylor (19), Gianatti (18), Latch (17), Marlin (16) and Jared Bell (13). Those seven all contributed to Perth conceding their lowest points against (86.45) since 1997 I think.

Matthew Taylor was drafted to North Melbourne, Toby Gianatti had work commitments this season, Jared Bell is coming back from an ACL injury while Michael Sinclair has played only four games, Lennon Marlin three and Brent Latch two. Brent Edmonds has played six games but seems to be operating in a variety of roles.

It's basically a completely new backline this season and a very inexperienced one at that. On average they are conceding 112.14 point a game. This is not great but I think if you add a fully fit Latch, Marlin and Bell in there it makes a pretty big difference.

As for your comment about list blockers the club turned over a lot of players that had been apart of the reserves team over the last 2-3 season at the end of last year. As a result we have had a fairly youthful reserves side this year that has been mainly made up of players that have played colts at some stage over the last two years.

I agree Mr AFL, I'm not sure "list cloggers" is a valid point this year.
After the number of them turned over during the off season.
Very youthful reserves side getting their chance to push for senior selection.

PD1899 wrote: Our biggest problem this year is timing of injuries (AGAIN). Top 7 most valuable players have to be Jones, McKenna, Eyres (only ruckman), Tropiano, Sinclair, Spencer White and Colledge. We have only had all of these players on the ground at the same time in the first quarter of round 1 and we all know how that went.

Great teams have players in the wings ready to replace in every position. We simply don't. Do we have too many list blockers at reserves level and if so who are they?

All clubs have injuries, I haven't seen much compare to SD last year when it went South in the first 10 secs of the first game literally. What it will do is give heaps of newbys a crack which can be beneficial

I do agree that there has been a few turn over at end of last year, which has definitely given a few young players chances at league level. I still believe there is a few more that will never make league status and are only there to make up the numbers in the reserves.

Swandog you are right all teams have injuries, but we seem to have an unusual amount of injuries to key players - every year.

All clubs have players like that PD1899. Have a look on the wafl website and see which players have played majority of games this season. Most of them are colts players from either 2015 or 2016.

What the PFC has and has had for many years is a lack of depth because of our district/zone. Is this not obvious by now. We are basically champion recruiters - such as Young and Trop (2 Sandover medallists - in fact our last 4 Sandover medallists have been recruits, Kayler-Thomson, Bossong, Perkins, Ferguson, Bevan, Mortons etc (the list can go on and everyone was happy with them in prospect even if they didn't all work out and we generally get every player we chase) and we know how to make a keep money but our district/zone lacks the depth and discipline of some others. Injuries hurt is more because of this.

While that may be true about our zone STT I personally don't think we have been that great at developing our own players over the years.

That's why it has been refreshing this year and since Earl has come to the club, the amount of opportunities that the younger players have got in the league team.

I reckon we would agree on most things and I love Earl giving the kids a run but...no team wins a flag or goes deep into finals without some top line recruits AND more importantly your 10th to 22nd best players being local talent. We can get to about the 16th player with local talent but our zone just doesn't get us to 22. We probably don't develop much different from any other club or at least not so different to explain our lack of success for last 20 years. On the law of averages dumb luck must get you into finals once in 20 years. With all things being equal you would basically have to sabotage a club to not make finals for 20 years. Look at EF and Dunbar etc but they can still get in. There is a deeper structural issue that has nothing to do with any of the people involved with the club. Not saying everyone doing everything right but basically impossible for everyone to be doing everything wrong.

I don't think we have developed our own players great over the last 10, 20, 30 years. Giving blokes opportunities in the league team not just for 2-3 games but giving them a real run at it. I've noticed this more so in the last 15 years.

Yes we have given some guys a league game or two but when our season has been shot by round 10, which if we are being honest has happened more often than not over the years what is the harm in backing a player in and saying right we are going to play you for the rest of the year in the league.

Earl has done this to an extent with players such as Jared Bell, Sam Garstone, Cody Leggett, Matthew Taylor, Zac Fisher, Michael Sinclair, Anton Scotney, Kristian Morisey, Tom Gooch, Zareth Roe, Corey Byrne, John Levien, Cody Ninyette and Gordon Narrier. To be fair the last eight are very young put my point is that each player has seemed to grow and learn with each game that they have played. Yes they have made mistakes as young players will do but Earl has backed them in and from what I have seen they are becoming better footballers.

I did a table a while ago looking at 100 club players between Subiaco, Claremont and Perth over the last 15 years. As you can imagine the Lions and Tigers 100 game players was more than double ours over that time.

My point is that with the amount of poor seasons that we've had, and we've had some stinkers what would the harm have been in giving games to kids to try and bring their development forward. While you can't change the past I do believe that if this had been more of a focus for the club then maybe we might have played finals more than three times in the last 40 years. That's why I'm glad that Earl and the club are doing this now. For the first time in a long time young players coming up through the ranks know that there will be opportunities for them.