While this is true, the pessimist in me still sees our roster as one of the weakest in the comp. We legitimately don't have one big name superstar. Have a look at the Sharks roster and the amount of stars and compare it to ours. It's beyond ridiculous.
Fair call and understand where you’re coming from. Since 2006 had a handful of ‘stars’ in the team every year. The likes of Farah, Benji, Ellis, Lawrence, Blair, teddy, Woods, Lote etc could probably all have laid claim to being in the top 1-2 of their positions at some point or another during their time with us. However with these guys all being high paid stars we’ve always had plenty of duds having to fill the team. From that we’ve made the finals twice in 12 years, which is the least of anyone in the comp.
For the first time ever we’ve got a squad with genuine competition for spots. I also feel that whilst we don’t have an out and out star, we have less weak points across the field.
Something interesting Ivan said in the Xmas interview was that this is the first time he hasn’t seen a ‘hierarchy’ at a club. I.e there’s no ‘cool’ group or little cliches amongst the squad. I dare say this is a shot at departed players who probably thought they were better then others at the club. I spoke to Mitch Brown at a wedding a few years back and he said the Tigers were the least inclusive club he had been at. The Dogs in particular and then the sharks made everyone feel apart of the club, yet at the tigers unless you were in ‘the group’ no one cared about you.
I think this is a huge thing on the footy field. The culture at the club has stunk from day 1. Getting the culture off the field sorted will go a huge way into getting the right results on the field. Everything I’m seeing from Ivan is saying this is what he is doing.