The injuries we’ve had cannot be overstated this season imo. Our first choice 1,6,7 & 9 have played like 2 full games together. And it’s not like there’s been one or two injuries. They’ve all spent time on the sidelines, Pearce missed 9 or 10 games, Watson at least 7 or 8 so far and Griffin the whole back end of the season. Ponga hasn’t missed a couple as well and has clearly played busted the last few weeks too.
Then add the fact that we lost Moga for the whole year plus a long term injury to Jacob S and medium term/niggling injuries to Dan S, Ross, Lillyman, Buhrer, Lamb & Fitzgibbon it’s pretty easy to see why we haven’t been in the finals reckoning this year. That’s basically 2/3 of our best 17 and 3/4 of our spine who have spent significant time on the sidelines. There aren’t many clubs who would be able to cover that sort of injury crisis.
The way I see it next year is that our spine will be better when they actually get to play together, our backline is much better, our forward pack is marginally better and our depth is about the same. Considering we will win 8-9 games this year with such a bad run with injuries I would say we should aim for 12 wins next year hopefully with a few less injuries.
Obviously injuries are unavoidable and we still need squad depth to cover next year too but this year has been one of the worst I can remember since I started following this team. The only year I can remember it being worse was 2005 where it seemed like we basically ran our reserve grade side out every week. Happy for someone to prove me wrong on this but it’s been horrendous watching our key players limping off the field or being carried off every week.