An honest review of the season has to acknowledge the positives. The structure is there in attack and defence. When the players have executed it we have won, and we have earned it. The Melbourne game is the best evidence of this. There is no way we win that game with the structures we played under Griffin or Mary.
There’s been significant improvement in the games of the Couchmen, Sloan, Suli, Sua, Tui, the Feagais, and Liddle. All bar maybe Sua have more improvement in them. (I know the Feagais are backup quality, but they’re good value backup if they continue to improve).
JDB has found his role in the team, and if he keeps it up next year he will be great value on his reduced contract.
We’ve definitively proven that Rava, Hunt, Lawrie, and MMolo shouldn’t be in the plans moving forward. While it’s been frustrating to watch, it’s positive that we can finally move on from any question of whether to re-sign those players. The speed of our improvement will be largely dependent on our ability to offload some of those contracts/ sign better quality.
Not a great season. But at least one where we improved in some of the areas that are needed for genuine long lasting success.