fod
Creeks had only 8 of last years GF team play yesterday.
Players that did NOT play were
Sellar - Retired ?
Derham - Gone
Lally - Retired
McGregor - Gone
Dalitz - Gone
S Jones - South Adelaide
Matt Tonkin - Injured - few weeks ?
Kellock - Played for his home town in Vic 1st 2 weeks, Back next match
Howell - Covid . Back next match
Arbon - Work. Back next match
Dave Warren - Wedding. Back next match
Rodgers - Injured. Return unknown
James - Played B Grade (recovering from Covid)
Others
Hunt - Injured. Return mid year ???
Nick Thunig - B Grade . Getting match fitness
As you can see by the players missing, thats a MASSIVE amount of talent and experience missing for the opening 2 rounds so not surprised they have struggled. Have taken the chance to blood 4 - 5 youngsters but they will take a year or 2 to get up to speed of A Grade footy. It's a big step up of playing 70 minutes in Senior Colts to 110 - 120 minutes in A Grade.
The 7 - 8 top end players they have atm will only keep you in the game for so long before the dam wall breaks as it did yesterday in the 3rd quarter. Mind you there was no excuse for allowing E Bay to slam on 8 goals in the 3rd term in the 1st 15 minutes with ZERO resistance
It was embarrassing.
The expected return of 4 - 5 experienced players after Easter should see them much more competitive.
Expectations for the rest of the season? Playing Finals will still be the expectation and they still could but i'm thinking 5th spot at best.
Only 2 rounds in and a long way to go but it almost seems that the local Anzac Day Derby coming up is already a Mini Final for the Hawks.