What has happened to WA football?
April 17th 2008 13:27
What has happened to Western Australian football? It must be the question that is running through the minds of Eagles and Dockers fans. Only five weeks ago, most of the top football commentators had both teams in their top eight, both to play a role in this year’s finals. Now at the end of round five, the Eagles and Dockers have only two wins between them and look anything but playing finals football. So what has happened? From my point of view, the Eagles were always going to struggle in 2008. While it is an awful excuse, an team in which players of the calibre of Ben Cousins and Chris Judd are removed are going to struggle. While Kerr is still brilliant, constant tagging of him is going to be his downfall. While Andrew Embley is struggling with illness his form before that has been nothing to rave about and Chad Fletcher could probably do with a few weeks playing for Subiaco to bring him back down to Earth. And while Priddis had a brilliant first year in 2007, expecting him to carry the brunt of midfield pressure is just too high expectations on someone still getting used to AFL football. As for the forward line at West Coast, it has never been anything to rave about, even in it’s premiership year in 2006. Ashley Hansen struggles with consistency, as does Quentin Lynch, while the crumbing is left to the midfielders who are also expected to carry the workload on the rest of the ground as well. Maybe the rebuilding starts from now but for the very loyal and passionate Eagles fans, it’s going to be a rather sudden fall from grace if they don’t particpate in this year’s finals series.
The Dockers are different altogether. There will be no fall from grace for their fans who still turn up for their games every week. There has to be credit given to those who still pay their membership every year when they seem to hand out the same result year in year out. They are a hard team in which to pinpoint their problems. On paper, they have a team and have done for some years now in which they should be winning games of football and particpating heavily in September action. Instead they lose the games they should win and finish in the bottom half of the ladder. Has it got something to do with the culture or is this just a team that doens’t blend together? For many years they have blamed coaches, believing the answer is in finding a new person to guide the team. Instead I think they need to look at the personel on the field. They constantly recruit big name players who fail to deliver when they cross to Western Australian. The latest one being, Chris Tarrant. For the amount of money he is being paid, he should be doing alot more than he is doing. While Mark Harvey continues to defend Tarrant, even he must be skeptical about his form. The Dockers now have the oldest list in the AFL and nothing to show for it, in terms of trophies. It’s time to start recruiting some young players. Pavlich can’t carry that team forever and if he was ever to leave, they would be a team that would struggle to sometimes kick a decent score. Another shining light is Rhys Palmer, an exciting addition to an otherwise unexciting team. Let’s hope he provides some of what they are looking for. Otherwise Western Australian football could be in for a very disappointing year.
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