I don't understand why you support (or pretend to) this club. Without exception, every post I've ever read from you is negative. I've been following this club for over 30 years. I'm also a realist and have been extremely critical of the club in terms of recruitment, player development, coaching and off-field management (especially financial) over the last 10-15 years in particular. This club should be far greater now than what it is. We were in every sense key rivals with Collingwood and Carlton in the 70's and early 80's, but lost our way while Essendon and teh Interstate clubs went past us.
However in a number of areas this club is now improving. For a start, the club is now profitable and hopefully the debt will be decreasing. With better finances come more resources to improve the key operational areas of the club (as mentioned above). Miller is gone and while I have some doubts about Cameron, at least the right types of players were recruited in the recent drafting period. My perception is that we now have an improved list, and it's incumbent on Wallace to get the best out of them. Our results will dictate his future and so be it.
Not every player on a list can be/is a champion - the salary cap alone sees to that. While Johnson has probably gone on one year too long and I'm also no fan of Pettifer and McMahon, by and large the player list has improved significantly. It does have youth and structured balance (see Phantom's recent post). The older players you list all still have on-field value, while many of the younger ones either haven't been given sufficient opportunity or have been set-back by injury. Polak's had an unfortunate accident while Coughlan is a super player badly affected by footy related injuries.
As members and supporters, it's our role to support the club financially and emotionally, and influence continued on and off-field improvement as much as we can so that we can gain maximum enjoyment for ourselves and have a better club to hand on to our kids and the next generation of Tiger supporters. We certainly have the right to criticise when the club is not pursuing the correct path and there's been many times when I've felt the need to do that. However at the end of the day, for this club to be successful and become what we all want it to be, we've got to get behind it.
Life is short. None of us can ever undo the mistakes that we've made today. We can only learn from them and do better tomorrow. This club has made many mistakes over the past 25 years, some because we followed the old, outdated model of the 70's when it was successful. I would hope that these lessons have been well and truly learnt and we can now re-build it bit by bit. Constant negativity, without any reasoned balance, will get this club nowhere.
Debate and constructively question all aspects of the club as much as you like. Done in the right way, that can be very valuable. Being negative just for the sake ot it is a waste of time.
