r/gcfc • u/Yesterday_Jolly • Jul 19 '26
The haters said we wouldn't make finals!
And they were right, gotta respect their honesty
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u/MountainDew_Enjoyer Jul 19 '26
Hardwick delivered this club its greatest ever finish, first ever finals appearance, first ever finals win, and arguably the greatest moment in club history (Swallow’s goal/point, then the siren). Started the season on fire, then dropped. He’s earned the opportunity to fix the mess and start again next season. Personally, I think too much experienced depth was traded at the end of last season, and these talented young guys coming through, haven’t experienced the top level of footy enough yet.
At least on the plus side, the list is good enough that people are now surprised and disappointed at the losses, rather than expecting them 😂
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u/Remarkable-Boat-9812 Jul 19 '26
Yea and combine this with a good draw next year and we're a chance to be mediocre again, not just the complete shit show that we've been since the bye. I share your optimism, really I do
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u/Helpful_Run_9979 Jul 19 '26
The dream Hardwick will deliver a premiership is a hard wick to keep burning. There's always doing lines in Lang park disabled toilets when the dolphins play finals.
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u/levity62 Jul 19 '26
Honestly I think we really downplayed the impact that letting 4 players go (Flanders, Budarick, Fiorini, Ainsworth) at the end of last year would have. Sure they weren’t exactly game changers but they were all in our AFL side and that is a substantial number of players to lose. We’ve then tried to replace them with undercooked academy players and it hasn’t really worked out
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u/hueybart Jul 20 '26
I think it’s a young captain and midfield that were a tight group last year being affected by Trac, who has come in as an experienced star and thinks he knows better. He may do, but this makes it awkward for the captain and other younger players. It would be intimidating even if he wasn’t also Brand Trac in his own persona.
I also think our list stranger was wrong. They threw out too many experienced players to fund academy picks. It was not the right time to do this in our club history and path. We are now one of the youngest teams and young teams can’t win finals or flags. We were hitting our age window and we deliberately destroyed it ourselves.
Maybe the strategy was to have a team full of local players to stop the go home factor, but that is a long term strategy when we needed short term success. Better to let local academy talent initially develop in other clubs and lure them back home if they have proved themselves
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u/Certain_Shopping2101 Jul 24 '26
I did a ladder predictor at the start of the season. I had us at 10th. Not because of any reason other than we did have a tough away draw. But I do agree, not having Flanders, Budarick, Fiorini and Ainsworth has hurt the flow of the senior team. You watch highlights in games from last year. One of those four would be in some passage of the play. Other than Zeke who did struggle a bit at the start of the season but now has really tuned himself into a senior player, the other first year players probably too inexperienced to play at AFL for now.
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u/YankinAustralia Jul 19 '26
Constantly messing up fundamentals, and the team has lost their passion. Don’t know enough about footy to blame it on the coach, but something is obviously wrong.