While I think there have been a couple of real positives to come out of this season - the form and potential of players like Brimson, Arrow and King; and mdrew reckoning that we’re finally starting to get our act together with regards to our local juniors - they are unfortunately counterbalanced (or even outweighed!) by the fact that 15 to 17% of our salary cap in each of the next three years is tied up in two players (Taylor and Cartwright) that have played way below the level that investment implies this year. It’s hard to compete if a large chunk of your salary cap is giving you nothing on the field.
And then there’s our defence. My biggest concern at this stage with Brennan and his development of the team is that there doesn’t seem to have been much, if any, improvement in our defence this year. Last year we conceded the second most points of any team in the regular season (10 points better than the Knights); so far this year we’ve conceded the third most (2 points better than the Sea Eagles and 25 better than the good old Knights). Of the 9 legitimate Premiers since we came into the comp, 5 had the best regular season defence (in terms of points conceded), 2 had the second best, 1 had the third best and the Cowboys had the 5th best in 2015. So, I can’t see that we’ve made much progress at all this season towards being premiership material. I’m not suggesting that Brennan has already outstayed his welcome, but I was hoping to have seen the team make some progress defensively be this stage of the season.