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Injury & Judiciary Reports

bundyrabbit said:
Yes and our draw was horrendous. Plenty on here were and still do blame JD and that won't change because no one likes admitting they were wrong . I'm not sticking up for him, as I have been and will be accused of, but how on earth could any coach bar maybe Bellamy or possibly Wayne have done any better with the squad he had. The real issue was our recruitment and lack of depth. If that was all on JD then definitely he needed to go for that reason alone. Everyone was blaming our high -performance team but look at those injuries for the first 8 rounds . Very few of those can be associated with that department within our club. Our team lost confidence and without the leading players available couldn't get it back. These things happen in any sport.
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Disagree entirely - the first 2 games against Manly and Brisbane were winnable for sure with the team we had on the park - we were very poor
The JD rot started well before this season anyway, he got the Ilias call wrong and our defence was absolutely horrendous.
 
Joe said:
Disagree entirely - the first 2 games against Manly and Brisbane were winnable for sure with the team we had on the park - we were very poor
The JD rot started well before this season anyway, he got the Ilias call wrong and our defence was absolutely horrendous.
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Add Wighton, Graham, Arrow and Munro to those games and we absolutely win. We were close to winning both those games and with our top 17 on the field as with most of the other games, we would have been stronger defensively and far more potent in attack. Had we got off to a winning start the confidence would have run right through this squad and we might have had a more enjoyable season. This didn't happen and all of a sudden everyone on here was calling for the hangman and someone to string up from coach to owners. It will be good viewing on here for our first couple of games next year that's for sure, it'll be interesting to see how long the Wayne love survives on here if we don't get off to a good start.
 
Joe said:
Disagree entirely - the first 2 games against Manly and Brisbane were winnable for sure with the team we had on the park - we were very poor
The JD rot started well before this season anyway, he got the Ilias call wrong and our defence was absolutely horrendous.
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I was in Vegas for round one against Manly. I took friends who are BIG NFL followers. They enjoyed the game but they commented that Manly just wanted to win more. After building up the Rabbitohs with them for 20 years, I was embarrassed. "Manly wanted to win more" that can be interpreted as "we clocked off".
This was all JD, the squad we took there should have won, and would have if they hadn't clocked off. The injury toll got worse as the season progressed. Praise the Lord that he was booted and we have Mr Bennett back to prep them for 2025.
 
Whatever drugs bundyrabbit was taking for this year.

Give them to me next season if we play as bad again so I can be numb to it all and just blame everything on injuries and the draw
 
Whether we ‘could’ have won early games with a couple of extra players is kind of irrelevant. We weren’t playing well regardless.

And while we did get some better cohesion post JD for a bit (albeit against a soft draw), at that point there were certainly too many injuries.

It isn’t one or the other, we both had a horrible injury toll and also played very poorly in stretches.

I don’t think the squad was the problem for a competitive top 4 finish. To win a premiership, yes, the squad had shortcomings (weak competition aside).
 
Duff said:
Bundyrabbit saying people were wrong for blaimg JD and are unwilling to admit it is about the wildest take I think we could possibly get this off-season.
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No wilder than people blaming him for everything that happened. He wasn't there for a major part of the season remember.
 
Can I just say that this constant back and forth is really ****ing boring.

And as per normal, there is no nuance in the points from each end of the spectrum.

Yes, injuries definitely played a part in the outcome of our season. It’s ridiculous to claim otherwise. The evidence is there in the graphic that’s been shared multiple times. We had nearly double the games missed, by our top players of the next nearest club. Who only finished a couple of places ahead of us.

But to attempt to claim it was the only or primary reason for the dumpster fire that was our season; and/or that JD and the coaching / “high performance” team bear little to no responsibility, is just as ridiculous.

I was prepared to give JD the benefit of the doubt at the back end of last year. I was vocal about that on here and copped a lot of flack by the usual brigade.

But it was very clear from Round 3 (round 1 really) that he wasn’t up to the job - for whatever reason.

Our preparation for the season was clearly sub par. Our fitness was not where it needed to be, and we looked like an A grade team.

Would we have made the 8 with a more competent high performance team in place? Impossible question to answer, because other variables may have changed as well.

But the reality is, we had a lot of injuries, a number of them long term, and we weren’t prepared as a club for the ‘24 season.

That can’t happen again.
 
bundyrabbit said:
Add Wighton, Graham, Arrow and Munro to those games and we absolutely win. We were close to winning both those games and with our top 17 on the field as with most of the other games, we would have been stronger defensively and far more potent in attack. Had we got off to a winning start the confidence would have run right through this squad and we might have had a more enjoyable season. This didn't happen and all of a sudden everyone on here was calling for the hangman and someone to string up from coach to owners. It will be good viewing on here for our first couple of games next year that's for sure, it'll be interesting to see how long the Wayne love survives on here if we don't get off to a good start.
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Arrow played that game….its very rare that you have all players available. We had enough players win those games and we were not close to winning those games at all IMO. Our defense was terrible to start the year and you can’t say that was due to a makeshift team - they had all off season to prepare for those players available.
 
Prowsey said:
Can I just say that this constant back and forth is really ****ing boring.

And as per normal, there is no nuance in the points from each end of the spectrum.

Yes, injuries definitely played a part in the outcome of our season. It’s ridiculous to claim otherwise. The evidence is there in the graphic that’s been shared multiple times. We had nearly double the games missed, by our top players of the next nearest club. Who only finished a couple of places ahead of us.

But to attempt to claim it was the only or primary reason for the dumpster fire that was our season; and/or that JD and the coaching / “high performance” team bear little to no responsibility, is just as ridiculous.

I was prepared to give JD the benefit of the doubt at the back end of last year. I was vocal about that on here and copped a lot of flack by the usual brigade.

But it was very clear from Round 3 (round 1 really) that he wasn’t up to the job - for whatever reason.

Our preparation for the season was clearly sub par. Our fitness was not where it needed to be, and we looked like an A grade team.

Would we have made the 8 with a more competent high performance team in place? Impossible question to answer, because other variables may have changed as well.

But the reality is, we had a lot of injuries, a number of them long term, and we weren’t prepared as a club for the ‘24 season.

That can’t happen again.
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Yep, agreed. I too was prepared to give JD the benefit-of-the-doubt, the pre-season videos suckered me in... but man was it noticeable we returned in Rounds 1 and 2 with absolutely zero changes to how we finished 2023.

The Rounds 1-3 match threads are basically just me whinging how unfit and unprepared we looked.

It was mind-boggling to enter a new season after the disastrous backend to 2023 playing the exact same footy.

JD's fate was sealed by Round 3 and we spent the rest of 2024 chasing our tail in terms of fitness and availability.

Will we improve in 2025? Hard to say, but I can guarantee you that Wayne will have us 100% fitter.
 
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