GWW wrote:
Without looking it up, in '85, I think we started to see blokes like Lum, Bald, Harvey brothers, Phelps come into the side. I"m not sure whether it was '85 or '86 when we were belted by Torrens (!) at Footy Park by about 15 goals.
Was also pre Hodges establishing himself, and Aber and Phillips hadn't returned from Collingwood by that time.
I was at that Torrens game in '85. Shellshocked watching it. Remember thinking, yeah, we're not in great nick. But surely we're not that bad.
Two weeks later we lost to Woodville.
Season 1983 was wrecked by injury. Just couldn't get everyone on the ground. Then, with the finals on a knife edge, Craig Bradley leaves to play cricket in England on the U/19s Ashes tour.
Almost certainly cost himself the Magarey Medal.
A-lot of guys were coming to the end of their careers in '83. Quite a few retired pretty young. But they started young, too.
Ebert unfairly cops a-lot of stick for this era.
But the club was broke, all the stars from the glory days were winding up and he had no choice but to blood the kids and persist with them.
No-one can deny he laid the foundation for a dominant decade...