Player Column – Josh Pullman Round 21

IN MY experience, most clubs use one of two primary measures of success for their season – 1. Achieving success in the finals or 2. Having a better win-loss record than last year. 

With this in mind, there’s a bittersweet feeling as we approach the end of the home and away season. 

The bitter side is that in Round 21, no one likes to be talking about their own mathematical probability of making it into the finals. We have a good playing list, so our collective inability to put enough wins on the board at league level to have earned a decent look at it is disappointing. 

The upside is that on a number of levels, we’re already better than we were last year. 

The leadership training the players have received with Darren Harris under the Leading Teams model has been an outstanding investment of time and resources by the club.

Provided the nucleus of the playing list stays together, the benefits from that kind of training can span across seasons. The immediate results of working with Harris has been that our leaders like Cooky and Whitey have been much better supported as other players are provided with a clear platform to contribute. 

Our reserves have proven themselves to be a force to be reckoned with, and have an exciting next couple of months ahead. The emergence of guys like Callum Ah Chee, Matt Ah Siu, Traye Bennell, Jake Dragovich and Josh Branchi have been fantastic.

Benny Sokol has put in another productive year of development too – he has the athletic ability, skill-set and footy brain to do some damage at league level over the next year or two if he wants it.

The coaching group’s game plan has been well orchestrated and delivered by Todd. When the players have followed it for more than three quarters, we’ve shown we can mix it with the best in the competition.  

And finally, we’re a long way from satisfied, but we’ve won more games in 2015 with a couple left to play. With our focus on what we can control, we’re super keen to give that mathematical probability a good shake, and finish this season on a high.