I think this goes to show how much sway who you listen to and which teams you can watch consistently has over our opinions of teams. There were reasons to rate Eagles and to not rate them. The stadium and Kennedy for sure are pretty objective but some of your other stuff I think is narrative rather than reality.

I can’t agree Shuey or Gaff are bad interstate players. Gaff was one of our only players that was actually as good at the G as he was at home, even as far back as 2015. Kills it with the open space the G allowed. Shuey similarly, I can give you Melbourne games, but his record against Port (two sealers, R62015, finals last year) and his emphatic last quarter against the Giants in Sydney late in 2016 always spoke to his ability as a big game player. The other players wilted away, but rarely those two.

Darling as well. It’s genuinely not a coincidence how much he’s improved since becoming a father. He started contesting harder and doing more against 2 on 1s. It’s understandable to not hear so much considering how big the comp is but the West had talked him up in the pre-season a fair bit. It wasn’t a shock turn around so much as a progressive rise. He had some big moments last year in the finals. I remember one particular mark in the goal square where he went back with it last year that showed how much his mentality had improved.

Or Flyin Ryan being somewhat of a shock pick up. He’d kicked 70 goals at the WAFL level and took some absolute screamers to earn his name before we drafted him. Love him to death but how exactly were Ryan or even Rioli going to be a downgrade from Josh Hill? Again, totally get how people don’t hear about it but it was another reason to think Eagles were making improvements to their list.

Combine all that with Nic Nat and Lycett being back, Yeo’s improvement in his consistency, players like Duggan and Barass or Redden coming in with another pre-season under their belts....

You’re completely correct in saying a lot of shock jocks and journos had us slipping this year and didn’t rate certain players, but that doesn’t mean they were worth listening to. It’s absolutely my bias as a fan of the team, as well as my living in WA to hear our own media bubble, but there were a lot of reasons to think the Eagles would swing up this year rather than slip down.