If you match the players gone vs the players who have come in, they're better. If they're not better,I don't see it.
I didn't ask whether the players were better, I asked whether we're a better team.
2009/10 we had Greenacre and Ifill fresh from the UK, McKain in good form with Durante, Eugene Dadi popping in the late goals, Brownie in good form, Daniel playing well, Reddy on fire in the second half of the season plus the underrated Caceres. That was a good team and will take some beating.
Hmm, you're looking at this with rose-tinted glasses JD. That team finished 4th in the league on the back of Ifill magic, strong defence with McKain and Durante, and a superb Reddy who kept us in a lot of games. But that team certainly wasn't the third best team in the league that season - putting aside they were nowhere near Sydney and Melbourne, Perth was probably better (we had Reddy to thank for going past them), and while Gold Coast did seem our bunnies a bit, overall they performed better than us that season, but fluffed their home play-off game against Newcastle.
Not to mention that that same team got lumped 4-0 in Melbourne only weeks before the playoffs.
We did only lose 26% of our games that season (the best in the league that season) and our next best, for a completed season, is 41%. That season we won 37% of our games and our best is 44%.
We also got spanked 4-1 by Brisbane (in addition to the 4-0 loss in Melbourne) that season, in the first half of the season. Would be very interested to know what JD said after that performance about that same team.
We also had our best goals per game difference (goals per game for - goals per game against) that season at 0.3, next best is 0.07 which was last season - helped by big wins against GCU (6-0), Roar (3-1), Jets, CCM and Fury (all 3-0). We had our equal best points per game, equal with last season.
Though, the season is still early. Same amount of points gained after 5 rounds as in 09/10 and 07/08 and less than last season's 7 points after 5 rounds.
Edit: In saying that, our season last year was pretty damn good. After 24 rounds (our last win in the league) we were average 1.63ppg (39pts) and at that same stage in 09/10 it was 1.29ppg (31pts). Last season we only managed 1 more point in the remaining 3 games while in 09/10 we did win 3 in a row in the final 3 games both resulting in 1.48ppg (40pts). Last season we won 44%, drew 15% and lost 41% in 09/10 it was won 37%, drew 37% and lost 26%.
Second edit: It is hard to judge how good teams are too previous seasons as the standard of the league rises most seasons. This years team if possible to jump into Doc Brown's DeLorean could possibly have done better than the 09/10 team did.