In the finest tradition of the Herald Sun's post Melbourne Cup edition, where the beaten jockeys trot out why their horse failed to salute ("didn't stay, mate"), we at BPL have got out the crystal ball, looked ahead to September and have found the reason your club will be giving for not winning the 2010 flag.

ADELAIDE: Too many pre-season injuries, never got our best team on the park and a gameplan that still didn't stand up to the white-hot pressure of the finals.

BRISBANE: Fev and Browny couldn't get out of each other's way.

CARLTON: A full-forward would have been handy.

COLLINGWOOD: The players would listen to Mick, then to Bucks, then to Mick again, leading to total confusion. Then Sean Rusling busted his shoulder, for a change.

ESSENDON: You can't replace 540 games and 1397 goals of experience in one season and expect to contend. And we still can't play defence.

FREMANTLE: Still can't win in a different time zone.

GEELONG: Too old, too slow and now no Ablett. But we'll take the two out of three before that.

HAWTHORN: Luke Hodge is our heart, our soul and our best player of the last 20 years. But he isn't a ruckman.

MELBOURNE: We think Jack Watts will be a player, so too will Tom Scully and Jack Trengove. So when's the draft?

NORTH MELBOURNE: Hot showers, heating and plasma TVs...the new facilities might have made us a bit soft.

PORT ADELAIDE: Choco would lay out the witch's hats, Dean Laidley would move them. And then we'd have a meeting to sort it all out. Never got out on the track.

RICHMOND: We only ever had one eye on 2010.

ST KILDA: We only had one Nick Riewoldt and were short an inside midfielder all season. Wonder where we can find a new one?

SYDNEY: The Daniel Bradshaw of 2010 was far removed from the Daniel Bradshaw of 2000 to 2009.

WEST COAST EAGLES: It's not whether you win or lose but how Nic Naitanui plays the game.

WESTERN BULLDOGS: You'd assume after all these years that when we told Barry Hall to punch from behind, that he'd know we were talking about the footy. We could have used him in the grand final.