I've said for some time that 2017 hasn't helped us. The hubris around the club which allowed us to excuse 2016 due to any number of issues (floods, injuries, junket vs NZ etc etc) was summarised by the complete lack of recruitment for the following year - the club clearly believed everything would be right without any major changes.
That attitude was reinforced by the win last year, in a competition with only one decent team who imploded in the GF (an utterly low quality game).
As a result the club has overrated a number of players enormously. We still have a lot of the GF team at the club, but the reality is they're being exposed for having stayed on too long (our older forwards) or in some cases just not being as good as thought (quite a few are worryingly in that category).
I wouldn't trade the GF win last year, but GH, BM and co seriously took their eye off the ball following 2015, and last year has cost us a year or so more in terms of refereshing things.