Jump to content

Featured Replies

  • Author

Goodwin got caught out today playing sparrow and vanders on the wingers. Blokes like Hunter and JJ had field days

 
19 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Its still a massive need. Vanders was exposed badly today by Hunter. He was not by himself.

We have so many one paced plodders like Vanders, Jones, Sparrow, Tomlinson who we are having to run through the wings because we have nothing else on offer. When you're playing those guys on the outside, good teams expose you.

Where is Oska Baker at? I really like his work last year, and much rather him or Hunt on a wing then a Vanders/Jones.

With you on Baker,  He is a wingman with pace, Yes needs to develop but so to does most of the team. It is a bit like how the aussie Cricket team used to operate. Once you were in, you were in. It literally does not matter what some of our best players do or dont do. They will always be selected.

100% need better balance still.

I felt like we were starting to get it a bit better, but Goodwin went slowly back to preferring inside mids like Sparrow playing outside, and I made this exact point during team selection last week.

Id rather see Baker get a crack, or if we don’t have the player on the list, we desperately need to bring more in (Tomlinson obviously isn’t the answer).

 
49 minutes ago, Elegt said:

Goodwin got caught out today playing sparrow and vanders on the wingers. Blokes like Hunter and JJ had field days

My best guess is Goody is a "set and forget" coach who appears to believe that if you overwhelm your opponent with heavy contested ball winners and win the ball with numbers at the contest then everything else will look after itself.

The trouble is when you don't win this area (say the opp evens up the contested / clearances or gets close, or even worse wins it) then that template has failed at the first hurdle.

Add to that some terrible execution when you do win it and zero pressure on their HBs in transition, and you have yourself the continual recipe for failure against anyone capable of bringing those two factors (for long enough).

St Kilda will do exactly the same and unless Goody brings a different look, we'll get exactly the same outcome.

5 minutes ago, Rusty Nails said:

My best guess is Goody is a "set and forget" coach who appears to believe that if you overwhelm your opponent with heavy contested ball winners and win the ball with numbers at the contest then everything else will look after itself.

The trouble is when you don't win this area (say the opp evens up the contested / clearances or gets close, or even worse wins it) then that template has failed at the first hurdle.

Add to that some terrible execution when you do win it and zero pressure on their HBs in transition, and you have yourself the continual recipe for failure against anyone capable of bringing those two factors (for long enough).

St Kilda will do exactly the same and unless Goody brings a different look, we'll get exactly the same outcome.

Of all the teams where you can’t afford this mindset, the doggies and saints would be top of the tree.

There’s a reason plenty were nervous coming into this game and it played out exactly that way. 

The doggies adjusted at half time to make things work for them and we doubled down on everything we were doing wrong.

its just extremely hard to back this team and coaching panel to bring the required mindset every single week


2 minutes ago, BW511 said:

Of all the teams where you can’t afford this mindset, the doggies and saints would be top of the tree.

There’s a reason plenty were nervous coming into this game and it played out exactly that way. 

The doggies adjusted at half time to make things work for them and we doubled down on everything we were doing wrong.

its just extremely hard to back this team and coaching panel to bring the required mindset every single week

Bennell, if fit, should be in this week and if he is fit i would leave him in for the remainder of the season and see what he can bring.  There's nothing to lose and everything to gain here.

Vanders could do with a rest.  He's played his part for now.  Time to see what Harley can bring.

  • Author
4 minutes ago, Rusty Nails said:

Bennell, if fit, should be in this week and if he is fit i would leave him in for the remainder of the season and see what he can bring.  There's nothing to lose and everything to gain here.

Vanders could do with a rest.  He's played his part for now.  Time to see what Harley can bring.

unfortunately Bennell isn''t a high pressure player with pace. Oskar Baker surely gets a run

17 minutes ago, Elegt said:

unfortunately Bennell isn''t a high pressure player with pace. Oskar Baker surely gets a run

He potentially brings class and finish though something that Baker probably doesn't have at this early stage.

I'd roll the dice and give him a 3 match minimum run and see what he can bring (if he's fit enough to run out a full game that is).

 

When we win the stoppage we don’t exit with poise and composure against good sides. Under pressure we bomb it. 
 

When we loose the stoppage, good teams murder us on the outside time and time again. We get sucked in and don’t chase ... doggies are a class act and they showed it but a top 4 side would negate the handball game quite easily with pressure. 

If we were a team that created more contests then that would make sense winning on contested ball alone. There's too many oxymorons about the way we play or how we say we want to play.

If we want to be this contested beast team we should just be kicking long to contests and forcing stoppages rather than trying to be a play on team. If we want to be a 'lock the ball in the 50' team then we need to not have an abysmal record at forward 50 stoppages. I'm sure this is the moment where someone tells me our forward 50 stoppage scoring rate this year is not bad or some stat to refute my claims but just get off the grass. We offer nothing from them and we stink at them. 


2 hours ago, Elegt said:

unfortunately Bennell isn''t a high pressure player with pace. Oskar Baker surely gets a run

Ok so the issue I have with this throw away line (that the club liked to use early this season) is that Bennell gets dropped the moment he misses a tackle but someone like Melksham can just stand in the 50 and offer zero pressure and get his 1 cruddy tackle for the game and not come close to being dropped. It's just complete and total crap. If we're holding players to these 'defensive pressure' standards then this needs to be a team wide expectation. 

  • Author
2 minutes ago, layzie said:

Ok so the issue I have with this throw away line (that the club liked to use early this season) is that Bennell gets dropped the moment he misses a tackle but someone like Melksham can just stand in the 50 and offer zero pressure and get his 1 cruddy tackle for the game and not come close to being dropped. It's just complete and total crap. If we're holding players to these 'defensive pressure' standards then this needs to be a team wide expectation. 

Yep melksham needs a kick up the bum too but he is goodys mate

I wonder if we have a solution for this on our list in Mitch Hannan. He has the attributes to be a good winger with speed, height and ability overhead and he is often clean with the footy with a neat kick on his left. The question mark would probably be his endurance base to cover the ground back and forth like Langdon does. 

Currently the main issue I have with his game is that he often goes missing at length and I think that isn't helped by playing in our forward 50 where we have similar mid sized forwards in Melksham and Fritsch that are often used as hit up targets. Perhaps Hannan to a wing could improve our dynamic in the forward half while solving our outside run and spread? Worth a shot at least in my view.

Hunter and JJohannnnnnsen were laughing. Simply walked around Vandenburg and Sparrow. They knew they had the leg speed. 

Goodwin was too slow to realise it. 
 

We need outside mids. I’d draft 3 young kids in the draft exactly for this. That’s the priority. 
 

short term - Baker must come in.  He must be given a chance. And memo to Goodloss.  Let him run and run. 


We need more pace off half back. Salem delivers reasonable well but is fairly slow. Lever should be played of half back flank, Tomlinson is doing ok  and play Hunt on the other flank .I agree Hannah on the wing or give Baker some time there ,. But our main problem is congestion in the midfield., all trying to get a kick or a stat being stationary waiting for ruck hit out opposition reads our tap and are on the move pas  to the outside runner and clear forward and goal. Happens nearly every week and is why we are so easy to scored against , with pressure always on the defence. Yesterday we were out coached in the third quarter in particular allowing their midfield to use our ruck dominance to their advantage.We also have very few versatile players that can be moved to cover the opposition and still perform.

This has been a glaring concern for what seems like a decade and our recruiters seem none the wiser.  

We are one of the slowest teams in the comp and have been screaming out for clean ball users with pace in the middle for far too long. Langdon has been a great pickup for the wing but he's unlikely to go into centre bounces where we need it most. 

We have an abundance of hard nut inside ball winning mids but we simply have to move one of them on to be replaced by what we need.

Until this is done we'll get more of the same unfulfilled, wasted seasons for years to come. 

Agree with a lot of this. I was flabbergasted when we drafted Sparrow after throwing everything at inside mids. How many can you possibly have ? And hearing Jordan is developing as an inside mid. Just sounds like insanity to me. Where do they think we were going to play them?

Its like the coaching and recruiting staff can’t see what everyone else can plainly see. 

Langdon is now our most important transition player. And he needs more fast mates. It’s like we don’t value pace or kicking skills at all. 
 

kozzie defies that trend last year at the draft and perhaps they have woken up. But 5 years too late. 

To be totally honest I would like to see Rivers, Hunt and Baker come in for the rest of the year, we really needed them last week but better late than never. I agree with a lot of posters on here, if players are not performing you cannot keep giving them games on the chance that they will improve. If we do not bring some additional pace and skill into the mix this week I will fair dinkum chuck up!! You should have seen the look on my Grandson's face in that third quarter, he said to me come on Grandad I can't watch this any more..!!?

  • Author
On 7/2/2018 at 4:55 PM, KingDingAling said:

No way would I do that or even nearly do that. Brayshaw is trending upwards in a massive way. Great month of footy and is improving every game. He would be our most improved this year. Gaff is a vanilla mid, who whilst I acknowledge he is mostly an outside mid, he is a slow outside mid. We need a Tim Kelly type mid - blistering on the outside. Personally I wouldn't even entertain a straight swap of Brayshaw for Gaff. Gaff is a FA and if WC match him then they can have him. Gaff is massively overrated on this board. 

I'd love Gaff at the dees. Great player


On 8/22/2020 at 7:00 PM, Half forward flank said:

With you on Baker,  He is a wingman with pace, Yes needs to develop but so to does most of the team. It is a bit like how the aussie Cricket team used to operate. Once you were in, you were in. It literally does not matter what some of our best players do or dont do. They will always be selected.

Just leaving this here.

 

 

We are not a defensive based side, Saints at the Gabba will absolutely carve us up.

We have absolutely zero pressure from our forward half, we allow other teams the first kick out and once the link up of that second chain through a handball or kick we are completely pharked.

We still can't compete for four quarters against the better teams as our coaches don't nip things in the butt, if a player is red hot or a system backfires they'd rather it fix itself.

One of my most hated new generation sayings is "the result will take care of itself".

It gives me the absolute shyzenhauzens when i hear it, what is it suppose to imply? It makes players fall into a false sense of securtiy that everything will be alright, completely forgetting about pressure, hitting targets and kicking for goals. 

We have been good in these categories for the last 3 weeks because all the teams are coming off 4 day breaks and are [censored] but we must hit these key indicators (KPI's).

FMD.

Edited by Win4theAges

3 hours ago, Bay Riffin said:

Agree with a lot of this. I was flabbergasted when we drafted Sparrow after throwing everything at inside mids. How many can you possibly have ? And hearing Jordan is developing as an inside mid. Just sounds like insanity to me. Where do they think we were going to play them?

Its like the coaching and recruiting staff can’t see what everyone else can plainly see. 

Langdon is now our most important transition player. And he needs more fast mates. It’s like we don’t value pace or kicking skills at all. 
 

kozzie defies that trend last year at the draft and perhaps they have woken up. But 5 years too late. 

Agree 100% BR.  I was very disappointed to hear we drafted Sparrow (not a knock on the kid but we had lots of players that play his role already when he was drafted) but the talk at the time was that he is very quick and able to accelerate away from congestion.  Haven't seen this yet but he hasn't played a lot of senior footy so too early to know.  Maybe the VFL watchers from last year might know better.

 

Equally Jordan was picked as an outside mid / back flanker with good disposal skills.  My understanding was that when he wasn't having much impact playing these roles at VFL last year they put him in the square and realised that's where he belongs.


Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

Featured Content

  • PREVIEW: Fremantle

    A month is a long time in AFL football. The proof of this is in the current state of the two teams contesting against each other early this Saturday afternoon at the MCG. It’s hard to fathom that when Melbourne and Fremantle kicked off the 2025 season, the former looked like being a major player in this year’s competition after it came close to beating one of the favourites in the GWS Giants while the latter was smashed by Geelong to the tune of 78 points and looked like rubbish. Fast forward to today and the Demons are low on confidence and appear panic stricken as their winless streak heads towards an even half dozen and pressure mounts on the coach and team leadership.  Meanwhile, the Dockers have recovered their composure and now sit in the top eight. They are definitely on the up and up and look most likely winners this weekend against a team which they have recently dominated and which struggles to find enough passages to the goals to trouble the scorers. And with that, Fremantle will head to the MCG, feeling very good about itself after demolishing Richmond in the Barossa Valley with Josh Treacy coming off a six goal haul and facing up to a Melbourne defence already without Jake Lever and a shaky Steven May needing to pass a fitness test just to make it onto the field of play. 

    • 0 replies
    Demonland
  • NON-MFC: Round 06

    The Easter Round kicks off in style with a Thursday night showdown between Brisbane and Collingwood, as both sides look to solidify their spots inside the Top 4 early in the season. Good Friday brings a double-header, with Carlton out to claim consecutive wins when they face the struggling Kangaroos, while later that night the Eagles host the Bombers in Perth, still chasing their first victory of the year. Saturday features another marquee clash as the resurgent Crows look to rebound from back-to-back losses against a formidable GWS outfit. That evening, all eyes will be on Marvel Stadium where Damien Hardwick returns to face his old side—the Tigers—coaching the Suns at a ground he's never hidden his disdain for. Sunday offers two crucial contests where the prize is keeping touch with the Top 8. First, Sydney and Port Adelaide go head-to-head, followed by a fierce battle between the Bulldogs and the Saints. Then, Easter Monday delivers the traditional clash between two bitter rivals, both desperate for a win to stay in touch with the top end of the ladder. Who are you tipping this week and what are the best results for the Demons?

    • 102 replies
    Demonland
  • REPORT: Essendon

    What were they thinking? I mean by “they” the coaching panel and team selectors who chose the team to play against an opponent who, like Melbourne, had made a poor start to the season and who they appeared perfectly capable of beating in what was possibly the last chance to turn the season around.It’s no secret that the Demons’ forward line is totally dysfunctional, having opened the season barely able to average sixty points per game which means there has been no semblance of any system from the team going forward into attack. Nevertheless, on Saturday night at the Adelaide Oval in one of the Gather Round showcase games, Melbourne, with Max Gawn dominating the hit outs against a depleted Essendon ruck resulting from Nick Bryan’s early exit, finished just ahead in clearances won and found itself inside the 50 metre arc 51 times to 43. The end result was a final score that had the Bombers winning 15.6 (96) to 8.9 (57). On balance, one could expect this to result in a two or three goal win, but in this case, it translated into a six and a half goal defeat because they only managed to convert eight times or 11.68% of their entries. The Bombers more than doubled that. On Thursday night at the same ground, the losing team Adelaide managed to score 100 points from almost the same number of times inside 50.

    • 0 replies
    Demonland
  • PODCAST: Essendon

    The Demonland Podcast will air LIVE on Monday, 14th April @ the all new time of 8:00pm. Join Binman, George & I as we dissect another Demons loss at Kardinia Park to the Cats in the Round 04. Your questions and comments are a huge part of our podcast so please post anything you want to ask or say below and we'll give you a shout out on the show. If you would like to leave us a voicemail please call 03 9016 3666 and don't worry no body answers so you don't have to talk to a human.

      • Like
    • 63 replies
    Demonland
  • PREGAME: Fremantle

    The Demons return home to the MCG in search of their first win for the 2025 Premiership season when they take on the Fremantle Dockers on Saturday afternoon. Who comes in and who goes out?

      • Sad
    • 417 replies
    Demonland
  • VOTES: Essendon

    Max Gawn leads the Demonland Player of the Year ahead of Clayton Oliver, Christian Petracca, Kade Chandler and Jake Bowey. Your votes please. 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 & 1.

      • Like
    • 24 replies
    Demonland