What looked shot a couple of years ago after the exodus of Hogan and a long slump with Tmac is now  looking like  the exact opposite.

Firstly Fritta is asserting his superior athleticism and skills for a so called 3rd tall and is dominating at present.

Last week we revealed our super weapon in Kozzie who is an incredible goalsneak.

3rd and 4th, We have new and constant improvement in Anb and Spargo applying great pressure both physical and on the scoreboard.

5, Tmac is almost  back to his best.

6 and 7 Jackson is going to get even better and gives us the chance to use Max up fwd.

8   Goodys new found flexibility in moving tagged mids up there.

9 and 10.....Weid and Brown have not yet played.

Its a defender's nightmare starting to unfold.

Edited April 12, 20214 yr by leave it to deever
Spelling

Goodys new found flexibility , perhaps Choco has been getting into his ear !!!!!!. Not sure if the Weid is going to create headache for the opposition. I would like to see Daw being tried as a Forward pocket player. Going back to Goodys new found flexibility,why is Joel Smith playing defence in the reserves ? hasn't had much success there in the past. It is good to see Anb play well considering most of us want him dropped win or lose.

Very early days. Great Forward Lines excel in September 

but we certainly have an entirely new set up, that should be powerful and prosper

I haven't been a great fan of Goody but credit is due for the development of Kossie.

Kossie played a lot more senior footy than would have been expected last year. At times he was running around like a headless chook on coke and ,in normal circumstances, would have been learning the craft at Casey. 

Nevertheless the club stuck with him and we are now gaining the benefits of his accelerated development.

6 minutes ago, Bitter but optimistic said:

I haven't been a great fan of Goody but credit is due for the development of Kossie.

Kossie played a lot more senior footy than would have been expected last year. At times he was running around like a headless chook on coke and ,in normal circumstances, would have been learning the craft at Casey. 

Nevertheless the club stuck with him and we are now gaining the benefits of his accelerated development.

I actually thought everyone was getting a bit carried away with Kozzie last year.  All i was seeing was the headless chook.  But yes you are right his development seems massively accelerated.  The kids mum passed away, not yet 21/20 years of age?, playing in the high pressure cooker of afl senior footy, and influencing games in a major way.  Unreal stuff.

3 minutes ago, Bitter but optimistic said:

I haven't been a great fan of Goody but credit is due for the development of Kossie.

Kossie played a lot more senior footy than would have been expected last year. At times he was running around like a headless chook on coke and ,in normal circumstances, would have been learning the craft at Casey. 

Nevertheless the club stuck with him and we are now gaining the benefits of his accelerated development.

Can thank Williams written in the Langdon article....said he had really worked hard with all our young players!

Goodwin never really had the game plan....the players did not believe.   Results over last few years showed that we were flaky in our resolve and not often did we play as a team or unit.

Insert Williams and Yze, we have structures, multiple plans, and belief is growing.

I think Goodwin is much like Hardwick and will be rapt if/when he gets the plaudits. Our assistants are having a huge impact, you can see it in so many facets of our game now.  Goodwin seemed pretty inflexible when it came to switching magnets and we never had a good structure.

Kossie is a gem and wants to get the best out of himself, he is ahead of Cyril at this stage of his career.  Can see him getting to a stage where he has few peers.  Has a Liam Ryan type game already and this is only year 2.....SOOOOO exciting!

I actually think our fwd line is still our biggest weakness.  we have dominated all 4 games and should have a higher percentage. 

We have no dominant big men and without Fristch we would be struggling. When Brown and Weed are back, we should be a different proposition though

1 hour ago, COOLX said:

Goodys new found flexibility , perhaps Choco has been getting into his ear !!!!!!. Not sure if the Weid is going to create headache for the opposition. I would like to see Daw being tried as a Forward pocket player. Going back to Goodys new found flexibility,why is Joel Smith playing defence in the reserves ? hasn't had much success there in the past. It is good to see Anb play well considering most of us want him dropped win or lose.

I complained about Hunt constantly being played in defence and boy was I wrong about that.

Daw would be good but Im hoping there is simply no room for him.

Anb has been fantastic. Works very hard.

Edited April 12, 20214 yr by leave it to deever

45 minutes ago, NeveroddoreveN said:

Goodwin never really had the game plan....the players did not believe.   Results over last few years showed that we were flaky in our resolve and not often did we play as a team or unit.

Insert Williams and Yze, we have structures, multiple plans, and belief is growing.

I think Goodwin is much like Hardwick and will be rapt if/when he gets the plaudits. Our assistants are having a huge impact, you can see it in so many facets of our game now.  Goodwin seemed pretty inflexible when it came to switching magnets and we never had a good structure.

Agree - if this proves to be the case. I am not sure just yet, but I have faith in both Yze and Chocko to bring in the biscuits. 

We need to see Brown and the weed down forward to get a better idea of them. I still think it the weakness in the side but have operated well under the circumstances. Lets hoope the 2 forwards can operate well then we may have a very good side in operation but the opposite can happen as well.

1 hour ago, COOLX said:

Goodys new found flexibility , perhaps Choco has been getting into his ear !!!!!!. Not sure if the Weid is going to create headache for the opposition. I would like to see Daw being tried as a Forward pocket player. Going back to Goodys new found flexibility,why is Joel Smith playing defence in the reserves ? hasn't had much success there in the past. It is good to see Anb play well considering most of us want him dropped win or lose.

I think Weid could really flourish in this set up. For so much of his career so far he was the main forward and was expected to kick a large part of our score. In this team there are so many other options and he would get the the second or third string key back, as well as plenty of other key scoring options like Kossie, Trac, Fritta and TMac. It is potentially the best forward set up l have seen at the Dees in my 50 years of support. We are about to enter “interesting” times!

Edited April 12, 20214 yr by Dees2014

A slight aside but I was really impressed with Viney's work up forward yesterday. In previous times he's looked a bit lost in attack but when he was rotated forward yesterday he positioned himself really well and applied a ton of pressure, as we'd expect from him. He's adding some dynamism to his game that I was skeptical he'd find.

2 hours ago, NeveroddoreveN said:

Goodwin never really had the game plan....the players did not believe.   Results over last few years showed that we were flaky in our resolve and not often did we play as a team or unit.

Insert Williams and Yze, we have structures, multiple plans, and belief is growing.

I think Goodwin is much like Hardwick and will be rapt if/when he gets the plaudits. Our assistants are having a huge impact, you can see it in so many facets of our game now.  Goodwin seemed pretty inflexible when it came to switching magnets and we never had a good structure.

It might be a weekly exercise as clearly we both see this differently but I feel like you use every opportunity to kick goody - if we lose you'll say it's his fault and if we win it's thanks to Williams and Yze.

Last year was the same game plan - its just being executed better.  So sure - this is partly to do with the impact of Williams and Yze, but there a myriad of other factors (unrelated to Williams and Yze) that have contributed to our improvement this year. eg

• Fitness - last year we trained for one thing (to be fitter than everyone else) and then the parametres changed with Covid.  We have a number of endurance specialists (Langdon, ANB, TMac, Tomlinson etc) who are all playing big roles this year.  I don't think this is a coincidence.
• We have competition for spots - this is a combination of a solid pre-season, low number of injuries and development of younger players.  In previous years Hibberd would not be spending so many weeks in the VFL - he would be straight in.
• Our personnel gives us greater flexibility - Jackson was growing in confidence last year and then went down with an injury.  Having him fit allows Gawn to cover forward or back when needed.  Similarly the likes of likes of Spargo and Kozzie are stronger, fitter and able to provide the manic forward half pressure and good ball use consistently - we were crying out for this last year.

I've been critical of Goodwin like many on here but hate it when people take pot shots and back it up with things they can't possibly know.  What I did notice last year was that the players (surprisingly) love Goody and play for him - this is evident particularly in longer interviews where the players talk about all the extra things he is doing to ensure they are better players and better people.

So Williams and Yze might be providing a lot of the difference - I imagine the players would listen when they have something to say (much more than some of our previous assistants). But to me this year we are building on what we were doing last year - same game plan with a fitter, more experienced and confidence group of players.

9 hours ago, DubDee said:

I actually think our fwd line is still our biggest weakness.  we have dominated all 4 games and should have a higher percentage. 

We have no dominant big men and without Fristch we would be struggling. When Brown and Weed are back, we should be a different proposition though

Agreed. Too many scoring opportunities squandered by poor decision making with the ball, too many goals scored by brilliant individual efforts eg Kozzie, Maxie and not enough from good team play based on a game plan that maximises potential for scoring and too few "easy goals" from sharp, clever and fast ball movement from turnovers and kick ins.

In 2018 we scored heavily without Jesse so expecting our scoring to improve with Brown and Weid is wishful thinking at best. It is not the players but the system that counts.

 

Ridiculous claim.  Only Tom Mc, Kozzie & Fritta have the potential to be elite.

Our defence, ruck & mids are elite our fwd line is not.