Gerard & Sam's 2021 Demons Season Review

[Demonland 66,676]

[radar 1,858]

“Forward line could improve”

”but our last memory is they kicked 12 in a row in a Grand Final”

[old dee 23,122]

4 minutes ago, radar said:

“Forward line could improve”

”but our last memory is they kicked 12 in a row in a Grand Final”

Correct but taken over the entire season it was our weakest area IMO.

[Demonland 66,676]

16 minutes ago, old dee said:

Correct but taken over the entire season it was our weakest area IMO.

Minor Premiers and Premiers beating every team save a hiccup against the filth. I'll take that every year. Except losing to the filth.

[old dee 23,122]

8 minutes ago, Demonland said:

Minor Premiers and Premiers beating every team save a hiccup against the filth. I'll take that every year. Except losing to the filth.

It doesn't alter the fact the our forward line was our weakest area over the course of the season.

[Jibroni 4,282]

If we have room for improvement then the rest of the comp should look out.

[old dee 23,122]

1 hour ago, Jibroni said:

If we have room for improvement then the rest of the comp should look out.

Every team even the premiers have areas they can improve even if the Premiers won every game of the final series by comfortable margins.

Edited December 3, 2021 by old dee

[DistrACTION Jackson 6,751]

9 minutes ago, old dee said:

It doesn't alter the fact the our forward line was our weakest area over the course of the season.

I think this is the scary thing for other sides. For the first 15-16 rounds of the season we were still working out our forward line and struggled to kick big scores, but our defence was so good it didn't matter as we would win by 20-30 points by keeping sides to 60 and under.

But once Ben Brown got fit and worked his way into our system our forward dynamic really improved, to the point where we kicked 93, 125 and 140 in the finals.

With our forward line now pretty much worked out we should expect to be kicking bigger scores for most of the season.

[binman 39,225]

54 minutes ago, old dee said:

Correct but taken over the entire season it was our weakest area IMO.

Weakest is a relative term.

Our forward line is ridiculously underrated IMO.

How many other forward lines have  two players with a realistic chance of winning the Coleman medal next year? The Cats maybe? Not the dogs with Bruce out for almost all of next season. The Lions? Not with Hipwood out.

If Fritter and Brown stay fit both are odds on to kick 45 plus goals plus next year. So both are well in contention for the Coleman.

Fritter kicked 59 goals from 24 matches last season, finishing only behind Hawkins (62 from 25 games) for total goals for the season. Brown kicked 25 from 13 games.

Kozzie kicked 40 from  25 games. And T Mac had 33 and Trac 29.  

Assuming Brown retains his current fitness levels, he'll improve next season. Kozzie has scope for improvement, as does Jackson (who kicked 16, as did Maxy).

And on top of all of that we have Weed who will be busting a gut to get into the team. Hopefully the same is true of Melksham - and Spargo and Nibbler will continue to tick along. 

Only three teams kicked more points than us in the home and ways season (two barely any more) and from memory we were number one in the AFL for contested marks inside 50, total marks inside 50 and percentage of scores per inside 50 entry.

If the forward line is our weakest link, then we are doing ok

Edited December 2, 2021 by binman

[Willmoy1947 3,825]

"CLARRY" household, Statehold, Australia wide name, amazing. Him and "bang bang bang bang"

 

[Willmoy1947 3,825]

10 minutes ago, binman said:

Weakest is a relative term.

Our forward line is ridiculously underrated IMO.

How many other forward lines have  two players with a realistic chance of winning the Coleman medal next year? The Cats maybe? Not the dogs with Bruce out for almost all of next season. The Lions? Not with Hipwood out.

If Fritter and Brown stay fit both are odds on to kick 45 plus goals plus next year. So both are well in contention for the Coleman.

Fritter kicked 59 goals from 24 matches last season, finishing only behind Hawkins (62 from 25 games) for total goals for the season. Brown kicked 25 from 13 games.

Kozzie kicked 40 from  25 games. And T Mac had 33 and Trac 29.  

Assuming Brown retains his current fitness levels, he'll improve next season. Kozzie has scope for improvement, as does Jackson (who kicked 16, as did Maxy).

And on top of all of that we have Weed who will be busting a gut to get into the team. Hopefully the same is true of Melksham - and Spargo and Nibbler will continue to tick along. 

Only three teams kicked more points than us in the home and ways season (two barely any more) and from memory we were number one in the AFL for contested marks inside 50, total marks inside 50 and percentage of scores per inside 50 entry.

If the forward line is our weakest link, then we are doing ok

Is the thin thread of weakness that Brown goes down and Weed does not come up? Heaven forbid..

Then do we try and make a Fwd out of Jackson ALA Cats? 

[old dee 23,122]

7 minutes ago, binman said:

Weakest is a relative term.

Our forward line is ridiculously underrated IMO.

How many other forward lines have  two players with a realistic chance of winning the Coleman medal next year? The Cats maybe? Not the dogs with Bruce out for almost all of next season. The Lions? Not with Hipwood out.

If Fritter and Brown stay fit both are odds on to kick 45 plus goals plus next year. So both are well in contention for the Coleman.

Fritter kicked 59 goals from 24 matches last season, finishing only behind Hawkins (62 from 25 games) for total goals for the season. Brown kicked 25 from 13 games.

Kozzie kicked 40 from  25 games. And T Mac had 33 and Trac 29.  

Assuming Brown retains his current fitness levels, he'll improve next season. Kozzie has scope for improvement, as does Jackson (who kicked 16, as did Maxy).

And on top of all of that we have Weed who will be busting a gut to get into the team. Hopefully the same is true of Melksham - and Spargo and Nibbler will continue to tick along. 

Only three teams kicked more points than us in the home and ways season (two barely any more) and from memory we were number one in the AFL for contested marks inside 50, total marks inside 50 and percentage of scores per inside 50 entry.

If the forward line is our weakest link, then we are doing ok

I am not suggesting we are doing badly but over the course of the year it was our worst area. As you say it is a relative term.

[binman 39,225]

18 minutes ago, old dee said:

I am not suggesting we are doing badly but over the course of the year it was our worst area. As you say it is a relative term.

I actually think our least best area was our ability to shut down small and medium opposition forwards. So our defence!

[durango 1,984]

I looked at the team and we have got Van Rooyen who was drafted as a forward in the future and Weideman who if he becomes more like his grandfather and less like his father in his attack on the ball would become the forward we need.

In the midfield we have added Howes who if he comes along will allow Brayshaw back into the midfield, Jordan and Dunstan who pressure all the incumbents to be better.

We have Taj Woewodin and Judd McVee who have a huge upside if they come on.

Tomlinson and Hunt want their place in the team.

And I believe that Clayton Oliver could do a Petracca and become a goalkicking midfielder.

Jackson, Rivers and Pickett have only played 2 seasons of senior football and are still scratching the surface of how good they could be.

Bowey, Laurie and Rosman have played very little football in the last 2 years and if the reach their potential then we are in for a treat.

Our true weakness is between the ears if we believe we only have to turn up to win, I think that was the attitude when we played the Magpies and Adelaide the first time.

In general the premiership is ours to lose if we have lots of injuries and complacency to boot we will allow the contenders to take our prize. 

[Diamond_Jim 12,065]

15 minutes ago, old dee said:

I am not suggesting we are doing badly but over the course of the year it was our worst area. As you say it is a relative term.

I think I know what you are getting at OD and perhaps the debate is between forward structure and "kicking winning scores".

We often kicked winning scores but in many games our forward structure was missing.

The Adelaide loss which I watched last night is perhaps a perfect example (even though we lost). Kicked 14 goals 11 behinds and lost by a point but the forward line was a mess from a structural viewpoint. (Brown out and Weid in for his first game. Fritsch never looked like it and McDonald floating in and out.)

I think we have it under control going into next year with both Jackson and Gawn floating forward and with Brown and Fritcsh. Hard to match up on the new Demons. My greatest fear is that the opposition pack the forward 50 and rely on fast breaks through the midfield using overlapping run and handball.

 

[DeeSpencer 23,569]

1 hour ago, binman said:

I actually think our least best area was our ability to shut down small and medium opposition forwards. So our defence!

I kind of think that was a little overplayed because our talls dominated so much the oppositions best chance was on the deck. 

[Jaded No More 59,541]

1 hour ago, binman said:

I actually think our least best area was our ability to shut down small and medium opposition forwards. So our defence!

Ground balls in our backline was definitely our biggest issue. We got most our scores against in this fashion, because getting a mark inside our defensive 50 is very very hard as we are so dominant in the air. So teams had to force a spillage or kick goals from midfield. 

There is no doubt that we need to develop a new small defender who can go after those ground ball gets. Hibbo is on his last legs, and we've lost Jetta. It will be fascinating to see how we manage the defence next year with Tomlinson back. 

[DeeSpencer 23,569]

Overall I think our biggest weakness is still the trade off from our biggest strength. We play so direct and crash and bash that we waste a lot of opportunities to use run and skill and generate easier ball movement and scores.

The positive of that is we’re used to finals type footy and eventually there came moments in each finals where we broke the opposition and strung together skilful passages and got easy goals.

At its worse it shows up in the dysfunctional forward entries that plagued us all for years and were prevalent for a lot of the year. A fully healthy BBB late in the year straightened us up improving the forward line but also make a lot of bad entries look good or halved.

Jason Taylor keeps drafting wingers and skilled back flankers - even with a rookie in Juddy. I’m sure the plan is to kick the ball from the back half more, use Langers and other runners and get it out to more skilful half forwards like Pickett, Spargo even Laurie.

If we can keep plan A game strong whilst adding more run and skill to do it a bit easier that’s how you stay ahead of the comp.

[Redleg 38,195]

2 hours ago, willmoy said:

Is the thin thread of weakness that Brown goes down and Weed does not come up? Heaven forbid..

Then do we try and make a Fwd out of Jackson ALA Cats? 

Or we play Petty forward with Tomlinson back, or hope that that JVR is ready to try, or we play Tom Mac at ff and use a more mobile smaller chf like maybe Melksham or even Hunt,  or use Mitch Brown or Daw as a fill in.

We have options.

[Gawndy the Great 7,852]

Improvements i would like to see is putting to bed the games we should win by a 6+ goal margin and not just stumbling across the line. We could probably improve our stoppage game including structures, clearances and improving the cohesion with Gawny's tap work and LJ's alternative influences. 

We still had a few games where we were missing for large chunks of a quarter (Lions, Cats R23, Doggies 2nd encounter + GF, Hawks, Crows etc) - now it is inevitable that this will happen, but to respond quicker and not to let 2-3 goals consecutively turn into a 1-1.5 quarters of MIA. 

These are really grasping at straws when it comes to improvements, but a pillar of successful, high performing teams is continuous improvement. 

Oh, and the last area is Goodies pressers. Need to change the narrative a little there i think :)

[Sir Why You Little 35,224]

I think the Players will take great belief from that GF Performance 

No one saw 16 goals to 1 in the 2nd half, but they did it, and once it started they put the foot down without relenting. 
 

That is what i will be watching for in ‘22

 

[binman 39,225]

1 hour ago, DeeSpencer said:

I kind of think that was a little overplayed because our talls dominated so much the oppositions best chance was on the deck. 

Yep, fair point.

The opposition goals are going to come from somewhere and we are brilliant at getting it to ground down back. 

And i think Rivers improved his defensive work and Bowey added another element that helped tighten up our defence against smalls and mediums

[DeeZone 8,060]

4 hours ago, old dee said:

I am not suggesting we are doing badly but over the course of the year it was our worst area. As you say it is a relative term.

Some really top posts here and not disagreeing with any really, however OD where our forwards let themselves down badly was goal kicking as Luke Hodge pointed out we were the most inaccurate team leading up to the finals. If we can sort that out and maintain our current structure we have the capacity to really burn teams.!!

[DeeZone 8,060]

I got distracted with the posts, I loved the Review by Gerard and Sam both are very Bullish if we can keep the boys out on the park. But as they mentioned when you kick 12 in a row in a Granny it’s hard to be critical.!!

[Willmoy1947 3,825]

We have to make a game of this coming year's upcoming pennant, no matter what the media thinks of us.

Edited December 3, 2021 by willmoy
me bad