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This stat showed something changed this year.

What distinguished us in 2021 was that we NEVER gave up a lead of 20 points or more.

Once the boot was on the opposition’s throat, it didn’t come off. This year, unless we put quality opposition to bed in the first quarter, we were a monty to get run over.


2 minutes ago, The heart beats true said:

Fitness

fitness? not sure that is the case, the start of our season was fantastic we looked unbeatable we just didnt lose our fitness overnight and continue to maintain that lose for the rest of the year. more to it than that. We did not get the same drive from our midfield, Oliver was the only one who always stood up, Trac was reasonable but not in the same form as last year or earlier this year, our Dynamic ruck duo was not the same by a long shot. I think we found we could not continue to carry some of these other bit players that we play week after week and even into finals. Any team that ran and carried found us out. we did not chase. I dont know if we have an aversion to tackling, i know several times last night players did not go at the player with the ball, we do not cover lose opposition players well.

I find it fascinating how people want to ignore the obvious.

Outscored after halftime in 11 of our last 15 games, gave up 22 point leads 6 times (all during that period), and won only 6 of our last 14 (one of those being daylight robbery against Carlton)

Sometimes the simplest answer is a big part of the answer. Watching at the G you can see we didn’t have the legs to go again and again after half time for the last few months.

I will never know but I strongly suspect we tried to replicate 2021 in terms of training load but didn’t have the same base due to a shorter preseason, and more injuries to contend with. We had absolutely nothing to give after halftime for 3 months. I interpreted Goodwins post Game comments last night to essentially say that the club was going to investigate this.

 
52 minutes ago, The heart beats true said:

Fitness

Complacency imo

There was no way around it. We were never going to be a premiership team once we had the 4th one of these. Not enough criticism was levelled our way from this, it was all ok because of loading and all that. Our mentality and mindset was a complete shambles after all that and we died.

Fade outs don't win flags.


1 minute ago, praha said:

Complacency imo

I agree with you to a large extent. I think we got complacent about the plan. I think we probably had the right to try the plan again, but it didn’t work for months and nothing shifted.

If anything straight sets will show us how far off we are with the current plan.

This proves to me we are still one of the best teams. A few tinkers with our gameplan, better fitness, some new found hunger after being embarrassed in front of our home fans and wanting some redemption for our performances, less expectation will all go a long way in enabling us to contend up the top again next year.

Surely this will be a huge focus in the off season.

We just weren’t aggressive enough and we sat back after getting those leads and lent on our flooding Demon Web and our back 6.

Think about how many times in win steak it would be one qtr of dominance and 3 qtrs of meh.

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