I hear we were banged up. I recall we had a bye pre finals. I hear goody in the presser say all teams carry injuries and that we have been inconsistent for some time now. I recall our inconsistencies started some time ago and coincided with tmac getting injured and our forward structure not recovering sufficiently. I continue to listen with interest to reports of players having surgery, but as yet I have heard none.  

And please AFL, can our players have a 'real' mid season bye in 2023 to properly rest and recover.  Not the 10 day break we had after Queens Birthday. It was just silly fixturing to play on a Thursday night. 

  On 25/09/2022 at 05:47, dazzledavey36 said:

And yet we were howled down by usual suspects for suggesting this..

Apparently we should never ever question coaching selection or fitness staff ever again.

Some on here DD have a cargo cult attitude to the Staff and game plan You just cant question apparently

  On 25/09/2022 at 01:00, YesitwasaWin4theAges said:

You failed to highlight the rest of what i said i gave them credit for there management of their players.

I stand by what i said mo64, We weren't good enough i have acknowledged this fact on numerous occasions, Geelong have won it this year too good well done, but you are a fool if you think they haven't had piggy backs along the way to this years Premiership.

You mentioned we could have rested/rotated players in R9 and R10 yes but Geelong got given a gift from the heavens deeper in the season from the AFL in R17.

I also could have mentioned Geelong playing a Norf side that was going through the motions at feral land, a stroll in the park game before their next game against us off a 4 day break again at Feral land.

Whilst we had to travel to Adelaide and back from a tough physical encounter against the Crows.

Do you actually think that is fair mo64?Which fair game administrators would come up with that brain buster.

I could sit here and pick the eyes out of there draw but do yourself a favour just go and look at there last 13 games compared to ours, then you understand what im going on about.

 

No good belittling Geelong or whingeing about the draw. G haven't lost since May and were spectacular on Saturday. They also behaved and performed in a level-headed and business-like manner throughout the year...unlike us. Far too much self-love and self- satisfaction in the Melbourne cohort. And lack of both on and off field discipline. The May/Melksham incident was atrocious. Add in timid team selection and rigid, unimaginative tactics and its not hard to see why we fell short. Did well to finish second, but exposed in the finals.

  On 25/09/2022 at 14:53, Demons1858 said:

I hear we were banged up. I recall we had a bye pre finals. I hear goody in the presser say all teams carry injuries and that we have been inconsistent for some time now. I recall our inconsistencies started some time ago and coincided with tmac getting injured and our forward structure not recovering sufficiently. I continue to listen with interest to reports of players having surgery, but as yet I have heard none.  

Might not be listening hard enough then. Viney had surgery on his eye! Affected his vision the last few games. Brown surgery on the knee. Lever I assume? Tom Mac going in again? 

Won’t be our problem, but there was talk LJ would need surgery on the knee.

For some others that don’t need surgery that doesn’t mean they weren’t injured at a level where they potentially shouldn’t have been playing. 
 

AFL grand final 2022: The Bart Cummings preparation that had the Geelong Cats trained to the minute (theage.com.au)

Players getting injected to pass fitness tests...

  On 25/09/2022 at 21:13, Redlagged said:

No good belittling Geelong or whingeing about the draw. G haven't lost since May and were spectacular on Saturday. They also behaved and performed in a level-headed and business-like manner throughout the year...unlike us. Far too much self-love and self- satisfaction in the Melbourne cohort. And lack of both on and off field discipline. The May/Melksham incident was atrocious. Add in timid team selection and rigid, unimaginative tactics and its not hard to see why we fell short. Did well to finish second, but exposed in the finals.

This.

  On 25/09/2022 at 14:53, Demons1858 said:

I continue to listen with interest to reports of players having surgery, but as yet I have heard none.  

Plenty has been mentioned on Demonland, and 'officially' so far (going by socials) both TMac and Brown have already had surgery.

  On 25/09/2022 at 23:26, binman said:

AFL grand final 2022: The Bart Cummings preparation that had the Geelong Cats trained to the minute (theage.com.au)

I think we all know that you’ve got to have a combination of things go your way to have the ideal preparation.

Collingwood kick one more goal in that first final and the sky would have fallen in on Geelong. Everyone would be saying their draw was too soft and it hurt them.

This year taught me that there’s the plan, and then there’s this weeks version of the plan. It’s easy in hindsight to say anything was ideal when it won you the premiership. I think that thinking may have hurt us the most this year.

You need a plan, luck, adaptability, and courage. Probably in that order. I think we only had the first and last of those in 2022.

  On 25/09/2022 at 21:13, Redlagged said:

No good belittling Geelong or whingeing about the draw. G haven't lost since May and were spectacular on Saturday. They also behaved and performed in a level-headed and business-like manner throughout the year...unlike us. Far too much self-love and self- satisfaction in the Melbourne cohort. And lack of both on and off field discipline. The May/Melksham incident was atrocious. Add in timid team selection and rigid, unimaginative tactics and its not hard to see why we fell short. Did well to finish second, but exposed in the finals.

Agree with your comments, but you obviously missed or skipped my comments admitting they were too good this year also that they managed their squad extremely well.

Belittling them far from it, they are an extremely well liked by the powers that be.

Let me put it this way Geelong made the most of their good fortune this year.

I will be staggered if the competition is not a little stiffer for them in the 2nd half of 2023.

  On 25/09/2022 at 11:45, IRW said:

Is there any reality at all in that comment?

ps...this is a State based suburban football sporting competition.

It's not Russia vs Ukraine....there are no traitors,none,nada,zilch .

He infiltrated us KGB style.😂😂😂

  On 25/09/2022 at 23:00, 1964_2 said:

Might not be listening hard enough then. Viney had surgery on his eye! Affected his vision the last few games. Brown surgery on the knee. Lever I assume? Tom Mac going in again? 

Won’t be our problem, but there was talk LJ would need surgery on the knee.

For some others that don’t need surgery that doesn’t mean they weren’t injured at a level where they potentially shouldn’t have been playing. 
 

yes, lots of talk of injury which you have confirmed but only 2 confirmed cases of surgery (one being a eye which l am reluctant to count). tmac hasnt played for ages so not counting him. every team has injuries l think its just hard to accept we might have just been really poor in the 2nd half of the year as goody has said already

  On 26/09/2022 at 03:38, Demons1858 said:

yes, lots of talk of injury which you have confirmed but only 2 confirmed cases of surgery (one being a eye which l am reluctant to count). tmac hasnt played for ages so not counting him. every team has injuries l think its just hard to accept we might have just been really poor in the 2nd half of the year as goody has said already

I accept and most accept we were really poor. Goody wouldn’t say why anyway so not sure his statement means anything.

The facts are our running dropped by around 10% on average per game after round 10.  I haven’t broken it down by qtrs but I bet it was all in second halves. If so, we were down by around 20% in second halves of games after round 11, compared to round 1-10 and 2021, which is a huge drop off.

Who knows why. Maybe players with crook knees/ankles/feet just don’t run as well. Maybe they couldn’t train and lost fitness. Maybe it’s overtraining or something else.  

But the reality is after round 11 we were not even top 8 standard in our results and we were probably bottom 4 in running.

  On 26/09/2022 at 05:15, Watson11 said:

I accept and most accept we were really poor. Goody wouldn’t say why anyway so not sure his statement means anything.

The facts are our running dropped by around 10% on average per game after round 10.  I haven’t broken it down by qtrs but I bet it was all in second halves. If so, we were down by around 20% in second halves of games after round 11, compared to round 1-10 and 2021, which is a huge drop off.

Who knows why. Maybe players with crook knees/ankles/feet just don’t run as well. Maybe they couldn’t train and lost fitness. Maybe it’s overtraining or something else.  

But the reality is after round 11 we were not even top 8 standard in our results and we were probably bottom 4 in running.

Interesting about the running, but that can be due to motivation and effort also. Would be good to understand which other teams also dropped off in the back half of 2022. l would hypothesis that teams fatigue as the year goes on

  On 26/09/2022 at 05:37, Demons1858 said:

due to motivation and effort also

I strongly disagree with this statement... and am surprised people still go with it....or perhaps I shouldn't be.

  On 25/09/2022 at 14:53, Demons1858 said:

I hear we were banged up. I recall we had a bye pre finals. I hear goody in the presser say all teams carry injuries and that we have been inconsistent for some time now. I recall our inconsistencies started some time ago and coincided with tmac getting injured and our forward structure not recovering sufficiently. I continue to listen with interest to reports of players having surgery, but as yet I have heard none.  

Why should surgeries be announced ? In what way does that benefit the club or the player ?

  On 25/09/2022 at 23:30, jnrmac said:

Players getting injected to pass fitness tests...

hang on ... we are NOT Essendon 🙄

  On 26/09/2022 at 05:37, Demons1858 said:

Interesting about the running, but that can be due to motivation and effort also. Would be good to understand which other teams also dropped off in the back half of 2022. l would hypothesis that teams fatigue as the year goes on

I posted the GPS numbers on another thread.  They are posted here for your convenience. The graph has high speed distance in km per game.,  We did not drop off at all in 2021 (in fact improved slightly).  But this year was not good.

  On 26/09/2022 at 08:05, Watson11 said:

I posted the GPS numbers on another thread.  They are posted here for your convenience. The graph has high speed distance in km per game.,  We did not drop off at all in 2021 (in fact improved slightly).  But this year was not good.

I don’t want to start a loading argument again, however if you can’t get the loading in, fitness will drop off.

Perhaps we went with the loading mid season and then when we went to have a second go at it we could not get enough work into the players due to injuries, hence the drop off in fitness/running power

Edited September 26, 20222 yr by BW511

  On 26/09/2022 at 08:05, Watson11 said:

I posted the GPS numbers on another thread.  They are posted here for your convenience. The graph has high speed distance in km per game.,  We did not drop off at all in 2021 (in fact improved slightly).  But this year was not good.

Very informative W11, it seems to contradict what Goody was saying our fitness wasn’t the issue in us being overrun.  Can I ask where you found this data? 

  On 25/09/2022 at 23:58, The heart beats true said:

This year taught me that there’s the plan, and then there’s this weeks version of the plan. It’s easy in hindsight to say anything was ideal when it won you the premiership. I think that thinking may have hurt us the most this year.

You need a plan, luck, adaptability, and courage. Probably in that order. I think we only had the first and last of those in 2022.

"Everyone has a plan.....until they get punched in the face"

Mike Tyson

  On 26/09/2022 at 08:42, BW511 said:

Perhaps we went with the loading mid season and then when we went to have a second go at it we could not get enough work into the players due to injuries, hence the drop off in fitness/running power

Or perhaps not. Perhaps the long double season with a minimal break, a non-existant bye (10 days as opposed to 2 weeks), travel and 6-day breaks, and having to knock ourselves out against the best teams in the comp week in week out all got a bit much.

  On 26/09/2022 at 08:05, Watson11 said:

I posted the GPS numbers on another thread.  They are posted here for your convenience. The graph has high speed distance in km per game.,  We did not drop off at all in 2021 (in fact improved slightly).  But this year was not good.

This is really insightful, thanks!

I do think that it is hard to draw conclusions without some other data too, namely our opposition's performance in the same stat each week (so we can see if we are performing above/below trend).

Its also tough because high speed distance is subject (what's high speed? Do we do lots of work just below this number). But I think it's a great proxy!

  On 26/09/2022 at 11:32, grazman said:

Very informative W11, it seems to contradict what Goody was saying our fitness wasn’t the issue in us being overrun.  Can I ask where you found this data? 

The AFL puts the gps data out on their website under the Tracker for each game.