10 hours ago, Lucifers Hero said:

Not whitewashing the result but imv we beat ourselves in that semi mainly from poor player management decisions before and during the game.

I know that this has become Demonland orthodoxy, but just BS IMV. When you don't have the players, you don't have the players, What people seem to struggle with is the idea that sometimes there just are no solutions, and that not every situation is saveable. The idea that we would have won finals through sending second-rate players like Baker or Dunstan or an underdone Van Royen out to the slaughter is just fanciful.

4 hours ago, rjay said:

It's easy to name the players struggling with injury.

Now name the players you would replace them with and tell me how they would make us better?

I am saying that some should have been selected during the last rounds in place of the injured.  That would have given some a chance of refreshing.  About 3/4 could have been selected including Bowey Dunstan JVR Chandler in the running. Please don't say we would have lost still as you don't know and can't say for certain. They were all fit and would have helped during the second half. 

1 hour ago, bing181 said:

I know that this has become Demonland orthodoxy, but just BS IMV. When you don't have the players, you don't have the players, What people seem to struggle with is the idea that sometimes there just are no solutions, and that not every situation is saveable. The idea that we would have won finals through sending second-rate players like Baker or Dunstan or an underdone Van Royen out to the slaughter is just fanciful.

Extracting one sentence from a post might suit your comments but removes its context.

To recap the context:  The point I was making was that the 5-7 injured players could not be replaced.  Given that we had to play those injured players I posed the question would we have been better by playing Bowey/JVR in lieu of Hunt/Melksham/Rivers.  I also posed the question would we not have benefited from playing our sub, Joel Smith when the injured players were spent and the momentum was turning.

So if you are going to quote me please quote the whole post or at least the part that gives context.

 

Re the bold part of your post above.  I made no mention of Baker or Dunstan.  For JVR refer back to the opening post which states he was ready to play for Max.  That doesn't sound like he was underdone.  So for me to suggest JVR might have served us better than Melksham is not so far fetched.  As it was Melksham played only 69% of the game.  Reasonable to think that JVR could have played 3 quarters.

1 minute ago, 58er said:

I am saying that some should have been selected during the last rounds in place of the injured.  That would have given some a chance of refreshing.  About 3/4 could have been selected including Bowey Dunstan JVR Chandler in the running. Please don't say we would have lost still as you don't know and can't say for certain. They were all fit and would have helped during the second half. 

Please. By his own admission, JVR couldn't get through a VFL match, yet alone an AFL one. (Not a knock on him either, young player, blah blah blah).

1 hour ago, bing181 said:

I know that this has become Demonland orthodoxy, but just BS IMV. When you don't have the players, you don't have the players, What people seem to struggle with is the idea that sometimes there just are no solutions, and that not every situation is saveable. The idea that we would have won finals through sending second-rate players like Baker or Dunstan or an underdone Van Royen out to the slaughter is just fanciful.

Funny how they played well in the Finals and all season at Casey. They would  not have stopped like our injured players were unfortunately forced to do in the second half with smart use of the players off the bench. 

Just  agree to disagree ! 

4 minutes ago, bing181 said:

Please. By his own admission, JVR couldn't get through a VFL match, yet alone an AFL one. (Not a knock on him either, young player, blah blah blah).

You seem to forget that we ARE replacing players that were tired and not fit enough to play  the game out anyway so JVR would have been able for say 3 quarters or 68% like Melky. 

JVR might have got through all match no one knows!  

5 hours ago, Brownie said:

It's not about being better as such, it's about running out games. This game is more and more about fitness.

We had multiple injuries to multiple players in the second half of the season and I think we should have rested them and played some of our not so better players to....

1. Develop them and build their confidence

2. Rest our key players to play finals even if we ended up in 6th or 7th position.

The likes of.

Smith, Tomlinson, Turner, Mcvee, Chandler, Bedford and Especially JVR should have been stepping up to rest our key injured players.

It shows inflexibility by the coach.

Most importantly I look at this situation and think what does it say to someone like JVR?

If he doesn't get selected again in round one this year what is he going to be thinking?

"What more do I have to do to get a game when there's blokes out there on one leg falling apart in the second half?"

We talk about him being our future key forward.

Will he stay at the next contract renewal?

Some of these players should have been given a chance to step up and our key players fitness and injuries should have been managed more effectively.

We probably weren't destined to win a granny last year but we should have swung the changes in the back half of the season. That's a better roll of the dice rather than running our players into the ground IMHO.

 

...but we were & are not a team in development.

Lyon & Clarkson are often portrayed as not being development coaches.

This is shortsighted & unfair...they built their teams, developed a game style  & were hunting flags, they had their team & it was hard to get into.

We were shooting for a flag & you don't win those from the bottom half of the 8.

Unfortunately we didn't have the luxury to rest our top players, we were fighting for our spot all the way.

Again you listed a bunch of players who could have come in but how about making the changes.

Which key players do we rest & who replaces them?

Would Tomo come in for Lever? post knee reco he just hasn't had the agility to play that type of role. J Smith was injured as usual & Turner was unfortunate in his debut game to cop a bad injury that was confidence sapping.

McVee couldn't get a kick in a stampede in 2022  but another year at Casey & a good preseason  now it looks like we might have a player.

Bedford & Chandler weren't coming in for key players, they might give ANB or Spargo a break, hardly keys.

JVR wasn't ready, we might have had no choice if Max didn't come up as our tall options were limited.

Maj retiring put a big hole in the tall options bucket.

18 minutes ago, rjay said:

...but we were & are not a team in development.

Lyon & Clarkson are often portrayed as not being development coaches.

This is shortsighted & unfair...they built their teams, developed a game style  & were hunting flags, they had their team & it was hard to get into.

We were shooting for a flag & you don't win those from the bottom half of the 8.

Unfortunately we didn't have the luxury to rest our top players, we were fighting for our spot all the way.

Again you listed a bunch of players who could have come in but how about making the changes.

Which key players do we rest & who replaces them?

Would Tomo come in for Lever? post knee reco he just hasn't had the agility to play that type of role. J Smith was injured as usual & Turner was unfortunate in his debut game to cop a bad injury that was confidence sapping.

McVee couldn't get a kick in a stampede in 2022  but another year at Casey & a good preseason  now it looks like we might have a player.

Bedford & Chandler weren't coming in for key players, they might give ANB or Spargo a break, hardly keys.

JVR wasn't ready, we might have had no choice if Max didn't come up as our tall options were limited.

Maj retiring put a big hole in the tall options bucket.

The game was lost.  Bris overran us in the end.

The thread started based on Max assessing what went wrong, what decisions could be learned from.

The fact JVR was a potential replacement for Max, coupled with the fact he then kicked 3 in the next VFL final and was among the best, as was TMac, suggests they both could’ve contributed. Bowey also among the best.

The role of the bottom six is to support the top six. You can’t say the bottom six were effective and that was exposed with a weakened top six.

Might not have changed the result, but the decisions of last year didn’t work. You have to learn from failure.

10 hours ago, No10 said:

The game was lost.  Bris overran us in the end.

The thread started based on Max assessing what went wrong, what decisions could be learned from.

The fact JVR was a potential replacement for Max, coupled with the fact he then kicked 3 in the next VFL final and was among the best, as was TMac, suggests they both could’ve contributed. Bowey also among the best.

The role of the bottom six is to support the top six. You can’t say the bottom six were effective and that was exposed with a weakened top six.

Might not have changed the result, but the decisions of last year didn’t work. You have to learn from failure.

Once again, people, forget how close we came to actually overrunning Brisbane in the end.

Kicking three goals in the VFL is no guide to what can happen in the AFL. McDonald was coming back from injury and his capacity to play was very uncertain. JVR is a young and developing player and throwing him to the wolves too young would be extremely harmful to him. (Think Jack Watts). The system we have used, of allowing him to grow, develop his body and develop skills in the VFL, is absolutely correct and will lay the foundation for a wonderful player in the future. 

Seems like really poor/desperate decision making to me. You just can't take in half a dozen underdone/injured players into a final. One or two you might be lucky and get away with it but 5 or 6? Nah

Doesn't really make sense long term either - so Maxy plays the SF and we scrape home, what are the chances he gets up for the Prelim? We torched Brisbane during H&A without Gawn with Jackson playing one of his best games for the club. Hindsight and all that but hopefully the coaches and match committee have learnt from their mistakes.

For want of a better live thread, does anyone know what's caused the absence of Fritta from preseason games to date? 

Has he had a delayed preseason to let him fully recover from the knee injury mentioned at the start of this thread or is it something else which has occurred since?

14 hours ago, bing181 said:

Please. By his own admission, JVR couldn't get through a VFL match, yet alone an AFL one. (Not a knock on him either, young player, blah blah blah).

I'm glad we didn't throw JVR in the deep end during finals last year.  In the preseason games I've seen him to date, he's not made much of an impact at senior level, while being quite dominant at the level below.  That indicates to me his time will come soon, but he should be given an opertuity to find his feet at AFL level before we rely on him to make a substantial contribution.

IMHO, we had better options in that game against Brisbane that were not triggered into action.  Petty forward earlier might have given us a few goals from our entries and kept us in the game.

21 minutes ago, Rodney (Balls) Grinter said:

For want of a better live thread, does anyone know what's caused the absence of Fritta from preseason games to date? 

Has he had a delayed preseason to let him fully recover from the knee injury mentioned at the start of this thread or is it something else which has occurred since?

In one of the training threads around mid Feb it was mentioned that someone stood on his foot.  Don't think he missed any training sessions before then.

So from a fitness and training point of view he should be right to go when his foot is healed. 

I'm  not re-inventing the wheel by stating that to win a GF final everything needs to go right. You need 22 fit & committed players...22 relatively (by finals time) healthy players & a modicum of luck. I have no doubt about commitment but finals time the health of several players & unfortunately our top liners was seriously compromised and no amount of luck was going to change that. To suggest that bringing in VFL players ( & I have no doubt that some will  become very good AFL players in time ) would have enabled us to win a GF or even a final is ludicrous. It is actually disrespectful to the players who weren't fully fit and also to the opposition. A half fit Gawn ..Trac..Fritch..& Oliver to name a few would be streets ahead of whoever came in. If Gawn hadn't come up & JVR had come in ...I have no doubt our losing margin would have been far greater. To validate that point..with our best 22 this year..we might see a Chandler or a McVee come in but that would be because a Salem & maybe a Viney are missing so basically our side is the same & our additions have been through recruiting. We could fill 200 pages of theories about who didn't play..who should  have played throughout the year  but the cold hard facts are 2022 was a year that everything didn't go right. Now how lucky are we as a club & diehard supporters that with everything crossed..2023 looks like it could be a year that everything goes right. 

I recall reading in Leigh Mathews book that his view is that while good coaching and good player management gets you into the position to play finals and GFs, so much of winning premierships still comes down to luck and having a fit squad come the GF.  Even then, calls need to be made on key players carrying injuries of some description.  I can't recall which Lions GF or the outcome, but I remeber something about a huge fitness test for Jonathan Brown one time that if it were any other game he would have been rested, so this hardly a new issue or one that's unque to the MFC.  Similarly in retrospect, Steve May probably shouldn't have played in the GF in 2021, based on him having a huge tear in his hammy that could be seen on the scans.  But he got through ok and we won, so that doesn't get negatively scrutinized.  It would have been a difficult decision to leave out Maysy due to his pivotal leadership role and huge presence in our defense.  I also think he's a guy who really earnt his piece of premiership glory, so I'm really glad he played from that perspective as well.

I think Roos and Goody both preach the right mantra that it's all about having a list and playing/coaching mindset of having a team that can genuinely compete in finals over a period and that will hopefully translate into multiple premerships in that time.  I think it's well recognised that we have one of the best lists and well coached team defense systems in the league, but the competition is so close that you only need to be half a pace off at the wrong time to miss out on the ultimate prize.

Here's to hoping all the planets align for us in 2023 because I'm still craving being there in person at the G when Gawny and Goody raise's the cup again!