14 hours ago, Garbo said:

Does anyone else feel this year has just continued on from the end of last, the gap between our best and worst hasn’t improved. We seem to have issues on every line. 

Doesn’t feel like it did in 2021 when it felt like we wouldn’t ever loose to anyone regardless of score. Maybe we hit our straps come end of year but feels more of a hope than a certainty

If we’re playing “badly” and still winning matches, I would suggest this sentence is highly inaccurate. 

At one stage during the commentary they put up the pressure rating for both sides, it was near elite for both.  Very hard to play clean attractive football when it's like that, Gold Coast will go close to finals if they can maintain that form.

The Suns will be exhausted and devastated after that loss.

Wouldnt be surprised at all if they play like [censored] next week in Perth against the Eagles.

3 hours ago, Glorious Day said:

I think they changed this rule, are disregarding it or the interpretation of it. A few years ago they paid this 100% of the time when it happened. I haven’t seen it paid at all now for over a year.

Super tough game to adjudicate.  They're only human so understandable that they're going to make occasional mistakes and blunders.

However the constant tinkering isn't helping.   This parricular rule is now defunct...probably to suit the AFL's "keep the game moving at all costs" agenda.

Very hard game to watch due to the umps generally not on the same page and often selectively ignoring some very obvious frees either by intention and/or incompetence.  Yes no doubt some by accident given the degree of difficulty.

However the HTB variation is the worst at present for mine.

It leaves everyone, including the players, unsure of what constitutes not just a legal tackle but a tackle that is likely to be rewarded (if ever) through great effort and then ensuring the tackled player is not brought to ground with hands tied and head in danger.

If the umps tightened up on prior,  incorrect disposal & insufficient attempt the game would be cleaned up nicely and so many less 360 tackles made resulting in injury, concussions and potential weeks for the tackler.

The HTB interpretation is now a farce and a blight on the game and one which the AFL appears happy to annoint and allow to continue on to the detriment of everyone involved in this sport.

6 hours ago, Winners at last said:

I was at the Globe too!! I was upstairs. There was more than one Demons' supporter there ... me and a friend, 2 guys (looked to be in their thirties) and another guy (Demons scarf) late 20s with 3 lovely women (who weren't Dees supporters). I was groaning when Macpherson was about to take the shot for goal. One of the lovely women turned to me and said "he'll miss". When he missed, she said with a smile "told you!!". (She was a Cats' supporter.) 

I was round the corner (upstairs) in the area that had been designated as the Melbourne game, as posted near the bar.

I had a bit of a look during the breaks, but the area you were in had no enthusiasm. A few more downstairs, but the noise from the gamblers downstairs, who weren't into footy was distracting. I noticed you didn't get any broadcast for the start of the game (unless on the small screen). The other supporter left at half-time, leaving me barracking alone. Also, given that your area wasn't posted as a Melbourne screen I thought they may swap to the posted game late in the Melbourne broadcast.

The others in the room I was in, were barracking for the opponents, but only in those last 5 minutes. At least that put a bit of flavour into their entertainment. 

Been to Sporting Globe in Richmond,  twice now, and it doesn't work for me.

Anyone with a better venue, I would welcome any advice. The Rose in Fitzroy and the Mt View in Richmond have been suggested.

 

Edited May 7, 20232 yr by kev martin

21 minutes ago, Lucifers Hero said:

I have a simple explanation for so many of our players being flat:

• 3 interstate games in the first 5. 
• Followed with 3 games in 12 days including another flight. 
• An eye on another interstate game vs Port in 2 weeks. 

That workload takes a big toll on players with niggles and AFL level newbies like:  McVee, JvR, and Chandler.  And maybe our imported players (Hunter and Grundy) wouldn't be used to that workload nor yet conditioned to our standards.

The season is a marathon.  We only need to ride out this tough patch through to the Port game, take the 4 points as often as we can and get ready to consolidate our season with most games thereafter being in Melbourne.

After the workload so far we are in an outstanding position in the top 4 with an excellent %

No need for all the stress in this thread. 

I'm seeing the next 3 or 4 games as a really important block to get out team humming to take on Collingwood on Kings Birthday, which I expect to be a near finals like test of atmosphere, intensity and consequence.

Who knows what we will get from Hawthorn (a big part of me hopes they are puss that we can slaughter with ease and total dominance), but Port and Freo should be competitive enough to get our heads in the right place for playing genuinely contending teams.

14 hours ago, Redlagged said:

Oliver had a 'FEW' 'SHOCKER' games this year. Could you name them please?

Regarding the bizarre allegation that Oliver had played a few shockers this year. Just caught a bit of the Channel 9 Sunday show. Oliver is leading the polling. 'Shocking'. FFS.

Edited May 7, 20232 yr by Redlagged
clartification

28 minutes ago, sue said:

Just made the mistake of watching Goodwin's press conference. Not because of anything he said - he rarely says anything much.  But how can a mega-dollar organization as the AFL not manage to have the questions audible.  Do they fear the journos will steal a microphone if one is anywhere near them?

 I do a lot of recording with mics, and I can tell you that mic-ing up a room full of journalists who are asking questions from random areas around the room, is not as easy as you think. 

Long story short, if you were to open all the mics needed to uniformly-record a space this large, you’d also be opening up a buttload of very undesirable ambient noise (the ABC occasionally try this and it always produces a poor result). 
 

The only feasible way to get the kind of audio you’re hoping for, is to have an organised press gang who take turns with a couple of dedicated microphones (similar to what you see in National Press Club broadcasts). Unfortunately though, “order and courtesy” are not huge considerations amongst the press these days. 

3 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Sure. Bit without Fritsch's three shanks, Viney's shank etc we win comfortably.

Even if Macpherson kicks the goal we still come away with a draw not a loss.

Losss still possible.

But a win would also have still been possible.

There would have been 14 seconds left on the clock if he had kicked that goal.

6-6-6. Any score wins.

14 seconds is plenty of time to score from a clean centre square break - particularly given only a point is needed and so anyone kicking inside 50 could choose to kick as deep as possible (ie not to 20 metres out to maximise the chance it is not just knocked over for a point by defenders)

 

2 minutes ago, Redlagged said:

Just caught a bit of the Channel 9 Sunday show. Oliver is leading the polling. 'Shocking'. FFS.

I think it's all in context really.

A shocker game from Clarry is anything that he's not up amoung the top coaches votes.  I'd say Brownlow, but the umpires clearly don't have a clue about rating players games, so that's not a valid metric.

In other words, a shocker game for Clarry is the best game of the year for 95% of standard AFL players.

2 minutes ago, Mel Bourne said:

 I do a lot of recording with mics, and I can tell you that mic-ing up a room full of journalists who are asking questions from random areas around the room, is not as easy as you think. 

Long story short, if you were to open all the mics needed to uniformly-record a space this large, you’d also be opening up a buttload of very undesirable ambient noise (the ABC occasionally try this and it always produces a poor result). 
 

The only feasible way to get the kind of audio you’re hoping for, is to have an organised press gang who take turns with a couple of dedicated microphones (similar to what you see in National Press Club broadcasts). Unfortunately though, “order and courtesy” are not huge considerations amongst the press these days. 

Or they could simply have someone transcribe the question in real time and have the broadcasters scroll the text accross the bottom rhe screen 

21 minutes ago, Mel Bourne said:

 I do a lot of recording with mics, and I can tell you that mic-ing up a room full of journalists who are asking questions from random areas around the room, is not as easy as you think. 

Long story short, if you were to open all the mics needed to uniformly-record a space this large, you’d also be opening up a buttload of very undesirable ambient noise (the ABC occasionally try this and it always produces a poor result). 
 

The only feasible way to get the kind of audio you’re hoping for, is to have an organised press gang who take turns with a couple of dedicated microphones (similar to what you see in National Press Club broadcasts). Unfortunately though, “order and courtesy” are not huge considerations amongst the press these days. 

Somehow or other the journos currently take turns to ask their questions.  Let them put hands up, someone selects one and hands them a microphone.  Might mean a  few seconds of no audio and delay but that is better than even more seconds listening to a question you can't hear.

Edited May 7, 20232 yr by sue

Petty going back to shore up the backline definitely worked. Hibberd was missed.

One of BBB, Schache, TMac, or Joel Smith who all didn’t play last night,  to step up, which is a worry as BBB & TMac getting older, slower and more injury prone, Smith always injured, maybe it is Schache!

Not sure what was up with Langdon in particular and Hunter but both a bit ordinary last night.

Fritsch and Chandler both went in with niggles!

Still kick a little better in last quarter and we win by 15-20 points! 

Not sure if there are any Qsld based umpires used, but holding the ball, dropping the ball, incorrect disposal isn’t paid versus Suns or Lions!!

1 hour ago, Brownie said:

I still think our forward entries and then defensive efforts to lock it in need a lot of work this year

Seems to me that there are much less multiple entries into our fwd 50 this season. Maybe, because we are scoring well when the first entry occurs.

Whereas, the opponents seem to be able to clam up our defensive rebounds.

16 minutes ago, binman said:

Or they could simply have someone transcribe the question in real time and have the broadcasters scroll the text accross the bottom rhe screen 

Not impossible, but again, surprisingly difficult. 
 

Any questions would obviously need to be audible to any would-be transcribers, who would more than likely need to be operating from within the broadcast control-room. So again, you’d need microphones everywhere conveying that information. 
 

Or, you put the transcriber on a laptop in the conference room, and just hope that they can hear everything well enough to transcribe to air in real-time. Again, very challenging. 

1 hour ago, sue said:

But how can a mega-dollar organization as the AFL not manage to have the questions audible. 

I actually contacted the AFL about this vexing issue, along with another bugbear of mine that is the practice of outfitting umpires in the same colours as one of the competing teams.

To my surprise, I received an email response but it was just a generic fob off with a vague allusion to passing my comments on to the appropriate department.

This was a few weeks ago.  To nobody's surprise, nothing has changed.

15 minutes ago, sue said:

Somehow or other the journos currently take turns to ask their questions.  Let them put hands up, someone selects one and hands them a microphone.  Might mean a  few seconds of no audio and delay but that is better than even more seconds listening to a question you can't hear.

And this is the other factor contributing to the clusterf$&k…

Who owns the rights to the audio coming out of the microphone being passed around? The AFL? Or the Herald-Sun/Age/SEN/3AW etc etc. 

The reason you see all those mics in front of an interviewer with all the various news logos on them, is because once the presser is done, whatever audio that went into each of those microphones belongs to their respective  companies for them to broadcast at a later stage. 

It’s totally boring, but every little thing that hits a microphone for broadcast, needs to have a corresponding owner of the rights to that thing. It seems the easiest way to navigate such an intellectual-property headache is to do nothing about it. 

With 10 min to go in the last, we were surging, playing hard intense football, repeat forward entries, had them on the ropes, and were looking at a 3-5 goal win.

But then the GC player was injured, we lost a bit of interest, cooled down, and they came back into the game.

Was similar last week when we came out in the first absolutely flying, a North player was injured (badly) and we dropped our intensity a notch.

We're a team whose emotional intensity can be impacted positively (think Max or Kozzie lifting our intensity) or negatively (think Max going down, and these injury breaks in play).

That said, went we're on, we'll beat most teams in the competition, and despite losing our focus in the last we still held on to win. Lessons to be learnt which will help us in the push to claim another flag.

Edited May 7, 20232 yr by PaulRB

Good lord, reading this thread you'd be forgiven for thinking the dees have been a powerhouse for decades and won mutiple flags, such is the level of disappointment in our performance.

We travelled yet again, played a good team in form on their home deck, a team that played out of their skin and matches our biggest strength -contested ball.

Yes they pushed us. Yes they beat us at stoppages,  clearances and ground ball (which is the real worry because it is an area we have struggled in down back)

But let's not let a narrative tale hold where we were 'lucky to win'. 

We led for all but the first 30 seconds of the game.

The scoreboard slightly flattered them as they were much more accurate than us

Despite them winning contested ball, and more significantly clearances  we kept them to 85 points (when was the last time we won after losing the cp by as many as 27?).

So the defence held up - despite once again one of our senior defenders being a very late out (we really missed hibbos physicality, experience and strength).

Remarkably we had 22 more tackles and we were plus 35 scoring from intercepts - not only are both huge differentials (which were key to us winning), it also suggests our effort and pressure was good.

And despite them winning most of the key stats that drive inside 50 numbers (in particular clearances), we kept them to a paltry 45 inside 50s, smashing them in that critical stat by 16.

Their pressure and contested work was off the charts. As good, if not better, than any we have faced this season i reckon. And Rowell and Anderson were brilliant all game. Witts is a goood ruck and took it up to maxy an Grundy.

They would have been favourite to beat any team with that performance.

So to get the four points after losing in most of our core stats (I’d love to know time in forward half) is simply a fantastic result. We should all be super proud of our team's performance.

I'd also add, that was a long injury break in the last quarter and basically mafe it a 20 minute quarter form that point.

We were on top but lost our fitness advantage and momentum and i suspect if not for the break we would have rolled over the top of them.

 

Tracc about to be interviewed on abc afl

I'm going to have a bit of a bit of a winge. Not about the game, who played well or poorly but the lack of player involvement after the game. Most stayed in middle of ground with only a few going to the fence along the forward flank then around to rooms. We were on the wing and grand kids wanted a high five but not one player came. Gus after the game mentioned he loves the supporters involvement. A bit more respect back to us would be appreciated seeing we only see them once or twice in Qld. By the way we outnumbered the Suns supporters easily. Well done to the Qld Demons and those that came up from interstate.

End of winge. Now onto the Hawks.

Holy [censored]. For a minute I thought an opposition fan-base had hijacked this thread. Sadly, I’m wrong.

I never read the postgame thread after a loss for (what I think are) obvious reasons.

Because we won last night, I opened it and against my better judgment - as well as a warning from another DL-er to whom I should’ve listened - I started reading it. Could only get through the first three pages. I’m disgusted by the comments some “fans” made last night. Ok, it was immediately after the match, heightened emotions and all. But if you’re going to personally insult any of our players, do so in your head, and post afterwards when you’ve calmed down sufficiently.

Critiquing is expected and warranted. Calling a player “dumb” or “useless” isn’t. Suggesting Fritta be made to walk home for playing poorly, isn’t. Oh, and saying you can only assume Fritta’s girlfriend dumped him or his pet died is outrageously unwarranted and entirely unnecessary. These boys are human, you don’t know what may be going on in their lives.

This was only the first three pages! After a win, no less. Some ppl should be ashamed of themselves.

End of rant.

As you were.

❤️💙

14 hours ago, demon3165 said:

See mate I look at the whole picture not the corner, we got dismantled by the bombers and Brisbane, and why did that happen? So give me an answer, on how has he modified the gameplan, I'm interested. 

Where do I start....

• We are moving the ball quicker and forward, which is reflected in our increased metres gained numbers. We are rated #2.
• We are using the corridor more than in previous years mainly due to the number of elite kickers we now have in the team. Ranked #1 for disposal efficiency.
• We are more direct in our forward inside 50s. Not just kicking into the pocket. We are rated #1 for accuracy and goals inside 50. Last year we were in the bottom 4.
• We're running more players through the midfield, particularly at centre bounces. Trac and Clarry are being rested more than in previous years, particularly during the third quarter, in order to be ready for the fourth quarter.
• The gameplan has been modified with the recruitment of Grundy. There are more options with our kick-ins now with Max on one wing and Brodie on the other. We have become less predictable.
• There seems to be a shift in our stoppage clearance strategy. We were ranked #8 last season and are ranked last this season. Clarry who is having great season, was ranked #1 last year for SC but is ranked #35 this year. So something has changed. I believe that there is now a greater importance on post clearance. A lot of teams are now bringing extra numbers to the stoppages allowing us to take advantage of the resulting mismatch elsewhere.

These are just a few of the changes we've made to our game plan. There are undoubtedly many more that we have not noticed. We're doing a lot of things right. We must be if we are sitting on top of the ladder. If you claim to be a big picture guy, you must agree with this.

Edited May 7, 20232 yr by djr

2 minutes ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

Holy [censored]. For a minute I thought an opposition fan-base had hijacked this thread. Sadly, I’m wrong.

I never read the postgame thread after a loss for (what I think are) obvious reasons.

Because we won last night, I opened it and against my better judgment - as well as a warning from another DL-er to whom I should’ve listened - I started reading it. Could only get through the first three pages. I’m disgusted by the comments some “fans” made last night. Ok, it was immediately after the match, heightened emotions and all. But if you’re going to personally insult any of our players, do so in your head, and post afterwards when you’ve calmed down sufficiently.

Critiquing is expected and warranted. Calling a player “dumb” or “useless” isn’t. Suggesting Fritta be made to walk home for playing poorly, isn’t. Oh, and saying you can only assume Fritta’s girlfriend dumped him or his pet died is outrageously unwarranted and entirely unnecessary. These boys are human, you don’t know what may be going on in their lives.

This was only the first three pages! After a win, no less. Some ppl should be ashamed of themselves.

End of rant.

As you were.

❤️💙

There was a fair amount of enlightenment if you had have persisted.

2 minutes ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

Holy [censored]. For a minute I thought an opposition fan-base had hijacked this thread. Sadly, I’m wrong.

I never read the postgame thread after a loss for (what I think are) obvious reasons.

Because we won last night, I opened it and against my better judgment - as well as a warning from another DL-er to whom I should’ve listened - I started reading it. Could only get through the first three pages. I’m disgusted by the comments some “fans” made last night. Ok, it was immediately after the match, heightened emotions and all. But if you’re going to personally insult any of our players, do so in your head, and post afterwards when you’ve calmed down sufficiently.

Critiquing is expected and warranted. Calling a player “dumb” or “useless” isn’t. Suggesting Fritta be made to walk home for playing poorly, isn’t. Oh, and saying you can only assume Fritta’s girlfriend dumped him or his pet died is outrageously unwarranted and entirely unnecessary. These boys are human, you don’t know what may be going on in their lives.

This was only the first three pages! After a win, no less. Some ppl should be ashamed of themselves.

End of rant.

As you were.

❤️💙

I’ll sheepishly put my hand up here, WCW. 

A flippant gag, but I didn’t actually mean any disrespect. I genuinely thought there was something bothering him mentally last night. He just seemed rattled and distant, and though I could have worded without the gallows-humour, my comment was actually intended to defend his poor performance.