Mentioned this in the post game thread and seeing it circulated on social media now.

Our record against top 8 sides is becoming a concern. 

Since starting 10-0 last year, we've gone 4-10 against top 8 sides at time of the match.

Won:

- Brisbane x2 (2022)

- Freo (2022)

- Bulldogs (2023)

 

Lost:

- Collingwood x2

- Sydney x2 (2022)

- Bulldogs (2022)

- Brisbane x2 (2022 and 2023)

- Port

- Freo

- Geelong

Obviously Sydney isn't top 8 now, nor is Freo. But at the time, they were good teams. 

Port starts playing well and we put in a shocker.

If we include Essendon who looked finals caliber at the time, then our record is 4-11.

You simply don't win flags with that record. 

Beating all these bottom 6 sides is just putting a band aid over the cracks.

Starting to think we haven't improved one bit since last year unfortunately.

Forward line is still a mess and we are no near finding out what our best forward mix os when we had all Sumner to work this out.

Top 4 teams are bow starting to settle their line up whereas we can't even work out who's our actual full forward. 

Why is 2022 even included in this discussion? It's as relevant to our flag chances this year as 2021 is... i.e. not very. 

Still a heck of a lot to play out this season. 

 

Barring the umpires tonight, we not only beat a strong Port at home, but we did so only playing good in spurts - where we kicked multiple goals from behind in wet conditions. Remarkable effort from our lads.

Not good.

inly thing that’ll change my mind is going 4-0 in the next 4. But we are likely to go 1-3. 2-2 at best.

2 hours ago, Bang Bang Bang said:

Why is 2022 even included in this discussion? It's as relevant to our flag chances this year as 2021 is... i.e. not very. 

Still a heck of a lot to play out this season. 

 

These posts are weird. 

We're an unbelievable side at our best. 

But where was it for two and a half quarters? 

And that's the question I have for us against the better sides of the comp. We're too inconsistent throughout games. The midfield, clearance and coal face was a disgrace tonight for half the game or more. 

Brad Johnson on SEN on Wednesday night made a point that our fixture toughens up from last night through to Geelong and predicted we’d go 3-3 from round 10 to round 16, with a loss to Port.

Given we lost game 1 of the 6 week patch, you’d have to now take a 3-3 record.

5 hours ago, KingDingAling said:

Barring the umpires tonight, we not only beat a strong Port at home, but we did so only playing good in spurts - where we kicked multiple goals from behind in wet conditions. Remarkable effort from our lads.

I agree. It could have been worse and we could have won. But it felt far more like we were going to lose than we were going to win.

6 hours ago, Bang Bang Bang said:

Why is 2022 even included in this discussion? It's as relevant to our flag chances this year as 2021 is... i.e. not very. 

Still a heck of a lot to play out this season. 

 

I guess the point is that the trend of struggling to beat other contenders and top 8 sides has continued for 12 months. I'd argue we're playing pretty similar atm to how we played across most of last season. So it's a trend and relevant to understanding what needs to change.

Heaps to play this season but we also haven't played Geelong, Adelaide, St Kilda, Collingwood, with another Brisbane game to come. On current form based on the aforementioned trend, we win only two of those games. Which makes it very tight for top 4 and puts us in 5th-8th bracket. Which tbh is probably where we sit. You have to assume Port and Brisbane both jump into top 4, with two of Melbourne, Sydney and Geelong dropping out. Given Geelong's run home and string of games at Geelong, unless we turn thos trend around, we'll be going in to finals via an elimination final.

Edited May 19, 20232 yr by praha

4 hours ago, JimmyGadson said:

These posts are weird. 

We're an unbelievable side at our best. 

But where was it for two and a half quarters? 

And that's the question I have for us against the better sides of the comp. We're too inconsistent throughout games. The midfield, clearance and coal face was a disgrace tonight for half the game or more. 

Really showed us up didn’t they. And to add to that in the first half of the last quarter they had 11 straight fwd 50 entries. 11 straight! So, there’s the game on the line and we’re fully slaughtered. 

It's definitely a big concern, improvement needs to come from somewhere.

Maybe we're not that good? A 5th to 7th team that relies too heavily on Oliver, Petracca and Viney?

36 minutes ago, dee-tox said:

Maybe we're not that good? A 5th to 7th team that relies too heavily on Oliver, Petracca and Viney?

Well that's our floor. Who knows what we can produce given 3 finals games. We know what our ceiling is. The 3rd quarter and every 4th quarter leading up to last night shows it. Time will tell how it stacks up against Collingwood.

BUT IMO our competition has simply improved a huge amount. Sydney and Collingwood in 2022 were all at the same level the Bulldogs our GF opponent, were at in 2021. And Geelong were at our level.

in 2023 I think we have Collingwood and Geelong still at the Premiership level. I wouldn't consider Brisbane last year in that discussion, but now it's looking like themselves and a potential wildcard of Port/WB/Another club could also make the jump to be a GF contender with a bit of luck and momentum in September

In my mind that makes the competition against us 3-4 times harder now than it was in 2021. Its a huge challenge to be a premiership contender again.

And we're still trying to learn and tweak what works best.

At least we're still 3rd on the ladder.

Edited May 19, 20232 yr by John Demonic

The blueprint for beating us is well known.  We'll still win plenty of games because we've got good players but we're struggling against the top teams.  Similar situation to last year.

6 hours ago, JimmyGadson said:

These posts are weird. 

We're an unbelievable side at our best. 

But where was it for two and a half quarters? 

And that's the question I have for us against the better sides of the comp. We're too inconsistent throughout games. The midfield, clearance and coal face was a disgrace tonight for half the game or more. 

That’s my query. This group last year was obviously impacted by injury and fitness; we would play a half and then wilt - this team seems to ‘be inspired’ at random moments before retreating back in its shell.

Goodwin has to get that inspiration for longer or we are a threat to waste this generation of talent.

6 minutes ago, Orion said:

The blueprint for beating us is well known.  We'll still win plenty of games because we've got good players but we're struggling against the top teams.  Similar situation to last year.

Whether it's as the home seed at 1/2 or 5/6, I'd love to see how THEY go against us at the G in a final. Port were a contender for 3 years and it looks as though they might be back again. If we're fit, I think we're better than what we put up against the Lions last year. I hope so anyway, maybe its denial.

Edited May 19, 20232 yr by John Demonic

7 hours ago, KingDingAling said:

Barring the umpires tonight, we not only beat a strong Port at home, but we did so only playing good in spurts - where we kicked multiple goals from behind in wet conditions. Remarkable effort from our lads.

No 

Statistically it’s hard to argue with.

It appears our best keeps us in most games, but it’s not enough to get us over the line in more than a third of games against top teams. 

The issue, at least partly, appears to be improvement in players. None of our tall forwards have improved over the last 18 months, and our midfield mix is stagnant. Grundy has replaced Jackson, and that’s the only difference. Our defence is as reliable as ever in my opinion, but in reality look to have too much asked of them. It’s a game of inches at the top, and staying still is actually going backwards.

I love how consistent we are as a club, but unfortunately that consistency looks to have hit its ceiling.

That we've kicked the most points by last round (pointed out by Goody during the week) is fools gold to those thinking our forward game is working at all. Too many go missing too often, we have no tall forwards (not rucks) deserving of a game.

We beat up on lower teams and get found out against top 8 sides

This year we won against WB in R1, that's it for top 8. Yet to play Coll, Geel St K or Adelaide. Our saving grace is more games against Norf and Hawthorn

I have no doubt that without Tracc and Oliver we'd be in the bottom 8. We are rooted if they go down

13 wins 11 losses since round 10 last year we are just a middle of the road side, the bulldogs were hyped for a long time after there flag year with everyone expecting them to just flick the switch, we are no different and not close to a top 4 side not looking forward to the pies game they will win easy, the moon’s aligned for us in 21 can’t see it happening again 

8 hours ago, JimmyGadson said:

These posts are weird. 

We're an unbelievable side at our best. 

But where was it for two and a half quarters? 

And that's the question I have for us against the better sides of the comp. We're too inconsistent throughout games. The midfield, clearance and coal face was a disgrace tonight for half the game or more. 

I think basically our best or unbelievable footy is started off by either Clarry Viney Maxy or a Trac and in that regard we drop off . ( on the ball especially) 

Our B+ graders can't generate that momentum but can rise like most  players when we hit that magic patch. 
But we can't play it for 4 quarters. 
So it's a  matter of our best and worst being too far apart. Or do we lack some thing ie top KP forwards? I don't the defence is what it was either we are a 70 to 80 side instead of 60 to 70 or less. 
Our players don't actually mind a man and shirt kicks are offered plus it doesn't stop a side if they run hard and fast. Our ability is there mostly still and some tweaking in positions roles and plans is necessary to try and regain that defence and pressure we had in 2021. 
We also are a little flat track bullies to non8 teams and are now having longer flat periods and more games when we appear slow to start ie last night and Lions and Bombers games. 
Catch up is harder now than two years ago as about 7/8 teams are very good in their day. 

over to the Coaches and Players and of course our  traders and Drafters!!!

Do the injuries count from round 10 onwards last year? The biggest predictor of success is players on the park at peak fitness… im not sure that was our experience last year…

Edited May 20, 20232 yr by Engorged Onion

10 minutes ago, Engorged Onion said:

Do the injuries count from round 10 onwards last year? The biggest predictor of success is players on the park at peak fitness… im not sure that was our experience last year…

I agree with this but what's the excuse now?

14 minutes ago, Roost it far said:

I agree with this but what's the excuse now?

Just an acknowledgement that we can’t be up every week and that in a 23 week campaign we will lose matches due to this. 

The fact that as supporters we look to ‘sense make’ anything that feels like a threat and look for patterns to ensure it never happens again.

so no excuses per se, just my personal view that the factors contributing to a pattern against top 8 sides is more nuanced over a 35 game spread and we discount other factors that don’t fit the narrative that we are not good enough due to a lifetime of supporting a club that has not been good enough aside from 2021. 

8 minutes ago, Engorged Onion said:

Just an acknowledgement that we can’t be up every week and that in a 23 week campaign we will lose matches due to this. 

The fact that as supporters we look to ‘sense make’ anything that feels like a threat and look for patterns to ensure it never happens again.

so no excuses per se, just my personal view that the factors contributing to a pattern against top 8 sides is more nuanced over a 35 game spread and we discount other factors that don’t fit the narrative that we are not good enough due to a lifetime of supporting a club that has not been good enough aside from 2021. 

Absolutely but we have a very strong list at pretty much full strength. We went into a game against a team with 5 of their starting 22 out. Going by the 3rd quarter we should have won comfortably. Something isn't working and my eyes are on the coach/s. I don't think they're getting the best out of this list. 

2 hours ago, brendan said:

13 wins 11 losses since round 10 last year we are just a middle of the road side, the bulldogs were hyped for a long time after there flag year with everyone expecting them to just flick the switch, we are no different and not close to a top 4 side not looking forward to the pies game they will win easy, the moon’s aligned for us in 21 can’t see it happening again 

Unfortunately you might just be right.

What's really bugging me from last night is the talk about why the coaches didn't send anyone to run with Butterrs. Honestly full on tags seem to be something that coaches are hesitant to do these days. But what about the leaders on the ground rallying guys to just be a bit closer and a bit more competitive with him? What about the pride of our players to say 'stuff this, we're making this guy look like the greatest player in the world, I'm going to challenge him and beat him around the contest'.

Something feels really off with our desire to scrap and fight to get the better of tough opponents. Feels like we're back to old Melbourne for 3 quarters of most games. The quarters here and there where we apply the pressure we look great...just seems too hard for our guys to sustain it.