11 minutes ago, 640MD said:

If you have lived down this way port fairy

then you grew up in shorts and t shirt and continued into adulthood and winter 

still in the same shorts and shirt

Nah, soft as butter I was, just like my football. 🤷‍♂️😆

Edited July 1, 20232 yr by Engorged Onion

14 hours ago, Bombay Airconditioning said:

Question for yourself and those that have liked this post. You reference flicking the switch, understandably it’s hard to be up all the time, the only games this season I think we’ve been on and ready for the fight have been 

Rd 1 v Dogs

Rd 3 v Swans 

Rd 13 v Pies (our goal kicking halting what should have been a 5/6 goal win against a supposedly unbeatable side)

Why can’t a team that only won the flag two season ago and is stacked full of talent just flick the switch for a qtr / qtr and a half to either put a lead on the board early in the game or later in the game to get some separation from a team that refuses to die? At times throughout this season we’ve been caught playing some really dumb predictable and some might argue arrogant footy which has resulted in losses. Against Port we had one good qtr which was the 3rd but other than that it’s all or nothing with us. 
 

I said at the start of the season as far as the H & A season goes we should really only be judging ourselves by how we perform against 4-5 other teams. Wins against lower placed teams are a given in most cases regardless of our mindset due to our talent.

We were on and ready for the fight in Round 4 vs West Coast, Round 6 vs Richmond, Round 7 vs North, Round 8 vs Gold Coast, Round 9 vs Hawthorn, Round 10 vs Port Adelaide...

Or by "on and ready for the fight" do you mean "dominant and looking a million bucks"? The two are not the same.

4 hours ago, binman said:

I think one of the hardest things for fans to get their head around is the idea of a campaign that has as its goal peaking in September.

Goody has said a variation of this at least five or six times in post match pressers.

But his comments don't land, the instinct is to wave them off as coach speak.

I think people get the concept in the abstract (premierships are not won in june).

But not in terms of it informing their assessment of individual games.

We have all been conditioned to see every game as critical and as some sort of litmus test or accurate meaure of the chances of ultimate success.

Each game becomes a stand alone event unconnected to the arc of the season.

The dees get beaten mid winter by the reigning premier on their home deck, a ground they have a home ground advantage bettered only by the lions.

That loss confirms for many why we aren't a contender - despite the fact we had just vanquished the flag favourites. 

And there is the attendant gnashing of teeth and criticisms of: selection (why bring an underdone petty in! Spargo as sub?), coach (why so many handballs?) and players (dumb - just get it forward, no skill).

But see the game as a stepping stone in our campaign and the perspective is different.

Petty is selected, despite being underdone because it is the best thing for his individual program (and therefore the team) in terms of peaking later in the year.

Or maybe they had been really worried Brown would not ever be fit enough to play the key tall forward  role. And decided they needed Petty up there.

Perhaps they got good news on Brown, changed course and decided they want Petty down back and wanted to give him as many games in defence as possible to get into the rhythm of the role. That might also explain why they didn't send him forward until near the end of the game after Cameron's injury.

There are better, more versatile options for sub than spargo, but as flagged by goody at the start of the year they will use the sub role for both tactical AND load management reasons.

Another sub might have increased our chances of winning this particular match, but the eyes are on the prize and spargo being in peak shape is an important piece of the puzzle. Give something up now and be rewarded later.

We have had real struggles in the wet with our ball handling, but want to be prepared to stick to our method of chaining out handballs come finals - even if wet.

So the direction is to continue to use handball in the cats game because the best way to embed something is apply it in a match.

We turned it over way too often and as a result, for one of the only times this season , we were outscored on turnover.

But perhaps the team was encouraged to take the high risk kick on because we they weren't encouraged to do so against the blues and pies games and they want to turn the dial a bit more to risk in this phase of the season to get us ready to play like we did rounds 1 - 6.

These are all guesses of course. But they are possibilities not considered if the game is  assessed in isolation, as a standalone, discreet event where the only goal is to maximise the chances of winning that individual match.

But at the end of the day, for genuine flag contenders the campaign is about winning the war, not the individual battles.

If our sole goal was to beat the cats, I am 100% sure a lot of things would have been done differently. Even our preparation might have been different - would we have experimented with the staying over night in Geelong stuff if that was an absolute must win game?

Of course they wanted to win the game, but there were other objectives as well - winning wasn't the sole goal.

And I think it is helpful to assess games, at this time of year in particular, through that lens.

Binman you use to much logic, stats, facts, and examples! You need more blind emotion!

Of course winning every week and focussing on the tactical each week at a time is of paramount importance vs who in their right mind would look at the season strategically with the flag in mind!!

Have a look at yourself man! Don’t you realise footy is an emotional game!

PS: Keep up the great analysis!

Go Demons!

Edited July 1, 20232 yr by D4Life
Spelling

Like the ins and outs tbh. 

Say what you want about Brown but he's a pure forward that can kick goals

Harmes can also bob up for a couple

Bowzer excellent 

I am very much looking forward to hearing about the Traeger Park tree just in case it has changed since last time. Ideally with a Kelli pun thrown in. “Branching out, back to roots, out on a limb … so much for her to work with.

Edited July 1, 20232 yr by DeeMee

We simply must win tomorrow to keep the (8) bottom 4 teams at arms length.

If not, we’ll soon be one of them. 

Edited July 1, 20232 yr by McQueen

22 minutes ago, McQueen said:

We simply must win tomorrow to keep the (8) bottom 4 teams at arms length.

If not, we’ll soon be one of them. 

We’ll run rings around them tomorrow 

7 hours ago, A F said:

A coaching friend and I were discussing what we believe are the most important factors in ball movement and ability to execute. We were talking about under 19s in this particular conversation, but the answer is the same: fatigue and the flow on effects to concentration, ability to set structures and to get overlap, separation from your opponent and so on.

TMac from 3-4 years ago playing forward for us would be perfect right about now, because of his aerobic capacity and ability to work over his opponent up and down the ground. Nick Riewoldt would be another player that would excel under these conditions, however unlike Riewoldt in his prime, TMac rarely misses set shots and so it's this ability under a fatigued state to execute after your hard work that is the difference at this time of year.

As Goody alluded to in his presser and as I've said numerous times, we need to execute these moments better and hit the scoreboard and take our chances. We have at least an extra 2 or 3 wins if we execute fundamentals under late game duress and early game opportunities. 

The Sydney vs Geelong game last night was another game where fatigue played a huge role in the result. Despite the evenness of the inside 50s and Geelong's CP advantage, Sydney should have won that game by at least 6 goals, missing basic shots from the goal square numerous times.

Scoreboard pressure is vital in the modern game, because it's extremely rare to have 4 quarters of momentum and dominance all your way anymore. So you want to put separation between you and your opponent to ensure when momentum inevitably swings their way, they don't pass you.

Our inability to get separation from our opponents, move the ball quickly to free players, get strong overlap across 4 quarters and kick accurately is now common occurrence, but prior to this 5 week block, we rarely had these issues. These are all related to fatigue. But, if we want to make top 4, we have to be better and push through this, and take our chances when we get them. 

Some great points.

Out of interest do you remember about 5-6 years ago when we played the Eagles over in Perth and TMac kicked the winning goal with about 20 seconds to go?

1 minute ago, Bombay Airconditioning said:

Some great points.

Out of interest do you remember about 5-6 years ago when we played the Eagles over in Perth and TMac kicked the winning goal with about 20 seconds to go?

I do. It was my 30th birthday. So 6 years ago, 2017.

6 hours ago, Diamond_Jim said:

If we're giving JVR a "rest" why is he named for Casey at full forward?

"My kingdom for a functioning forward line"

You cannot compare the intensity of VFL to AFL. 

42 minutes ago, Bombay Airconditioning said:

Some great points.

Out of interest do you remember about 5-6 years ago when we played the Eagles over in Perth and TMac kicked the winning goal with about 20 seconds to go?

Do I ever. Sitting in the thick of Eagle supporters as I was using my one of my mates WCE membership seats.  
I was copping it hard off those tossers right up until the last 30 seconds when I thought yeah we’re done and then all of the noise erupted when Tmac kicked that goal. Holy Jesus amazing!

Lucky I didn’t get my head punched in that night. The amount of stick that I was giving those clowns in that section was top shelf. 

1 hour ago, A F said:

I do. It was my 30th birthday. So 6 years ago, 2017.

One week after my 32nd 😉

6 hours ago, DeeMee said:

I am very much looking forward to hearing about the Traeger Park tree just in case it has changed since last time. Ideally with a Kelli pun thrown in. “Branching out, back to roots, out on a limb … so much for her to work with.

She'd probably call it the Marrarra Stadium tree.