The club made a big mistake in trying to get two players into form and fitness by playing them in the seniors. Forward line has been our biggest weakness and now it's like they're playing 2 short. Petty might as well go to Adelaide can't get anywhere near it. McAdam has been thrown to the wolves, under prepared. Thats only the start , don't know what to do about all the other problems obviously we can't adapt to the game plan. Another wasted season.

5 minutes ago, Dave1711 said:

Petty must be dropped and given to Crows at end of year, he should never play in a Melbourne jumper again.

Sparrow, Chandler, Turner, McAdam must be dropped, Windsor & Woewy need a rest, bring in couple of young blokes. 
Goodwin needs to go at end of year, give senior job to Chaplin or McQualter, or try to get Yze back from Richmond.

There won't be 7 changes. 4 at most.

6 minutes ago, Jerry Lundergard said:

Let's get positive people 😅

2000 .. now there's a curious choice..

How did that end again.......

1 minute ago, loges said:

The club made a big mistake in trying to get two players into form and fitness by playing them in the seniors. Forward line has been our biggest weakness and now it's like they're playing 2 short. Petty might as well go to Adelaide can't get anywhere near it. McAdam has been thrown to the wolves, under prepared. Thats only the start , don't know what to do about all the other problems obviously we can't adapt to the game plan. Another wasted season.

Persevered with Billings for as long as possible and BBB is just a shuffle with a lower ceiling than what Petty can actually do if he ever gets out of his own head fog, let’s not pretend there was some great option out there.

All we can do is keep shuffling.

1 minute ago, beelzebub said:

2000 .. now there's a curious choice..

How did that end again.......

Exactly what I was thinking!! 

46 minutes ago, Buzzy said:

If we miss the 8 this year, is there anyone that wouldn't support 'Goodwin Out'?

I wouldn’t support that. A lot of our plans were built around Salem and Brayshaw having more midfield time, and Tracc being a forward. That plan didn’t even make it to round one.

With Clayton miles off the player he was, for reasons I think are easy for us all to understand, a lot then rests on Viney. Jack’s been clearly injured for 6 weeks, but we can’t really afford him to take the time off his shoulder obviously needs.

I’ve felt for almost all this season that our game plan now clearly relies on Gawn and/or Tracc playing a blinder. It’s left up to too few.

I don’t think that’s necessarily Simon’s fault. When you are up the top it’s hard to get access to players who make you better, so you have to rely on internal growth. Rivers, Sparrow, Spargo, Petty and Chandler haven’t taken the next step. A coach can only do so much. At a certain point that age group of players have to do it for themselves.

I’m not going to blame Goodwin for today, we looked good the first 5 minutes then couldn’t hit a target. I like trying to do things a bit different, but couldn’t believe how we lined up at the start of the third. We had ANB in the centre bounce, Oliver and Tracc on the HFF’s and Langdon at CHF, seemed bizarre.

1 hour ago, chookrat said:

I thought we were pretty good. A couple of unlucky momentum sapping umpiring calls when we had them on the ropes early were the difference for mine.

I hope this is a sarcastic post… ever since I joined the Farcebook Flat Earth Society page, I seem to have lost the ability to discern between earnestness and jest!

We started well. I’m only talking the first five minutes! The moment we started to show mental fragility (Rivers not being able to hit up the simplest direction change) Freo were on to it! The mental anxiety was immediately contagious! In a very short time, our players were committing the most devastating disposal errors across the board. This was a team that crumbled under perceived pressure. A team that were not ready for the contest, not proud of their achievement, not capable of steadying the ship. Freo sensed we were ready to be roasted and they never let up. We never re-grouped, never turned things around. We were rudderless, on and off the field. The future looks grim!

I think we lost today because Venus is in retrograde and we didn’t sacrifice enough animals on the alter of Satan. Or it’s the globalists or something. I think the AFL has also been microchipping Dees players to make them underperform. I also think some players were hugged too much as children.
 

It’s difficult to write a nonsense post on par with some of the things being written in this thread but it’s tougher than I thought. 

Other midfields are going past us 

Oliver is not the same player he was

1 hour ago, layzie said:

Laughter is the best medicine 

I see that I’m going to have to drag my collection of Reader’s Digest out of storage!

6 minutes ago, Rod Grinter Riot Squad said:

I’m not going to blame Goodwin for today, we looked good the first 5 minutes then couldn’t hit a target. I like trying to do things a bit different, but couldn’t believe how we lined up at the start of the third. We had ANB in the centre bounce, Oliver and Tracc on the HFF’s and Langdon at CHF, seemed bizarre.

Don't mind ANB in the middle as he's having a great year for the most part, but at least one of Oliver or Tracc has to be in there with him. The Langdon one makes no sense though.

1 minute ago, Scipio said:

Don't mind ANB in the middle as he's having a great year for the most part, but at least one of Oliver or Tracc has to be in there with him. The Langdon one makes no sense though.

the issue with both anb and pickett playing thru the midfield is it means no one provides defensive pressure as a small forward and the oppo waltzes it out of d50 under no pressure

i am very concerned about what the filth's small runners will do to us next week

1 hour ago, Demon Jack said:

This game reminded me of the Adelaide game in 2018 when we spanked them by 90 points only the shoe was on the other foot this time around.

I was happy to give McAdam a month or so to find his feet in the side, but he looks nowhere near AFL standard at the moment. 

We better act now, Adelaide is still out there in the wilderness and it's been 6 years.

15 minutes ago, The heart beats true said:

I wouldn’t support that. A lot of our plans were built around Salem and Brayshaw having more midfield time, and Tracc being a forward. That plan didn’t even make it to round one.

With Clayton miles off the player he was, for reasons I think are easy for us all to understand, a lot then rests on Viney. Jack’s been clearly injured for 6 weeks, but we can’t really afford him to take the time off his shoulder obviously needs.

I’ve felt for almost all this season that our game plan now clearly relies on Gawn and/or Tracc playing a blinder. It’s left up to too few.

I don’t think that’s necessarily Simon’s fault. When you are up the top it’s hard to get access to players who make you better, so you have to rely on internal growth. Rivers, Sparrow, Spargo, Petty and Chandler haven’t taken the next step. A coach can only do so much. At a certain point that age group of players have to do it for themselves.

We keep saying that, yer teams like Collingwood or Carlton keep recruiting top talent. We haven't been able to bring a half decent player since 2022.

2 minutes ago, ElDiablo14 said:

We better act now, Adelaide is still out there in the wilderness and it's been 6 years.

crom have never recovered from the 2017 grand final beating

we look like we might be bruised by the 2023 finals losses

I'm not microwaving my membership card, screaming 'sack the coach' or even declaring the window closed BUT that reality check has been coming and there are things we must address in the off season if we are to seriously contend again. Otherwise we're simply putting our heads in the sand and wasting the generational talent we still have on our list.

Our midfield, considered the competition's best in our premiership year, is now seriously short on depth, leaving too much to too few. A team like the Dockers today had no shortage of quality and strength rolling through the middle of ground - Brayshaw, Serong, Young, Fyfe and O'Meara to name a few. We rely far too heavily on Petracca, Viney and Oliver, a player we can't forget came off a highly concerning and interrupted pre-season. That lack of depth (plus preparation for Oliver) and line-breaking speed is fast becoming an issue as shown against the Lions, the Eagles and now brutally, the Dockers. 

We obviously haven't been able to replace Gus as a mature, skilled and intelligent midfielder which is understandable given the timing of his sad retirement, but his absence without a natural successor is really noticeable and it's something we must address post season, particularly if we want to remain a strong contested ball team and have the flexibility of sending Petracca forward. 

Clubs like Carlton meanwhile, have been able to add depth to their midfield ranks and therefore better support their star on-ballers such as Cripps and Walsh by picking up other strong, big bodied mids like Hewett, Kennedy and Acres. Sydney too have added Jordon and Adams to their midfield mix which has allowed Heaney to play the way that he is. By comparison our stocks look slim and one-dimensional .

At the same time, our approach to forward entry and connection remains a concern and it's the inability to fix this as a persistent issue which is most troubling and now borders on negligence given our lack of improvement in this area. 

Our personnel are a worry too. Right now, Petty isn't the answer up forward and would seem an obvious replacement for the inhured Lever as a quality intercepting defender. Instead he had another two possession game where he seems desperately short of confidence. It feels like we're killing an excellent backman by insisting he play forward due to a lack of suitable options.

Quality forward targets to support Van Rooyen and replace the ageing Ben Brown must be high on the list of our national recruiting team. 

Whilst I think these issues leave us too vulnerable to genuinely challenge this season, we have enough talent on our list to reset, restock and reload for 2025.  It starts with Tim Lamb and Jason Taylor. Over to you. 

 

Looking to next game, changes are needed! JVR comes in. AMW comes in. Taj gets a full game! I would pick Verrall and Jefferson and Billings

Petty, McAdam, Chandler, Turner out

Hunter injured

5 minutes ago, Scipio said:

Don't mind ANB in the middle as he's having a great year for the most part, but at least one of Oliver or Tracc has to be in there with him. The Langdon one makes no sense though.

I don’t either, but with Viney and Kossie also in the square, it made no sense to me to have Nibbler over Tracc or Oliver.

We have been well beaten at half time by other teams.

But this is the first time in ages I've seen this club not fight back.

Disgraceful effort today.

Just don't care after halftime.

 

I purchased a Kayo card to watch the two games not going live on free TV. Eagles and Dockers talk about getting a good return on your money. Imagine paying to fly up and watch that effort. 

Edited June 2, 20241 yr by YearOfTheDees

One more thing to pile on today, why did it feel we were the away team today?

I saw way too many purple jumpers around. How can that be called a home game in a neutral ground?

1 hour ago, Chook said:

Well I can't say I expected that margin, but I will say I tipped it.

Never let the facts get in the way eh? Freo's bunnies? How so, since we'd won 2 of the previous 4, and 4 of the previous 7 going in to today's debacle.