Out: Bowey, Billings, Woey

In: Howes, K.Brown, Hore

Perhaps Turner to start and AMW as sub to bring in some pace late.

Gawn looked well off the pace and Verrell played well at VFL level. If he's actually as injured as he looked, protect Max and back in a young guy instead of saying "they can't win hit outs". I get that was aimed at Fullarton being unimpressive at VFL level, but it was cruel.

  On 28/07/2024 at 00:36, loges said:

I know I was a fair distance away but did no one else see the giants player running through the goal square prior opportunity, drops the ball tackled no free. Would've been certain last quarter goal. Was I just imagining it?

Umpires ignored three consecutive HTBs in a minute in our attacking 50. Completely at odds with how they officiated the rest of the night. Disgrace,

  On 28/07/2024 at 01:32, Roger Mellie said:

This makes sense but I was at the game and May could barely walk - it looks to me like a back injury. My guess is that's why they put him on Riccardi. Gawn was the other player who clearly played under duress and struggled to get around.

He looked super sore after landing hard on his back last night. Reached around to where he was kneed earlier in the season too, briefly.

  On 27/07/2024 at 12:43, Redleg said:

On a positive note, with so many things going against us this year, we have lost to 3 finalists by less than a goal.

 

That is true. And we blooded some good young players. But it is a weird season with lots of ups and downs.

This year was all on our coaches and senior players. Petty in particular and the refusal to play him back. Stubborn Simon on display. He is bereft of all confidence.

Salem, Lever and May were below par most of the year, Oliver, losing Tracc and Brayshaw and Fritsch who is the laziest tackler in the competition. He just coasts around waving one arm at a player. Infuriating. Chandler started off well and then went downhill. Even Viney's output was average. Kozzie is a flash here and a flash there. Joel Smith let us down badly

Aside from the young guns (Riv, McVee, Windsor, JVR) the only players that improved were:

nil. And I challenge anyone to find someone. Theres our problem right there.  Senior players not performing to the consistent level they should.

Maybe TMac and Langdon got back to their better form but there was no higher watermark.

 

 

I don’t think last night was a disaster by any means. Actually loved how we fought hard till the end. Obviously the second and third quarters weren’t ideal. 
 

We are a 2-3 goal better team with Petracca playing and I believe we’d have won at least 2 more games since he went down with him out there. 
 

Breathe. We have a very promising young list at this stage. We’ll be right in the thick of it again next year with some luck injury wise. 

  On 27/07/2024 at 13:28, YesitwasaWin4theAges said:

McQualter has added absolutely f all to our Coaching staff.

Goody needs a new team around him, starting to become very stale.

After they won the first month post-Hardwick, a Tigers mate of mine was still so against McQualter getting their gig last year. Said their midfield and clearances had been a huge weak spot for years. We are seeing that now. I don't think Yze got as much out of Gawn's dominance and 4 excellent starting mids as he should have, but its night and day between him and Mini.

  On 27/07/2024 at 21:45, dazzledavey36 said:

Bailey Laurie has to stay in the side for the rest of the year.

He played midfield and I thought he was actually decent. His clean hands in the wet stood out and there's something there to work with from a midfield perspective. 

19 disposals, 3 tackles 10 contested possessions, only the 2 turnovers for the game and 24 pressure acts.

I'd play all the kids from this week onwards.

 

  On 27/07/2024 at 23:14, Storm Boy said:

Yes, I'm very worried about 2025 as well. Firstly I'm stressed about our list profile and List Management. Gawn 32 years old, May 32 years old, Melksham 32 years old, McDonald 31 years old, Ben Brown 31 years. Viney and Tomlinson both 30 years old. We are heading towards the edge of the cliff and it doesn't look good at all. 

I’m nervous because our list management has been dreadful but I’m actually excited by the opportunity we have to drastically improve the list purely by bringing in fresh legs 

Gus, J Smith, BBB, Schache were all zeroes before the bounce of the ball and Melk was out for half a year, Spargo the full year apparently. Hunter the same. McAdam not afl fit.

Oliver clearly no preseason and Fullarton and Verrell weren’t ready to ruck, so either one of them or someone else should be next year.

Our talls are clearly in rebuild mode but Lever, Petty, JVR, Disco and hopefully Jeffo gives us a chance to keep things rolling. 

Midfield seems as bad as it should get right now. Oliver, Tracc, a preseason in to Rivers, adding some depth should all improve us.

Just finding a few useful fit and energetic role players would do wonders for the state of the list.

  On 28/07/2024 at 00:40, dazzledavey36 said:

4 games to go with nothing to lose. If he can go into the back end of the year playing good footy then that'll give him the confidence to attack pre season and hopefully consolidate his spot in the best 22 next year.

Yep, and he'd give us good flexibility next year, given he's a half forward that can genuinely contribute at contest and stoppage. He's good by foot and has very good hands. I was impressed by his ground ball last night. 

  On 27/07/2024 at 15:55, Dusty_Hill said:

Of course the umpires didn’t cheat. They are just incompetent because they are poor. Not paid enough/not full time or what I’ve no idea. Two blatant frees to us missed and cost us 2 goals. There needs to be an ability to do a captains challenge or do something as clearly putting an extra umpire on the field hasn’t helped missed decisions. If anything it’s increased them. 

Captain's challenge, similar to the system used in rugby league, would be an excellent innovation.

With a maximum of two unsuccessful challenges per game, it could help avoid a lot of anger and bitterrness.

I don't envy any umpire, who sees fast-moving action from one angle only, with his view sometimes impeded by players.

Fans of all clubs naturally tend to remember mistakes that hurt their own side, while forgetting the errors that hit the opposition. 

  On 28/07/2024 at 01:55, Smokey said:

I don’t think last night was a disaster by any means. Actually loved how we fought hard till the end. Obviously the second and third quarters weren’t ideal. 
 

We are a 2-3 goal better team with Petracca playing and I believe we’d have won at least 2 more games since he went down with him out there. 
 

Breathe. We have a very promising young list at this stage. We’ll be right in the thick of it again next year with some luck injury wise. 

Spot on.

And id add that Max was clearly injured (which I assume is why disco was sub) and we didn't have Salem and the kolt, who has provided some real energy in the last few weeks.

And I'm not sure about others, but I don't think I'm alone in saying after their fourth quick goal at the start of the fourth I was worried we were going to get blown out.

Others at the ground must have thought similarly as plenty left.

So I was both surprised and proud how we fought back, particularly given how young we were.

Edited July 28, 2024Jul 28 by binman

  On 28/07/2024 at 01:03, Redleg said:

Do you think he played well yesterday?

If he played like that every week he would be a regular.

We actually improve with hungry footballers, instead of too many very comfortable ones.

I think he needs a string of games. He's no worse than ANB was in the very early stages of his career - but we were a side not expecting to win as much, so ANB was given a longer crack at it. 

  On 28/07/2024 at 00:51, von said:

Injuries and retirements are responsible for this. 

Don’t buy that sure Brayshaw & Trac are hard to replace but leaving the front door open and not defending goal side is defence 101.. Mcqualter is responsible for this, it just continues to happen in most games … 

  On 27/07/2024 at 12:11, GCDee said:

Genuinely lost that game due to the umpiring. 

That’s been 2024

  On 27/07/2024 at 13:36, titan_uranus said:

Rivers doing nothing for 10 seconds then kicking to a nothing spot (after he burned time vs Brisbane, he should have known better).

We were saying similar last night. A better club would have drilled him and them on what to do in that situation. We're more of the "get around him and forget about it" types.

  On 27/07/2024 at 13:53, Go the Biff said:

Which is not much of an option.

ANB definitely didn’t have many options but getting pinged for HTB was surely the least desirable one. 

  On 28/07/2024 at 02:03, binman said:

Spot on.

And id add that Max was clearly injured (which is I assume why tdisco was sub) we didn't have Salem and the kolt, who has provided some real energy in the lat few weeks was out.

And I'm not sure about others, but I don't think I'm alone in saying after their fourth quick goal at the start of the fourth I was worried we were going to get blown out.

Others at tbe ground must have thought similarly as plenty left.

So I was both surprised and proud how we fought back, particularly given how young we were.

Kind of agree but GWS took their foot off the pedal.

I'm still so surprised that Goody hasn't swapped TMac and Petty for any meaningful length of time this year. Surely it was worth a crack for at least a couple of games. We all know that Macca has a great track history up forward and Petty is an excellent key back. Too late now anyway.

  On 28/07/2024 at 00:36, loges said:

I know I was a fair distance away but did no one else see the giants player running through the goal square prior opportunity, drops the ball tackled no free. Would've been certain last quarter goal. Was I just imagining it?

If it's the one I'm thinking of Kozzie basically pushed him and didn't tackle which is why it wasn't holding the ball.

  On 28/07/2024 at 01:00, Wrecker46 said:

Sparrow is a mystery. Oliver and Viney we understand. Petracca didn't come on like we thought he would at the same stage as Sparrow in his career until some off field stuff clicked. Who knows.

Sparrow will never be an elite mid but he can be a very good 2nd string mid. He's had to step up this year with our midfield problems and has struggled. As a 4th or 5th mid I think he'll still be fine.

  On 28/07/2024 at 02:48, Little Richard said:

I'm still so surprised that Goody hasn't swapped TMac and Petty for any meaningful length of time this year. Surely it was worth a crack for at least a couple of games. We all know that Macca has a great track history up forward and Petty is an excellent key back. Too late now anyway.

Were all wondering that. Its an obvious move. Goodie seems obsessed with Petty up forward & blind to the fact it hasn't worked out. Petty has been serviceable at best.

  On 28/07/2024 at 00:14, RedBlueandTrue said:

It was very sad to not win. Was absolutely gutted afterwards. 

In the light of day though I'm still proud of the performance. GWS were far from full strength but still have a lot of class and grit. 

It was great to see Oli playing with some more confidence and skill in the first half, but unfortunately spent most of his tickets. 

I didn't expect to win and they had a really good crack.  

Unfortunate reality is that in Brayshaw, Petracca, Salem, Tommo, Hunter, McAdam, Spargo, Smith and Brown a large chunk of our salary cap has been  unavailable or inefficiently utilised this season. Another chunk is clearly hampered without a fitness base. 

Call it bad list management or bad luck, it's the reality and has made it virtually impossible to play at the required level consistently. I think we've taken necessary calculated risks that for most of the last 3 years have paid off but this year we have clearly been off the pace from a talent perspective.

This has given some opportunity to younger players who have shown a lot of promise, but are still young. I am super excited about what this group can do and will be very interested this off-season. 

Love my Dees. The journey continues! 

Agree with most of your points there but wanted to point out that GWS weren’t that depleted. From their best team they were missing Coniglio, Kelly and maybe Cumming. We were missing Petracca, Salem and maybe Kolt, while Gawn was hampered. It was a good effort by the team and we only needed a little bit of luck to get that win.

  On 28/07/2024 at 02:38, dl4e said:

Kind of agree but GWS took their foot off the pedal.

I really don't think they did.

Their pressure was 200 in that last quarter and they scrapped right to the wire.

Edited July 29, 2024Jul 29 by binman

I was angry last night but have calmed down now and accept that the performance is just where we are at and we just need to look at small wins.

I do hope the FD are realists and if we have players that will need surgery in the off-season get them in now so we are ready to go day 1 of preseason. We aren’t winning a flag this year, but no reason we can’t do it next year with a fit list.

  On 27/07/2024 at 13:22, poita said:

First quarter was excellent, last ten minutes pretty good, but the rest was absolute garbage. 

Summed up what I saw, 3 goals in 2 quarters. Blind freddy could see before half time we needed a change. Turner as sub !

[censored]  wrong ! If he was cover for Max he should have been at full forward, would have done no running for half the game. 
 
bring on 2025