Time to go Goody?

[Docs Demons 1,789]

1 hour ago, Demon Disciple said:

We need to offer Darren Burgess a blank cheque to come back to us next year.

Not too sure whether he can coach and bring a decent game plan!

[middleagedemon 325]

One more thing I'd like to add on this Goodwin thread. 

The other day, a mate sent me a snapshot of a Facebook comment a lady made from an article about the dees. She ripped into Goodwin after one of our putrid losses. The comment got a few likes and one like in particular was from one of Petracca's brothers. 

I think it's interesting that Trac's brother would 'like' a public Facebook comment  defaming Goodwin knowing full well Melbourne supporters would be reading the comments of this particular post and see that he 'liked' it..

People may brush that aside, but I have wondered for a while now whether Goodwin still has the players on his side given some of the performances we've dished up. 

Makes you wonder. 

 

Edited August 4 by middleagedemon

[Sir Why You Little 37,016]

24 minutes ago, middleagedemon said:

It's the classic goal-post shifting that is the more hilarious thing from Binman and the like.

It's now fatigue apparently!!! Fatigue! 

I mean, give us a break! 

How did fatigue go for us when we managed to peg GWS back in that last quarter? Was it fatigue in the first quarter alone against the Bulldogs? How are we measuring this exactly? 

You can't take that bunch seriously because there'll be an excuse that becomes 'The Reason' for our failings for that given season. Which is utterly ridiculous given these are commonalities ALL teams go through and just covers over underlying issues that have existed for too long. 

Injury and fatigue hey. Wow. 

How you measure these as a supporter depends entirely on what level of bias one holds for their team. For Binman and co, the dees  always seem to be victim of such cruelties, more so than any other side in the AFL! That's because this particular group of dlanders have held the long-standing and unequivocal belief that we are the best team in it, we have undoubtedly the best game-plan and the most talented list. 

If you vehemently believe the above to be true, you're no doubt going to throw up one or two excuses as 'The Reason' for a failed season. Which is exactly what this crew have done since the 2022 finals campaign, all the while completely ignoring a set of underlying issues that have plagued us even throughout our 2021 home and away year. 

Along with the obvious disadvantages that all teams face every year, why don't we look at some of the contributing factors that have remained with us as a side for far too long now. And are the reason that all supporters get so frustrated with Goodwin. 

1: Jackson replacement/genuine Gawn support. Why is it that Goodwin defenders cannot seem to handle criticism of the failings in this area? It's been a significant fail given the way we have relied on him and provided next to no support. If dlanders are happy to throw up the injury excuse when he's out or when 'carrying' injury, how do you not point the finger at Goodwin and co for providing no support in a game where injury is bound to happen to anyone at any time? Especially so when part of your game-plan has been built around Max Gawn. 

2: Midfield balance/attribute diversity I've banged on about this for I don't know how many years and it has plagued us in just about every game in which a team brings heat to our midfield. How much longer will it continue? Look no further than the first possession that we had on Friday night against the Dogs. Viney racing for a ball in dispute, gets to it and has two free Melbourne players if he manages to hook a dominant hand handball over his right shoulder. But no, he sees red, handballs blindly forward straight to a doggies player who takes possession. That kind of play is emblematic of our entire midfield unit when any serious heat is applied. And it happened all night. We have a contested heavy, ball winning heavy midfield unit who all lack in the same area when under pressure. Composure and disposal. 

It is that simple. We win the ball in tight and give it up almost immediately when the heat is applied. And every single side that have a half decent midfield know this when they play us. As the game goes on, the more desperate our mids become to win a clearance/contest and the more we swarm to the same ball and man with ball, in part because these mids have been 'ball winning' players since they were kids and desperation kicks in. The commentary around our lack of pace/run and the 'fatigue' comments are actually by-products of what is happening in close. We give the ball up that easily when heat is applied, it makes the opposition look quicker, fitter and like they have more players on the ground. When opposition half-backs could see the standard set by their mids on fri night, they knew they could have a field day by rolling the dice and streaming off their men, getting that call right the majority of the night due to how easily we were giving the ball up in close if we were getting our hands on it. (Which for much of the night we weren't even doing). So then it's two fold. You've got oppo half-backs playing their own game of footy as their mids are just consistently either winning first possession themselves and handballing out of congestion and then to running half backs, or they knew if we were to get first possession, we'd likely cough it up thanks to the the heat their team mates were applying in close and our lack of composure and disposal came to the fore. 

When the dogs bring heat like that, they look a million bucks because they are one of a few clubs who have mids who excel at feeding a ball out of a contest with a quick, smart handball under pressure. Libba and Bont specifically are specialists at this. Even Treloar has better hands in close than most if not all our mids. 

Now, clearance altogether has two parts to it. The one I listed above and the second being our actual setup at both centre bounce and stoppage. Both our positioning and lack of connectedness with Gawn has been wildly inconsistent for too long. Another issue that Binman and his brigade seem to ignore when they say things like, 'oh well, we don't place a premium on clearances anyway'. 

How about nah. Clearance gives you complete ascendency if you get it right. End of the third Q grand final? 

3: Forward setup/personnel. 

Again. How long? Let's go back to last year's finals and those who basically said inaccuracy cost us the flag. That might be so, but that has been in part down to game-plan and personnel. And inaccuracy has cost us in plenty of other games over the last few years. I'm not sure what Goodwin expects when he plays two key defenders as key forwards and one young kid who is still learning how to be a forward at AFL level. (JVR played a lot of defence as an under-aged kid and I don't classify him as a classical key forward).

Our inability to land one has been telling. We have a make-shift forward line that consistently looks like a dogs breakfast with little to no predictability in the way it moves. At the very least, Ben Brown was a straight line ball leader, which created vacuums of space for specialist forwards like Fritsch or Kosi to creep into. Goodwin has seemed happy to continue to play 'competitors' which means our kids are again happy to bomb away into the forward 50 with little to no intentionality. 

This problem also goes hand-in-hand with our midfield issue which I highlighted above. We have average ball user through our midfield when under no pressure and they're poor when under pressure. 

So, what will it take for us to land a specialist forwards assistant coach and perhaps a complete re-think of the type of players we want to have inside 50? Are we prepared to continue to play Fritsch when the ball isn't perfect for him given his complete disinterest in competing defensively? Another factor in why opposition teams waltz the ball out of our defence. Opposition defenders completely exploit that part of Fritsch's game. Do people notice this? When will Goody hold him to account? I won't hold my breath given the myriad of issues we have in our forwardline anyway. 

Ben Brown at full fitness is what this team misses more than supporters give credit for and we need to bring in another player of that type pronto. 

So, whilst I'm not in the 'sack Goody' camp. I certainly think that he's done this team no favours in the last few years and if he is not to blame, who we blaming? The umpires? Injury? Fitness? 

How about no. Those things will be there every year, period. Sure Petracca has been a missive loss. But that's even more telling! If a team is that reliant on one player, there are some serious underlying issues. 

And just so it's clear, I'm no doomsdayer. I believe we can rectify, recalibrate and go again whilst we still have some key pillars. But we need to absolutely nail this off-season and nail the pre-season and actually fix some of these underlying issues that have existed for far too long. 

If not, it will indeed be a wasted era. 

An Excellent view of Reality 

and exactly why Members of The MFC are allowed to ask serious questions on what has gone wrong over the last 3 Seasons. 
Why do most Clubs run harder than us in 2024?

i don’t want to hear excuses, i want to hear some f&&ing answers. Our Season is just as long as everyone else. A mate of mine has called the MFC “Pea hearts” for decades, he laughs whenever they are mentioned  It has been very hard to defend my Club, so often 

Fatigue at The Beginning of August….Hmmmm

I thought loading was meant to have the Team “Cherry Ripe” going into Finals..but alas that has become too hard for this year  

 

 

[layzie 33,791]

We need to get a lot right for next year 

[layzie 33,791]

1 hour ago, Roost it far said:

I was meant to say Justin Leppitsch ok! ☄️

Couldn't help it sorry.

[Sir Why You Little 37,016]

Just now, layzie said:

We need to get a lot right for next year 

That’s what most Clubs do every year…

MFC seems to Struggle 

[Demonsone 2,036]

How much is Goodwin responsible for the poor drafting that’s occurred in the last 2 seasons & decisions on Jordan , Harmes, Grundy which has exposed our ruck depths seeing Gawn playing on 1 leg, game plan? Need fresh  assistants new ideas 

Edited August 4 by Demonsone

[Deemania since 56 6,627]

12 hours ago, Hellfire Dub said:

Even before this year's woes, our star midfielders have long been guilty of lofting their hard won ball high and aimlessly into our forward line.  Smash it on the boot and get it forward, anywhere will do.  Perfect for intercepting defenders to run it back at us.  And Repeat.  

For years we've over used the unnecessary (and often hospital) handpass to a team mate about to get smashed or pinged for HTB.  

There's also been an obsession with territorial gain of holding it in our forward 50, and long kicks to the pocket without scoreboard gain.  

All of these things are laborious and taxing and they're all coaching directions or else they've been tolerated by the coaching staff. 

The contest and tackling emphasis must be really gruelling on guys like Viney and lots of the team are really showing wear and tear this season so that 21 style can't be sustained forever.  Nor should it be as the running waves just break through it.  

It's not all bad though as this season lots of the youngsters (plus Tmac sometimes and returned Melk) seem to be lowering the eyes and looking sideways or shorter for better options.  

Mcvee has shown silky skills and bowser gets caught sometimes but he dinks some nice passes as does Kozzy.  

Nutshell summation here on matters overdue for correction. Fully agree but largely overlooked by the Club.

[titan_uranus 24,984]

11 hours ago, middleagedemon said:

It's the classic goal-post shifting that is the more hilarious thing from Binman and the like.

It's now fatigue apparently!!! Fatigue! 

I mean, give us a break! 

How did fatigue go for us when we managed to peg GWS back in that last quarter? Was it fatigue in the first quarter alone against the Bulldogs? How are we measuring this exactly? 

You can't take that bunch seriously because there'll be an excuse that becomes 'The Reason' for our failings for that given season. Which is utterly ridiculous given these are commonalities ALL teams go through and just covers over underlying issues that have existed for too long. 

Injury and fatigue hey. Wow. 

How you measure these as a supporter depends entirely on what level of bias one holds for their team. For Binman and co, the dees  always seem to be victim of such cruelties, more so than any other side in the AFL! That's because this particular group of dlanders have held the long-standing and unequivocal belief that we are the best team in it, we have undoubtedly the best game-plan and the most talented list. 

If you vehemently believe the above to be true, you're no doubt going to throw up one or two excuses as 'The Reason' for a failed season. Which is exactly what this crew have done since the 2022 finals campaign, all the while completely ignoring a set of underlying issues that have plagued us even throughout our 2021 home and away year. 

Along with the obvious disadvantages that all teams face every year, why don't we look at some of the contributing factors that have remained with us as a side for far too long now. And are the reason that all supporters get so frustrated with Goodwin. 

1: Jackson replacement/genuine Gawn support. Why is it that Goodwin defenders cannot seem to handle criticism of the failings in this area? It's been a significant fail given the way we have relied on him and provided next to no support. If dlanders are happy to throw up the injury excuse when he's out or when 'carrying' injury, how do you not point the finger at Goodwin and co for providing no support in a game where injury is bound to happen to anyone at any time? Especially so when part of your game-plan has been built around Max Gawn. 

2: Midfield balance/attribute diversity I've banged on about this for I don't know how many years and it has plagued us in just about every game in which a team brings heat to our midfield. How much longer will it continue? Look no further than the first possession that we had on Friday night against the Dogs. Viney racing for a ball in dispute, gets to it and has two free Melbourne players if he manages to hook a dominant hand handball over his right shoulder. But no, he sees red, handballs blindly forward straight to a doggies player who takes possession. That kind of play is emblematic of our entire midfield unit when any serious heat is applied. And it happened all night. We have a contested heavy, ball winning heavy midfield unit who all lack in the same area when under pressure. Composure and disposal. 

It is that simple. We win the ball in tight and give it up almost immediately when the heat is applied. And every single side that have a half decent midfield know this when they play us. As the game goes on, the more desperate our mids become to win a clearance/contest and the more we swarm to the same ball and man with ball, in part because these mids have been 'ball winning' players since they were kids and desperation kicks in. The commentary around our lack of pace/run and the 'fatigue' comments are actually by-products of what is happening in close. We give the ball up that easily when heat is applied, it makes the opposition look quicker, fitter and like they have more players on the ground. When opposition half-backs could see the standard set by their mids on fri night, they knew they could have a field day by rolling the dice and streaming off their men, getting that call right the majority of the night due to how easily we were giving the ball up in close if we were getting our hands on it. (Which for much of the night we weren't even doing). So then it's two fold. You've got oppo half-backs playing their own game of footy as their mids are just consistently either winning first possession themselves and handballing out of congestion and then to running half backs, or they knew if we were to get first possession, we'd likely cough it up thanks to the the heat their team mates were applying in close and our lack of composure and disposal came to the fore. 

When the dogs bring heat like that, they look a million bucks because they are one of a few clubs who have mids who excel at feeding a ball out of a contest with a quick, smart handball under pressure. Libba and Bont specifically are specialists at this. Even Treloar has better hands in close than most if not all our mids. 

Now, clearance altogether has two parts to it. The one I listed above and the second being our actual setup at both centre bounce and stoppage. Both our positioning and lack of connectedness with Gawn has been wildly inconsistent for too long. Another issue that Binman and his brigade seem to ignore when they say things like, 'oh well, we don't place a premium on clearances anyway'. 

How about nah. Clearance gives you complete ascendency if you get it right. End of the third Q grand final? 

3: Forward setup/personnel. 

Again. How long? Let's go back to last year's finals and those who basically said inaccuracy cost us the flag. That might be so, but that has been in part down to game-plan and personnel. And inaccuracy has cost us in plenty of other games over the last few years. I'm not sure what Goodwin expects when he plays two key defenders as key forwards and one young kid who is still learning how to be a forward at AFL level. (JVR played a lot of defence as an under-aged kid and I don't classify him as a classical key forward).

Our inability to land one has been telling. We have a make-shift forward line that consistently looks like a dogs breakfast with little to no predictability in the way it moves. At the very least, Ben Brown was a straight line ball leader, which created vacuums of space for specialist forwards like Fritsch or Kosi to creep into. Goodwin has seemed happy to continue to play 'competitors' which means our kids are again happy to bomb away into the forward 50 with little to no intentionality. 

This problem also goes hand-in-hand with our midfield issue which I highlighted above. We have average ball user through our midfield when under no pressure and they're poor when under pressure. 

So, what will it take for us to land a specialist forwards assistant coach and perhaps a complete re-think of the type of players we want to have inside 50? Are we prepared to continue to play Fritsch when the ball isn't perfect for him given his complete disinterest in competing defensively? Another factor in why opposition teams waltz the ball out of our defence. Opposition defenders completely exploit that part of Fritsch's game. Do people notice this? When will Goody hold him to account? I won't hold my breath given the myriad of issues we have in our forwardline anyway. 

Ben Brown at full fitness is what this team misses more than supporters give credit for and we need to bring in another player of that type pronto. 

So, whilst I'm not in the 'sack Goody' camp. I certainly think that he's done this team no favours in the last few years and if he is not to blame, who we blaming? The umpires? Injury? Fitness? 

How about no. Those things will be there every year, period. Sure Petracca has been a missive loss. But that's even more telling! If a team is that reliant on one player, there are some serious underlying issues. 

And just so it's clear, I'm no doomsdayer. I believe we can rectify, recalibrate and go again whilst we still have some key pillars. But we need to absolutely nail this off-season and nail the pre-season and actually fix some of these underlying issues that have existed for far too long. 

If not, it will indeed be a wasted era. 

This is a good post.

Principally because it acknowledges that multiple factors go into our performance.

It's not just one. It's certainly not just fitness/injuries. It's not just list management. It's not just our game plan, or our ball movement, or even our skills. And it's not just the loss of Gus.

It's all of them. 

I don't come down as harshly on Goodwin as you do, but one area that we have to acknowledge he failed in this year was his attempt to change us after the 2022-23 finals failures by changing our set up and relaxing our press in the first third/half of this season. It didn't work. I think the idea to tweak was correct, but we went too far and, regardless, didn't get it right given our playing list.

The lack of a proper second ruck/forward is an absolute disaster of list management/coaching, however you want to split it. Running Gawn into the ground on 1.5 legs and relieving him with our only promising natural tall forward is bananas.

[picket fence 17,126]

12 hours ago, middleagedemon said:

It's the classic goal-post shifting that is the more hilarious thing from Binman and the like.

It's now fatigue apparently!!! Fatigue! 

I mean, give us a break! 

How did fatigue go for us when we managed to peg GWS back in that last quarter? Was it fatigue in the first quarter alone against the Bulldogs? How are we measuring this exactly? 

You can't take that bunch seriously because there'll be an excuse that becomes 'The Reason' for our failings for that given season. Which is utterly ridiculous given these are commonalities ALL teams go through and just covers over underlying issues that have existed for too long. 

Injury and fatigue hey. Wow. 

How you measure these as a supporter depends entirely on what level of bias one holds for their team. For Binman and co, the dees  always seem to be victim of such cruelties, more so than any other side in the AFL! That's because this particular group of dlanders have held the long-standing and unequivocal belief that we are the best team in it, we have undoubtedly the best game-plan and the most talented list. 

If you vehemently believe the above to be true, you're no doubt going to throw up one or two excuses as 'The Reason' for a failed season. Which is exactly what this crew have done since the 2022 finals campaign, all the while completely ignoring a set of underlying issues that have plagued us even throughout our 2021 home and away year. 

Along with the obvious disadvantages that all teams face every year, why don't we look at some of the contributing factors that have remained with us as a side for far too long now. And are the reason that all supporters get so frustrated with Goodwin. 

1: Jackson replacement/genuine Gawn support. Why is it that Goodwin defenders cannot seem to handle criticism of the failings in this area? It's been a significant fail given the way we have relied on him and provided next to no support. If dlanders are happy to throw up the injury excuse when he's out or when 'carrying' injury, how do you not point the finger at Goodwin and co for providing no support in a game where injury is bound to happen to anyone at any time? Especially so when part of your game-plan has been built around Max Gawn. 

2: Midfield balance/attribute diversity I've banged on about this for I don't know how many years and it has plagued us in just about every game in which a team brings heat to our midfield. How much longer will it continue? Look no further than the first possession that we had on Friday night against the Dogs. Viney racing for a ball in dispute, gets to it and has two free Melbourne players if he manages to hook a dominant hand handball over his right shoulder. But no, he sees red, handballs blindly forward straight to a doggies player who takes possession. That kind of play is emblematic of our entire midfield unit when any serious heat is applied. And it happened all night. We have a contested heavy, ball winning heavy midfield unit who all lack in the same area when under pressure. Composure and disposal. 

It is that simple. We win the ball in tight and give it up almost immediately when the heat is applied. And every single side that have a half decent midfield know this when they play us. As the game goes on, the more desperate our mids become to win a clearance/contest and the more we swarm to the same ball and man with ball, in part because these mids have been 'ball winning' players since they were kids and desperation kicks in. The commentary around our lack of pace/run and the 'fatigue' comments are actually by-products of what is happening in close. We give the ball up that easily when heat is applied, it makes the opposition look quicker, fitter and like they have more players on the ground. When opposition half-backs could see the standard set by their mids on fri night, they knew they could have a field day by rolling the dice and streaming off their men, getting that call right the majority of the night due to how easily we were giving the ball up in close if we were getting our hands on it. (Which for much of the night we weren't even doing). So then it's two fold. You've got oppo half-backs playing their own game of footy as their mids are just consistently either winning first possession themselves and handballing out of congestion and then to running half backs, or they knew if we were to get first possession, we'd likely cough it up thanks to the the heat their team mates were applying in close and our lack of composure and disposal came to the fore. 

When the dogs bring heat like that, they look a million bucks because they are one of a few clubs who have mids who excel at feeding a ball out of a contest with a quick, smart handball under pressure. Libba and Bont specifically are specialists at this. Even Treloar has better hands in close than most if not all our mids. 

Now, clearance altogether has two parts to it. The one I listed above and the second being our actual setup at both centre bounce and stoppage. Both our positioning and lack of connectedness with Gawn has been wildly inconsistent for too long. Another issue that Binman and his brigade seem to ignore when they say things like, 'oh well, we don't place a premium on clearances anyway'. 

How about nah. Clearance gives you complete ascendency if you get it right. End of the third Q grand final? 

3: Forward setup/personnel. 

Again. How long? Let's go back to last year's finals and those who basically said inaccuracy cost us the flag. That might be so, but that has been in part down to game-plan and personnel. And inaccuracy has cost us in plenty of other games over the last few years. I'm not sure what Goodwin expects when he plays two key defenders as key forwards and one young kid who is still learning how to be a forward at AFL level. (JVR played a lot of defence as an under-aged kid and I don't classify him as a classical key forward).

Our inability to land one has been telling. We have a make-shift forward line that consistently looks like a dogs breakfast with little to no predictability in the way it moves. At the very least, Ben Brown was a straight line ball leader, which created vacuums of space for specialist forwards like Fritsch or Kosi to creep into. Goodwin has seemed happy to continue to play 'competitors' which means our kids are again happy to bomb away into the forward 50 with little to no intentionality. 

This problem also goes hand-in-hand with our midfield issue which I highlighted above. We have average ball user through our midfield when under no pressure and they're poor when under pressure. 

So, what will it take for us to land a specialist forwards assistant coach and perhaps a complete re-think of the type of players we want to have inside 50? Are we prepared to continue to play Fritsch when the ball isn't perfect for him given his complete disinterest in competing defensively? Another factor in why opposition teams waltz the ball out of our defence. Opposition defenders completely exploit that part of Fritsch's game. Do people notice this? When will Goody hold him to account? I won't hold my breath given the myriad of issues we have in our forwardline anyway. 

Ben Brown at full fitness is what this team misses more than supporters give credit for and we need to bring in another player of that type pronto. 

So, whilst I'm not in the 'sack Goody' camp. I certainly think that he's done this team no favours in the last few years and if he is not to blame, who we blaming? The umpires? Injury? Fitness? 

How about no. Those things will be there every year, period. Sure Petracca has been a missive loss. But that's even more telling! If a team is that reliant on one player, there are some serious underlying issues. 

And just so it's clear, I'm no doomsdayer. I believe we can rectify, recalibrate and go again whilst we still have some key pillars. But we need to absolutely nail this off-season and nail the pre-season and actually fix some of these underlying issues that have existed for far too long. 

If not, it will indeed be a wasted era. 

Post of the year and for ALL the reasons alluded to, we definately need a new coach!

[Monbon 1,840]

13 hours ago, Queanbeyan Demon said:

Sheedy and Blight = footy geniuses.

Really? You're kidding me! ( Um, you missed the joke, Joyce, dats why he got a mention.)

[Monbon 1,840]

7 minutes ago, picket fence said:

smart handball under pressure. Libba and Bont specifically are specialists at this

So Libba's throws are handballs? 

[Sydee 4,406]

12 hours ago, middleagedemon said:

It's the classic goal-post shifting that is the more hilarious thing from Binman and the like.

It's now fatigue apparently!!! Fatigue! 

I mean, give us a break! 

How did fatigue go for us when we managed to peg GWS back in that last quarter? Was it fatigue in the first quarter alone against the Bulldogs? How are we measuring this exactly? 

You can't take that bunch seriously because there'll be an excuse that becomes 'The Reason' for our failings for that given season. Which is utterly ridiculous given these are commonalities ALL teams go through and just covers over underlying issues that have existed for too long. 

Injury and fatigue hey. Wow. 

How you measure these as a supporter depends entirely on what level of bias one holds for their team. For Binman and co, the dees  always seem to be victim of such cruelties, more so than any other side in the AFL! That's because this particular group of dlanders have held the long-standing and unequivocal belief that we are the best team in it, we have undoubtedly the best game-plan and the most talented list. 

If you vehemently believe the above to be true, you're no doubt going to throw up one or two excuses as 'The Reason' for a failed season. Which is exactly what this crew have done since the 2022 finals campaign, all the while completely ignoring a set of underlying issues that have plagued us even throughout our 2021 home and away year. 

Along with the obvious disadvantages that all teams face every year, why don't we look at some of the contributing factors that have remained with us as a side for far too long now. And are the reason that all supporters get so frustrated with Goodwin. 

1: Jackson replacement/genuine Gawn support. Why is it that Goodwin defenders cannot seem to handle criticism of the failings in this area? It's been a significant fail given the way we have relied on him and provided next to no support. If dlanders are happy to throw up the injury excuse when he's out or when 'carrying' injury, how do you not point the finger at Goodwin and co for providing no support in a game where injury is bound to happen to anyone at any time? Especially so when part of your game-plan has been built around Max Gawn. 

2: Midfield balance/attribute diversity I've banged on about this for I don't know how many years and it has plagued us in just about every game in which a team brings heat to our midfield. How much longer will it continue? Look no further than the first possession that we had on Friday night against the Dogs. Viney racing for a ball in dispute, gets to it and has two free Melbourne players if he manages to hook a dominant hand handball over his right shoulder. But no, he sees red, handballs blindly forward straight to a doggies player who takes possession. That kind of play is emblematic of our entire midfield unit when any serious heat is applied. And it happened all night. We have a contested heavy, ball winning heavy midfield unit who all lack in the same area when under pressure. Composure and disposal. 

It is that simple. We win the ball in tight and give it up almost immediately when the heat is applied. And every single side that have a half decent midfield know this when they play us. As the game goes on, the more desperate our mids become to win a clearance/contest and the more we swarm to the same ball and man with ball, in part because these mids have been 'ball winning' players since they were kids and desperation kicks in. The commentary around our lack of pace/run and the 'fatigue' comments are actually by-products of what is happening in close. We give the ball up that easily when heat is applied, it makes the opposition look quicker, fitter and like they have more players on the ground. When opposition half-backs could see the standard set by their mids on fri night, they knew they could have a field day by rolling the dice and streaming off their men, getting that call right the majority of the night due to how easily we were giving the ball up in close if we were getting our hands on it. (Which for much of the night we weren't even doing). So then it's two fold. You've got oppo half-backs playing their own game of footy as their mids are just consistently either winning first possession themselves and handballing out of congestion and then to running half backs, or they knew if we were to get first possession, we'd likely cough it up thanks to the the heat their team mates were applying in close and our lack of composure and disposal came to the fore. 

When the dogs bring heat like that, they look a million bucks because they are one of a few clubs who have mids who excel at feeding a ball out of a contest with a quick, smart handball under pressure. Libba and Bont specifically are specialists at this. Even Treloar has better hands in close than most if not all our mids. 

Now, clearance altogether has two parts to it. The one I listed above and the second being our actual setup at both centre bounce and stoppage. Both our positioning and lack of connectedness with Gawn has been wildly inconsistent for too long. Another issue that Binman and his brigade seem to ignore when they say things like, 'oh well, we don't place a premium on clearances anyway'. 

How about nah. Clearance gives you complete ascendency if you get it right. End of the third Q grand final? 

3: Forward setup/personnel. 

Again. How long? Let's go back to last year's finals and those who basically said inaccuracy cost us the flag. That might be so, but that has been in part down to game-plan and personnel. And inaccuracy has cost us in plenty of other games over the last few years. I'm not sure what Goodwin expects when he plays two key defenders as key forwards and one young kid who is still learning how to be a forward at AFL level. (JVR played a lot of defence as an under-aged kid and I don't classify him as a classical key forward).

Our inability to land one has been telling. We have a make-shift forward line that consistently looks like a dogs breakfast with little to no predictability in the way it moves. At the very least, Ben Brown was a straight line ball leader, which created vacuums of space for specialist forwards like Fritsch or Kosi to creep into. Goodwin has seemed happy to continue to play 'competitors' which means our kids are again happy to bomb away into the forward 50 with little to no intentionality. 

This problem also goes hand-in-hand with our midfield issue which I highlighted above. We have average ball user through our midfield when under no pressure and they're poor when under pressure. 

So, what will it take for us to land a specialist forwards assistant coach and perhaps a complete re-think of the type of players we want to have inside 50? Are we prepared to continue to play Fritsch when the ball isn't perfect for him given his complete disinterest in competing defensively? Another factor in why opposition teams waltz the ball out of our defence. Opposition defenders completely exploit that part of Fritsch's game. Do people notice this? When will Goody hold him to account? I won't hold my breath given the myriad of issues we have in our forwardline anyway. 

Ben Brown at full fitness is what this team misses more than supporters give credit for and we need to bring in another player of that type pronto. 

So, whilst I'm not in the 'sack Goody' camp. I certainly think that he's done this team no favours in the last few years and if he is not to blame, who we blaming? The umpires? Injury? Fitness? 

How about no. Those things will be there every year, period. Sure Petracca has been a missive loss. But that's even more telling! If a team is that reliant on one player, there are some serious underlying issues. 

And just so it's clear, I'm no doomsdayer. I believe we can rectify, recalibrate and go again whilst we still have some key pillars. But we need to absolutely nail this off-season and nail the pre-season and actually fix some of these underlying issues that have existed for far too long. 

If not, it will indeed be a wasted era. 

Looks like you’ve been doing more “learnings” and “leaning into” the underlying problems more so than many getting paid the big $$$ in our FD

Our offseason is going to define whether we fall away significantly or can still compete with the better teams imo. We are going to need significant improvements in output from some existing players and some fresh talent - neither is that easy to achieve 

[ElDiablo14 4,997]

12 hours ago, middleagedemon said:

It's the classic goal-post shifting that is the more hilarious thing from Binman and the like.

It's now fatigue apparently!!! Fatigue! 

I mean, give us a break! 

How did fatigue go for us when we managed to peg GWS back in that last quarter? Was it fatigue in the first quarter alone against the Bulldogs? How are we measuring this exactly? 

You can't take that bunch seriously because there'll be an excuse that becomes 'The Reason' for our failings for that given season. Which is utterly ridiculous given these are commonalities ALL teams go through and just covers over underlying issues that have existed for too long. 

Injury and fatigue hey. Wow. 

How you measure these as a supporter depends entirely on what level of bias one holds for their team. For Binman and co, the dees  always seem to be victim of such cruelties, more so than any other side in the AFL! That's because this particular group of dlanders have held the long-standing and unequivocal belief that we are the best team in it, we have undoubtedly the best game-plan and the most talented list. 

If you vehemently believe the above to be true, you're no doubt going to throw up one or two excuses as 'The Reason' for a failed season. Which is exactly what this crew have done since the 2022 finals campaign, all the while completely ignoring a set of underlying issues that have plagued us even throughout our 2021 home and away year. 

Along with the obvious disadvantages that all teams face every year, why don't we look at some of the contributing factors that have remained with us as a side for far too long now. And are the reason that all supporters get so frustrated with Goodwin. 

1: Jackson replacement/genuine Gawn support. Why is it that Goodwin defenders cannot seem to handle criticism of the failings in this area? It's been a significant fail given the way we have relied on him and provided next to no support. If dlanders are happy to throw up the injury excuse when he's out or when 'carrying' injury, how do you not point the finger at Goodwin and co for providing no support in a game where injury is bound to happen to anyone at any time? Especially so when part of your game-plan has been built around Max Gawn. 

2: Midfield balance/attribute diversity I've banged on about this for I don't know how many years and it has plagued us in just about every game in which a team brings heat to our midfield. How much longer will it continue? Look no further than the first possession that we had on Friday night against the Dogs. Viney racing for a ball in dispute, gets to it and has two free Melbourne players if he manages to hook a dominant hand handball over his right shoulder. But no, he sees red, handballs blindly forward straight to a doggies player who takes possession. That kind of play is emblematic of our entire midfield unit when any serious heat is applied. And it happened all night. We have a contested heavy, ball winning heavy midfield unit who all lack in the same area when under pressure. Composure and disposal. 

It is that simple. We win the ball in tight and give it up almost immediately when the heat is applied. And every single side that have a half decent midfield know this when they play us. As the game goes on, the more desperate our mids become to win a clearance/contest and the more we swarm to the same ball and man with ball, in part because these mids have been 'ball winning' players since they were kids and desperation kicks in. The commentary around our lack of pace/run and the 'fatigue' comments are actually by-products of what is happening in close. We give the ball up that easily when heat is applied, it makes the opposition look quicker, fitter and like they have more players on the ground. When opposition half-backs could see the standard set by their mids on fri night, they knew they could have a field day by rolling the dice and streaming off their men, getting that call right the majority of the night due to how easily we were giving the ball up in close if we were getting our hands on it. (Which for much of the night we weren't even doing). So then it's two fold. You've got oppo half-backs playing their own game of footy as their mids are just consistently either winning first possession themselves and handballing out of congestion and then to running half backs, or they knew if we were to get first possession, we'd likely cough it up thanks to the the heat their team mates were applying in close and our lack of composure and disposal came to the fore. 

When the dogs bring heat like that, they look a million bucks because they are one of a few clubs who have mids who excel at feeding a ball out of a contest with a quick, smart handball under pressure. Libba and Bont specifically are specialists at this. Even Treloar has better hands in close than most if not all our mids. 

Now, clearance altogether has two parts to it. The one I listed above and the second being our actual setup at both centre bounce and stoppage. Both our positioning and lack of connectedness with Gawn has been wildly inconsistent for too long. Another issue that Binman and his brigade seem to ignore when they say things like, 'oh well, we don't place a premium on clearances anyway'. 

How about nah. Clearance gives you complete ascendency if you get it right. End of the third Q grand final? 

3: Forward setup/personnel. 

Again. How long? Let's go back to last year's finals and those who basically said inaccuracy cost us the flag. That might be so, but that has been in part down to game-plan and personnel. And inaccuracy has cost us in plenty of other games over the last few years. I'm not sure what Goodwin expects when he plays two key defenders as key forwards and one young kid who is still learning how to be a forward at AFL level. (JVR played a lot of defence as an under-aged kid and I don't classify him as a classical key forward).

Our inability to land one has been telling. We have a make-shift forward line that consistently looks like a dogs breakfast with little to no predictability in the way it moves. At the very least, Ben Brown was a straight line ball leader, which created vacuums of space for specialist forwards like Fritsch or Kosi to creep into. Goodwin has seemed happy to continue to play 'competitors' which means our kids are again happy to bomb away into the forward 50 with little to no intentionality. 

This problem also goes hand-in-hand with our midfield issue which I highlighted above. We have average ball user through our midfield when under no pressure and they're poor when under pressure. 

So, what will it take for us to land a specialist forwards assistant coach and perhaps a complete re-think of the type of players we want to have inside 50? Are we prepared to continue to play Fritsch when the ball isn't perfect for him given his complete disinterest in competing defensively? Another factor in why opposition teams waltz the ball out of our defence. Opposition defenders completely exploit that part of Fritsch's game. Do people notice this? When will Goody hold him to account? I won't hold my breath given the myriad of issues we have in our forwardline anyway. 

Ben Brown at full fitness is what this team misses more than supporters give credit for and we need to bring in another player of that type pronto. 

So, whilst I'm not in the 'sack Goody' camp. I certainly think that he's done this team no favours in the last few years and if he is not to blame, who we blaming? The umpires? Injury? Fitness? 

How about no. Those things will be there every year, period. Sure Petracca has been a missive loss. But that's even more telling! If a team is that reliant on one player, there are some serious underlying issues. 

And just so it's clear, I'm no doomsdayer. I believe we can rectify, recalibrate and go again whilst we still have some key pillars. But we need to absolutely nail this off-season and nail the pre-season and actually fix some of these underlying issues that have existed for far too long. 

If not, it will indeed be a wasted era. 

I agree with most of the above, but specifically on point 3.

The fact that we have known, even after the flag, that we needed to strengthen our KPF position and nothing has happened is very damning.

I was expecting us to make a godfather offer to one KPF in 2022, similar to what Richmond did after they won in 2017 with Lynch.

Instead we have tried to transform defenders into forwards (Petty and Turner).

Or hope that BBB would be healthy enough to play more than 15 games in a season.

I think it is now too late and we just have to work with what we have. Develop JVR and Jeffo, maybe bring a veteran forward that doesn't cost much for a couple of years to help those two young guns.

I am not convinced on spending a lot of money and potentially draft picks for Waterman.

Actually, would Lynch make sense? Just as a mentor to our young guns not really expecting him to be our next premiership forward. That would just be a bonus.

[pibroch 0]

I'm appalled at the number of turnovers in recent games which appears to have gotten worse over the course of 2024., Often resulting from rushed blind disposals trying to move the ball quickly downfield instead of trying to keep possession. What causes a coach to allow this to happen?

[dazzledavey36 54,761]

6 minutes ago, ElDiablo14 said:

I agree with most of the above, but specifically on point 3.

The fact that we have known, even after the flag, that we needed to strengthen our KPF position and nothing has happened is very damning.

I was expecting us to make a godfather offer to one KPF in 2022, similar to what Richmond did after they won in 2017 with Lynch.

Instead we have tried to transform defenders into forwards (Petty and Turner).

Or hope that BBB would be healthy enough to play more than 15 games in a season.

I think it is now too late and we just have to work with what we have. Develop JVR and Jeffo, maybe bring a veteran forward that doesn't cost much for a couple of years to help those two young guns.

I am not convinced on spending a lot of money and potentially draft picks for Waterman.

Actually, would Lynch make sense? Just as a mentor to our young guns not really expecting him to be our next premiership forward. That would just be a bonus.

Lynch would be good but unfortunately he's very injury prone over the last few years.

I liked what Gold Coast did a few years ago where they brought in Levi Gasboult as a bigger body to take the load off Ben King and Jack Lukosius and provide some valuable guidance and leadership.

I don't know who's out there perhaps at the end of the year that we could look out but I think this is something we may need to go down the path with instead of spending big.

Could that be Lynch? It would be a yes from me if he wasn't so injury prone.

[dimmy 1,307]

Lynch is all bunged up. Why spend stupendous money on him. Unfortunately we are seeing the end of BBB's on field influenceing.

We have a ripper in Van Ruyen (until Freemantle /WC offer him a gas field/mine to come home. (We had a ripper in Jackson who would / did solved a lot of the problems we are currently moaning about. Our failed experiment with Grundy was worth a try, but the powers that be failed to realise that Champions have egos (part of their makeup)

 

[ElDiablo14 4,997]

35 minutes ago, dimmy said:

Lynch is all bunged up. Why spend stupendous money on him. Unfortunately we are seeing the end of BBB's on field influenceing.

We have a ripper in Van Ruyen (until Freemantle /WC offer him a gas field/mine to come home. (We had a ripper in Jackson who would / did solved a lot of the problems we are currently moaning about. Our failed experiment with Grundy was worth a try, but the powers that be failed to realise that Champions have egos (part of their makeup)

 

JVR strikes me as a loyal fellow and mature for his age, he already signed longer than what man child Jackson did.

[don cordner 204]

On 02/08/2024 at 22:02, WERRIDEE said:

Slow ball movement stagnated forward line. Time to go if you care about the club Goody you should take sole responsibility for the disasterous year we have had. We need to rebuild and Goody is not the man to take us there unless you want a Simpson type form line. Roffey if you are worth your weight you should sack him now. Time to release Jeffo

I can tell your from Werribee because your post is poo, Goody is a legend of a man, won 2 flags as a player and took dees to a flag as coach, he’s awesome on his conferences always calm and professional, I can’t think of anyone else around who’s better! I love Goodwin and he has my up most respect as a player, coach and person!

Edited August 5 by don cordner

[Diamond_Jim 12,566]

We are paying heavily for playing one game plan for too many years. Whether it be at VFL level, against lesser opposition or for times when we were well ahead (remember those days) the refusal to experiment was simply arrogant.

That it was such a boring gameplan (I called it the python technique) didn't help.

Anyway Goodwin is here for the next 3 years. Time to work on our plans post Gawn and May.

I would be very disappointed if we spent valuable draft picks on Houston or the like to shore up the present list in hope of extending the window.

[Wells 11 5,390]

21 minutes ago, don cordner said:

I can tell your from Werribee because your post is poo, Goody is a legend of a man, won 2 flags as a player and took dees to a flag as coach, he’s awesome on his conferences always calm and professional, I can’t think of anyone else around who’s better! I love Goodwin and he has my up most respect as a player, coach and person!

Agreed. 

[picket fence 17,126]

20 minutes ago, don cordner said:

I can tell your from Werribee because your post is poo, Goody is a legend of a man, won 2 flags as a player and took dees to a flag as coach, he’s awesome on his conferences always calm and professional, I can’t think of anyone else around who’s better! I love Goodwin and he has my up most respect as a player, coach and person!

He may well be all of those things BUT, that is what this forum is about and there are some,like me that think he has reached his use by date as coach of MFC. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion!

[jnrmac 20,055]

20 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Well this is damning..

 

This is all on the coaching staff. Players are bereft of confidence. They have no idea what they are supposed to be doing. They turn the ball over. You can see the panic when they get the ball. They just dont know what to do.

They will trot out excuses like, oh we had injuries - and yes that explains some of it - but if you told me at the start of the season we would be 18th for clearances  I would have laughed at you. The players are clueless what to do. Or at the very least confused as to what they should be doing.

It's blindingly obvious except to the happy clappers here.

[jnrmac 20,055]

And now let's do an honest assessment of which players have improved this year. Our senior players have let us down badly. Oliver, Salem, Viney, Lever, Petty

Improvers: Rivers, McVee, maybe Langdon, maybe JvR. That's it

First year players - Windsor - started well. Tholstrup - has been OK

 

Who has improved from the 2021 GF:

• May - no
• Lever - backwards
• Rivers - yes
• Petty - backwards
• Salem - backwards
• Petracca - excused
• Langdon - maybe
• ANB - maybe
• McDonald - no
• Sparrow - backwards
• Spargo - excused
• BBrown - no
• Fritsch - Backwards
• Bowey - excused
• Pickett - not really
• Chandler - no
• Gawn - no
• Oliver - backwards
• Viney - no

Theres our problem right there.

 

A lot of players that are fringe. Woey, billings, Hunter, Schache, Thommo, McAdam, Hore, Verral, Sestan, Farris White BBB

 

 

[layzie 33,791]

21 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Well this is damning..

 

Not even the biggest fans of post-clearance possession can defend that one.