Join us LIVE on Monday night at 7:30pm as we break down the Practice Match against the Dockers.

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Welcome back Andy, George and Binman. Looking forward to another year of the podcast.
It's early March so I'll stick with the positives following the preseason match against Freo.
The pleasing takeaways for me were:

1. The return of Trac - looks like he hadn't missed a beat. Great for him to get a game under his belt without injury.
2. Clarry's comeback. He looks fit, strong and quick - dare I say it, back to the Clarry of old.
3. Sparrow playing ANB's role.
4. Our clearance dominance in the second half.
5. Greater use of forward handball to keep pace on the ball.
6. AJ looks to be a ripper.

 

Given our inaccuracy in front of goal, should the AFL introduce a "close enough" rule just for the Dees?

Seriously though, how good were Trac and Clarry, 61 possies between them. 
 

Pumped for the season ahead. Go Dees. 

Welcome back guys. It was a nice surprise to see the podcast pop up in my feed last week. Looking forward to a great year of podcasting ahead.

We had more possessions +39

More Marks +6

More Shots on Goal +6

Equal Tackles

More Inside 50s +18

More Hit Outs +22

More Clearances +18

But we lost by 19 and I felt it should have been much more.

Besides the first 8 minutes of the 1st quarter and most of the 3rd I thought we were either smashed or absolutely exposed. Surely the difference wasn't just our missed shots.

Good to you have you guys back. Excellent show last week.

Would love to get your thoughts on Langdon's new role through the middle. Do you think we will persist with this or will he return to the wing?

Max was banged up from pillar to post throughout the whole match and was very ginger when he hobbled off late in the 3rd quarter. Given that we have the daunting prospect of having to manage him in his advanced age and that this was only a practice match; why oh why would you put him back on the field in the last. We already had lost JVR we don't need another big man in doubt for Round 1. I was furious and I almost threw a can melbourne bitter through the telly.

How good was it to see Clarry back to his blistering best for. Loved that he slotted through 3 goals. The last one was my favourite. Will be a weapon for us this year. Bring on the real stuff.

I thought Rivers had a really poor game. I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater on the back of one poor practice match but with a full compliment in the middle with Trac, Clarry and Jack with cameos from Kozzy and Langers and eventually Langford, I would like to see Rivers go back into defence as I think he would be better run and carrying and distributing out of defence like Houston from Port/Collingwood. What do you guys think?

Looking at some of the game thread post on Demonland for this game, the comments on the game plan already concern me. Though I didn’t see any of the game.

Does the game plan work with the players we have? How many weeks do you think it will take to know if it will or won’t work?

Are we going to do the same as last year, try and make a game plan work that doesn’t given our strengths and weaknesses only to abandon it mid season?

Granted, it was just a practice match, but I had some concerns about our defence. The slow and tentative "chipping it around" ball movement out of the backline lacked confidence at times. While there’s been a push to avoid blindly kicking long to Max on the flank, this alternative approach didn’t seem convincing.

Windsor still looks a long way off from mastering the art of defending and distributing.

I'm not sold on Howes as a defender.

Adams showed some nice glimpses, but he’s nowhere near ready to replace May, Petty, or Lever.

We really missed Petty, and I can only hope his absence wasn’t due to injury.

Bowey had an absolute shocker. His disposal was arguably the worst in the team which is very concerning.

Judd McVee’s absence was felt.

I read somewhere that 7 of a backmen only laid 3 tackles. Yikes.

On a positive note, Salem was back to his sublime best.

That said, alarm bells are ringing. We simply cannot afford to bleed goals.

Edited March 2Mar 2 by Singa

Didn't see the game but read in the report that Aiden Johnson competed hard all day and was rewarded with a goal for his efforts late. 

With JVR's back spasm and possible doubt for Rd 1, what are the chances for Johnson getting the nod?

Also as a side note: Reading about Trac/Clarry's performance and Clarry's excellent physical condition was better news than any result on the day. This is very encouraging. 

After the Trade Week from Hell when I thought we would lose our beloved Trac it was so great to see him burst through the first center clearance. 33 Possessions and 9 Clearances. Welcome Back Trac.

On last week's podcast, everyone was understandably thrilled with our new recruits, both traded and drafted. However, I must admit I was a little underwhelmed this week. While it's expected that the young players will take time to develop, Langford looked lost, and I didn’t even realize Sharp was on the field until halfway through the match. On a positive note, Lindsay showed some nice touches and displayed excellent disposal. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the performances of Sharp, Langford, Lindsay, and Johnson.

Edited March 2Mar 2 by Lefty

Thanks as always for your hard work, diligence and good humor  - welcome back.  I didn’t get in in time to welcome you back last week.

Unfortunately I couldn’t watch the whole match, and I realize that stats aren’t the be all but yet again we dominated many key stats yet couldn’t kick a winning score. Is our forward line going to be as frustrating as it has been for many years?  Have you noticed any changes in approach?  
 

PS why would Frittata with a mark well within his range pass backwards to Billings, who predictably missed?

The most frustrating aspect of this game for me was our accuracy in front of goal. This has been a persistent issue for several years, with little to no improvement, and once again, our set-shot kicking was agonizing to watch. I have virtually no confidence in most of our players when they line up for goal.

Whether it’s a technical flaw, nerves, or something else entirely, the fact remains that nothing has been done in any of our offseasons to address it. The only thing more infuriating than winning the inside 50s and watching the ball rebound straight out, a problem we’ve had in the past, is dominating inside 50s, generating scoring shots, but failing to convert them into goals. Winning the scoring shots by six yet losing the game by three goals is simply unacceptable.

Sure, they missed some chances too, but we squandered some absolute sitters, and that’s inexcusable. And before anyone dismisses this as "just a practice match," I shudder to think how we’ll fare when the real pressure kicks in.

I don’t want to be negative but we have to have someone more capable of Jack Billings. Gets himself into the right positions I guess, but for a guy who is in the team is as a connector due to his use, he isn’t that good. Can’t kick more than 30, 4 shots at goal couldn’t get 1, missed a couple kicks inside 50 to pretty open players. Thoughts on swapping him with Woey? Not as good disposal but at least he puts his all in and doesn’t mind some contact. 

I'd love to hear the panel's thoughts on how we utilized Kozzy in this match. I understand that he’ll be unavailable for the first three rounds and that this game served as a dress rehearsal for Round 1, as well as for navigating those early weeks without him. That said, it’s still crucial to get game time and conditioning into him, given that he won’t play for five weeks and only managed a quarter yesterday.

That brief stint, however, was enough to remind us just how impactful he is. His absence in the first three quarters starkly exposed our deficiencies in the small forward department as well as that impact player in the middle. We're going to feel his loss significantly in the opening rounds. Simply put, Chandler does not provide the same output. And if we do lose Kozzy at season’s end, which I fear is a real possibility, we’ll be up the proverbial creek.

The blueprint for back half transition / turnover game is very much the weapon most teams are adopting these days. What makes us so vulnerable to teams like Freo, Collingwood, Hawthorn, Geelong and others with this game style is the way we turnover in our F5?

Is it really our forward 50 pressure? Or is it more that our slower ball movement and imprecise kicking?

Even though we won CP's and clearances yesterday, i wondered whether this really mattered to Longmuir. Was he prepared to give the stoppage away as he knew he could better us on the outside? I don't have the stats, but it looked like we often turned the ball over a lot post clearance and Freo midfielders had taken a more offensive field position which gave them more time with ball in hand when moving the ball inside their f50. We on the other hand, seem to always deliver the ball to a flooded f50. 

Id like to see us work more on our structure and setup all over the ground. Felt like we were again drawn into the contest and were outnumbered on the outside.

 

Sorry for the long question / observation. 

 

JVR’s early injury quickly exposed our lack of depth in the forward line, as well as the flow-on effect it had on our ability to provide in-game ruck support for Max without compromising our tall forward stocks. Hopefully, his back spasms were just a one-off rather than a sign of a more significant issue that could sideline him for an extended period.

If Roo isn’t available for Round 1, what do you think the make up of our Forward line will look like?

Going to cut the questions off here. See you all tonight at 7:30pm.

We're LIVE

Nothing but your dulcet tones on the pod recording, Andy! 😄

1 minute ago, DeelightfulPlay said:

Nothing but your dulcet tones on the pod recording, Andy! 😄

This was another preseason performance for me—brushing off the cobwebs from a technical and production standpoint.

Just 20 to 30 minutes before we went live, I had to factory reset my mixer. I thought I had restored all the settings correctly, but unfortunately, I had selected the wrong microphone type, which I only realized about a third of the way through the broadcast.

Throughout the stream, my cohosts occasionally reported that my voice was becoming robotic. Thankfully, this issue wasn’t present in the recording captured by my mixer. I’m not entirely sure what caused it, but it was likely due to either my internet connection or the link between my mixer and my computer.

Another setting I forgot to reconfigure after the reset was separate channel recording. By default, the mixer saves a single mixed file instead of recording each channel individually. Normally, I have my audio on one channel, my cohosts on another, Skype calls on a third, and sound clips on a fourth.

The online software we use allows each of us to record our own audio locally before sending it to the cloud. In post-production, I usually take my mixer’s audio and sync it with the high-quality recordings from my cohosts’ computers. This method ensures better sound quality than relying on the live feed, which is also saved on my mixer.

However, because my mixer didn't separate the audio channels last night, I had to work with the single mixed file. Trying to manually stitch together that mixed recording with my cohosts’ separate audio would have been a nightmare. I would’ve had to spend hours muting their audio in the mixed file to prevent duplication.

To make matters worse, the mixed file had inconsistent audio levels between me and my cohosts, requiring some post-production work. I have no formal training in audio editing, so I did the best I could—especially considering that the unexpected factory reset meant I hadn’t eaten since lunchtime.

Long story short: never do a factory reset minutes before going live.

Outstanding work guys!  Absolutely loved the great range of questions from fellow Demonlanders, and your thoughtful, balanced and entertaining responses.  Thank you!  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️