7 hours ago, spirit of norm smith said:

Junk time is Dees worst period.  It happens year after year.  Play out the quarter !!! 
 

I think it’s been that way for 25 years or more

3 minutes ago, 640MD said:

I think it’s been that way for 25 years or more

In '21, we ran out quarters very well. I think it shows the margins between a premiership and an also-ran is pretty thin. Being off 100% concentration for 5 minutes of one quarter can lose you games, and ruin a good season.

I think the fire will burn long after this one, and I expect very strong performances over the next two weeks.

17 hours ago, jnrmac said:

What about the Petty handball to Langdon that went astray and hit the behind post. Paid as a deliberate.

Garbage

Yes, I wrote about that in the gameday thread......Unbelievable. Only Melbourne could get pinged by some rule that's never been used in the history of the game. #shaftedforever.

14

So with Goodwin's new way of talking openly, will he be prepared to admit that we went too tall in the forward line on a damp day?

3 rookies in fact when considering that JVR is far from the finished product

3 talls 3 marks (that's in total)

We lost the game at the selection table (15) 

Hey folks, it could be worse

Picket Fence - Jeffo

1 hour ago, Stu said:

In '21, we ran out quarters very well. I think it shows the margins between a premiership and an also-ran is pretty thin. Being off 100% concentration for 5 minutes of one quarter can lose you games, and ruin a good season.

I think the fire will burn long after this one, and I expect very strong performances over the next two weeks.

Yes, we were running on top of the ground in 2021

And as a consequence, we moved the ball with real slickness.  What stands out is how our forwards were often in 1 on 1's back then

Example being Fritsch in the GF ... the ball was kicked to him 8 times in a 1 on 1 and he won the ball 7 times (the other time he was pushed in the back in the goal square) 

Since then most of the other teams have deliberately flooded our forward line whilst our movement forward has slowed right down (and we often go wide) 

 

1 hour ago, Macca said:

 

I think part of winning the flag is fine tuning your game plan as the season progresses. We’ve started by playing 3 talls who will all be better for the run. AJ goes out so I’d bring Turner in and go with 3 talls again. When we have Pickett, Spargo and Melksham available I think we can adjust the set up. It seems the FD want to try JVR as a stay at home forward, I like this but that means we need another relief ruck….enter AJ. No one else in the team can play that role so I think we’ll see JVR back there this week unless Turner is given a shot. Personally I think you pick your best 22 so at times that’ll be 3 talls and at others it won’t be. For mine a lot depends on whether Spargo can find form as I think Chandler is running out of chances and I wasn’t overly excited about Sharp’s game. I’d like to see both Pickett and Spargo play and with better crumbers I think you can play 3 talls. Again we’re relying very heavily on a 33 year old ruckman but his form looks good. I just hope they give him games off as the season goes on. 
In other words I think this week’s best 22 has 3 talls playing.

Edited March 18Mar 18 by george_on_the_outer

5 minutes ago, Roost it far said:

I think part of winning the flag is fine tuning your game plan as the season progresses. We’ve started by playing 3 talls who will all be better for the run. AJ goes out so I’d bring Turner in and go with 3 talls again. When we have Pickett, Spargo and Melksham available I think we can adjust the set up. It seems the FD want to try JVR as a stay at home forward, I like this but that means we need another relief ruck….enter AJ. No one else in the team can play that role so I think we’ll see JVR back there this week unless Turner is given a shot. Personally I think you pick your best 22 so at times that’ll be 3 talls and at others it won’t be. For mine a lot depends on whether Spargo can find form as I think Chandler is running out of chances and I wasn’t overly excited about Sharp’s game. I’d like to see both Pickett and Spargo play and with better crumbers I think you can play 3 talls. Again we’re relying very heavily on a 33 year old ruckman but his form looks good. I just hope they give him games off as the season goes on. 
In other words I think this week’s best 22 has 3 talls playing.

Or May might come back in, and TMac goes forward/ruck?

20 minutes ago, Roost it far said:

I think part of winning the flag is fine tuning your game plan as the season progresses. We’ve started by playing 3 talls who will all be better for the run. AJ goes out so I’d bring Turner in and go with 3 talls again. When we have Pickett, Spargo and Melksham available I think we can adjust the set up. It seems the FD want to try JVR as a stay at home forward, I like this but that means we need another relief ruck….enter AJ. No one else in the team can play that role so I think we’ll see JVR back there this week unless Turner is given a shot. Personally I think you pick your best 22 so at times that’ll be 3 talls and at others it won’t be. For mine a lot depends on whether Spargo can find form as I think Chandler is running out of chances and I wasn’t overly excited about Sharp’s game. I’d like to see both Pickett and Spargo play and with better crumbers I think you can play 3 talls. Again we’re relying very heavily on a 33 year old ruckman but his form looks good. I just hope they give him games off as the season goes on. 
In other words I think this week’s best 22 has 3 talls playing.

I don't get the love for Spargo ... at the top level he has been found out time and time again.  Doesn't get the ball enough

At a lower level down he can play well but that's not always a good indicator

I hope he does well, if picked

The issue I have with playing the 3 talls (JVR, Jeffo & Turner) is that none of the 3 can be relied on to contributing in a meaningful way

So it's one too many until they belt the door down

A lot of teams have gone medium/tall and if we have Melk available with Petracca & Fritsch pushing forward, there's your marking power in totality (2 talls, 3 mediums)

Added to that (if we're talking 8 or 9 possibles -  rotating forward) are Tholstrup, Kozzie, Henderson, Chandler and the like

So we can have a workable and dangerous forward line 

So it's not just picking things apart from my point of view ... I'm offering a solution as well 

And we shouldn't be too concerned about the 2nd ruck duties.  JVR and our spare man down back (T-Mac) can cover for 5 minutes per quarter

Edited March 17Mar 17 by Macca

Just a quick one — Turner comes back in for AJ and May injury was Friday acc to club.
 

Glad @binman agreed re AJ and someone telling him he was better off passing if possible or hitting pocket so we can defend — only way GWS win is if he GIVE them ball back which we did. Was 1m 40s left when they took ball at kick-in.

Edited March 17Mar 17 by Tolstoys Nudge

15 minutes ago, DiscoStu17 said:

Or May might come back in, and TMac goes forward/ruck?

TMac is a must in best 22 on.both last year's and this year's  form..

Howes is a no-go

11 minutes ago, Macca said:

I don't get the love for Spargo ... at the top level he has been found out time and time again.  Doesn't get the ball enough

At a lower level down he can play well but that's not always a good indicator

I hope he does well, if picked

The issue I have with playing the 3 talls (JVR, Jeffo & Turner) is that none of the 3 can be relied on to contributing in a meaningful way

So it's one too many until they belt the door down

A lot of teams have gone medium/tall and if we have Melk available with Petracca & Fritsch pushing forward, there's your marking power in totality (2 talls, 3 mediums)

Added to that (if we're talking 8 or 9 possibles -  rotating forward) are Tholstrup, Kozzie, Henderson, Chandler and the like

So we can have a workable and dangerous forward line 

So it's not just picking things apart from my point of view ... I'm offering a solution as well 

And we shouldn't be too concerned about the 2nd ruck duties.  JVR and our spare man down back (T-Mac) can cover for 5 minutes per quarter

He's limited but he works very hard. Think he'd provide more than Chandler right now but really we just need more smalls in our forwardline who can put on pressure at ground level, stop the ball from coming out so easily.

Just now, KozzyCan said:

He's limited but he works very hard. Think he'd provide more than Chandler right now but really we just need more smalls in our forwardline who can put on pressure at ground level, stop the ball from coming out so easily.

I thought Henderson & Sharp were ok for their first games. Both might have a future

In the selectors minds It's perhaps Chandler or Spargo but when Kozzie comes back that might change 

What stands out (and has done for quite some time) is our lack of front & centre types.  We pick blokes for that role but they rarely deliver ... it's a real issue as we aren't getting those snapshot at goal from the hot spot

4 minutes ago, Macca said:

I thought Henderson & Sharp were ok for their first games. Both might have a future

In the selectors minds It's perhaps Chandler or Spargo but when Kozzie comes back that might change 

What stands out (and has done for quite some time) is our lack of front & centre types.  We pick blokes for that role but they rarely deliver ... it's a real issue as we aren't getting those snapshot at goal from the hot spot

Our forward line game plan is still based on defence first. Koz might be the only one who gets a license to do as he pleases.

It’s very hard to be defensively minded and create opportunistic crumbing goals 

15 hours ago, fr_ap said:

And you arent reading. I didn't say he couldn't take a hit. We all saw him back into packs. 

I'm not questioning his courage or application - but the one area of his game I have a question mark is whether he can win physical 1v1 battles. Langdon wins more than his fair share for his size and it's a critical, underrated part of wingplay and also a key determinant of whether he has midfield scope at AFL level. 

Now he's a kid and he's played one game - and for 3 years will likely lose more 1v1s than he wins until he's physically developed. So as I said, time will tell. 

Go watch his vision available on YouTube - there's hours of it.

Kid is very tough - super hard it and never shirks a contest.

No doubt a reason he was skipper of Gippsland power (and I think vc for Vic country). 

Played as a mid as often as hb or winger.

We saw a glimpse of his toughness on Sunday when he battled with their most experienced player, Callan Ward (a bloke who has played  more than 300 games of AFL football) one on one in a marking contest and when the ball hit the ground tackled him and won a holding the ball free.

15 hours ago, MrFreeze said:

I saw Fritsch gut running hard attempting to lay tackles, I don't think it's an effort issue. 

He just is in real bad form.

He needs new tricks - he is not an aerial threat. Defenders know he wants to get space out the back. They know he favour's the left foot. He doesn't crumb off packs much either.

At least if he plays up the ground we can use his field kicking, but his days as a deep forward are long gone atm.

disagree. he's still our best deep forward. i think people need to take into account we had Jefferson, Johnstone playing their first games and they are all getting used to each other. We are playing 3 talls along with Fritsch so defensive pressure will suffer. 

14 hours ago, Macca said:

Our 3 bigs up forward not only took just 3 marks between them (is that a record low?) but none of them were able to consistently lock the ball in our forward line

Lumbering Giants was a play on words (humour) but on reflection more like Statuesque

I wasn't impressed as I have reasonable expectations for the key forwards

One mark each for the entire game and if the conditions weren't going to suit, why play all 3?

Did you watch GWS dominate marks in defensive 50 last week with one of the best key back in the league ? AJ did his job bringing it to ground. as did the others. Thats what Goodwin rates.

9 minutes ago, Macca said:

I thought Henderson & Sharp were ok for their first games. Both might have a future

In the selectors minds It's perhaps Chandler or Spargo but when Kozzie comes back that might change 

What stands out (and has done for quite some time) is our lack of front & centre types.  We pick blokes for that role but they rarely deliver ... it's a real issue as we aren't getting those snapshot at goal from the hot spot

They were fine but they're really the last selected sorts of players who will probably spend half the season in the VFL. The only way we get more of those types of crumbing goals is to drop a tall player and replace them with a small. Right now we have 3-4 blokes in our forwardline all going for the same contested mark, so the ball inevitably hits the deck and we don't have the manpower to win the footy. Small defenders move it out with ease.

The other thing is when we did actually get the ball to our forwardline on the fast break we mostly didn't have enough options forward to do anything with it, our options were all covered and we couldn't move the ball quickly enough to get the ball to someone in that super dangerous position within 30m of goal. There was one where Petracca had it going inside 50 and he had to handball it to Viney who was immediately under pressure because he had no other options. Viney had to snap the ball from 45 out which just lead to a high up-and-under ball at the top of the square. It's not an effective way to score and I'm hoping this is the teething issues Goodwin talked about.

If Gawn is going to float down there half the time there really is no justification that can be made for playing a forwardline this tall.

Hawthorn have one genuine tall forward and kicked 14 goals and 17 goals. Key forwards who can only win it in the air are out of vogue. 

13 minutes ago, BW511 said:

Our forward line game plan is still based on defence first. Koz might be the only one who gets a license to do as he pleases.

It’s very hard to be defensively minded and create opportunistic crumbing goals 

Well, we need to change as we are being left behind

Working for a boundary line stoppage in our own forward line is now playing into the oppositions hands ... the other clubs know what we are going to do and plan accordingly 

We have to work too hard for our scores.  It's exhausting to watch, imagine being part of it? 

2 minutes ago, Macca said:

Well, we need to change as we are being left behind

Working for a boundary line stoppage in our own forward line is now playing into the oppositions hands ... the other clubs know what we are going to do and plan accordingly 

We have to work too hard for our scores.  It's exhausting to watch, imagine being part of it? 

I agree entirely. I think I’ve mentioned it a few times over the years - we have to work far too hard to create a scoring opportunity and when we get the chance, we are absolutely cooked.

 

4 minutes ago, KozzyCan said:

 Key forwards who can only win it in the air are out of vogue. 

Good post

On the above bit, it's a lot like the pure 2nd ruck

In many ways, obsolete 

The game is a midfielders game with the majority of players being able to defend & attack 

A form of Total football

 

Let down by JVR and Fritsch, however loads of positives with the kids, as there were last year too.

4 hours ago, Stu said:

In '21, we ran out quarters very well

Seems like our fitness hasn't been as good since Burgess left.  He was a weapon.

I don't read replies or reactions 

15 minutes ago, greenwaves said:

Seems like our fitness hasn't been as good since Burgess left.  He was a weapon.

I don't read replies or reactions 

What’s up doc?

Edited March 18Mar 18 by Tarax Club

12 minutes ago, greenwaves said:

Seems like our fitness hasn't been as good since Burgess left.  He was a weapon.

I don't read replies or reactions 

7 hours ago, Go Ds said:

Do you have stats for previous years? It is quite likely GWS were fitter than us. One of the ways that could show up is a drop-off late in quarters, yes? We should wait for a bigger sample than one.

2024. After the 25 minute mark....

MFC - 347 points

Opposition - 292 points

12 'wins' 10 'losses' 1 'Draw'

Having said that, I think the Giants were fitter last week due to the run in the opening round and Kingsley even flexed that in his pre match.