On 18/03/2025 at 11:35, Sydee said:

Anyone see how this is a holding free kick to Greene - he has a fist full of his opponents jumper but somehow gets a free kick and goals 

Astonishing imo 

 

I said this at the game! Our most senior umpire gets sucked in to the 'second ' free, when Petty seems to pull his opponents arm down at the end of the contest!

  On 16/03/2025 at 23:25, Macca said:

Goodwin doesn't know how to coach offense very well

At best, he is adequate 

I can see why that impression holds for many, but I disagree, and please here me out! :D

Put your thoughts back to 2018, when we went berserk with scoring, easily topping the 'points for' ladder. In fact, no club has scored more in a season since!

There's no debating that Hogan was at the time an absolute gun tall forward, and has returned to that status late in his career. But the support around him was; Tom McDonald who is a very respectable player who had a excellent year, Jake Melksham who I love but it would be excessive to pretend he is the realm of say Breust or Green, Alex Neal-Bullen who we all know the strengths and limitations of, Petracca bobbing up impressively for almost a goal a game, and about half a season each from Mitch Hannan and Jeff Garlett. Even with Hogan, that is not a superstar forward lineup.

When we lost Hogan, there was just no way an attack-first method was going to get us a premiership. Acquiring May as a non-similar replacement proved to be a masterstroke, and getting Ben Brown in as a role-player was an injury burden risk which worked well enough to get us a premiership.

I suspect both losing Jackson and the disappointing Grundy season further limited our options for having tall marking targets up forward capable of capitalising on our brute-force method of getting the ball forward. Consider that just one or two contested marks taken up forward each game would have transformed our results in all three seasons of 21-22-23.

We clearly have prioritised the search for tall forward options, with Hogan, Weideman, Jackson, Van Rooyen and Jefferson all being high draft selections. Two of those players left and one of them never quite got it together. Now I'm sure the club is waiting through gritted teeth to see if Van Rooyen and Jefferson can mature soon enough to give us the marking options we need.

In the meantime, our forward line has been very much discount brand, relying on hard workers and our only consistent goal-kickers being the undersized marking Fritsch and the young small forward star Pickett.

For all that, we were in the top-6 for scoring for all of those three seasons.

So, I think our relative lack of potency up forward has had a lot more to do with the available talent than with a failure of coaching.

Reiterating; add one or two forward line contested marks a game, and even just a couple more good contests to bring the ball down, and our results for 21-22-23 look very, very different.

If Van Rooyen and Jefferson can get a good show up and running this season, we're right back in business as an attacking power.

  On 19/03/2025 at 05:50, Little Goffy said:

I can see why that impression holds for many, but I disagree, and please here me out! :D

Put your thoughts back to 2018, when we went berserk with scoring, easily topping the 'points for' ladder. In fact, no club has scored more in a season since!

There's no debating that Hogan was at the time an absolute gun tall forward, and has returned to that status late in his career. But the support around him was; Tom McDonald who is a very respectable player who had a excellent year, Jake Melksham who I love but it would be excessive to pretend he is the realm of say Breust or Green, Alex Neal-Bullen who we all know the strengths and limitations of, Petracca bobbing up impressively for almost a goal a game, and about half a season each from Mitch Hannan and Jeff Garlett. Even with Hogan, that is not a superstar forward lineup.

When we lost Hogan, there was just no way an attack-first method was going to get us a premiership. Acquiring May as a non-similar replacement proved to be a masterstroke, and getting Ben Brown in as a role-player was an injury burden risk which worked well enough to get us a premiership.

I suspect both losing Jackson and the disappointing Grundy season further limited our options for having tall marking targets up forward capable of capitalising on our brute-force method of getting the ball forward. Consider that just one or two contested marks taken up forward each game would have transformed our results in all three seasons of 21-22-23.

We clearly have prioritised the search for tall forward options, with Hogan, Weideman, Jackson, Van Rooyen and Jefferson all being high draft selections. Two of those players left and one of them never quite got it together. Now I'm sure the club is waiting through gritted teeth to see if Van Rooyen and Jefferson can mature soon enough to give us the marking options we need.

In the meantime, our forward line has been very much discount brand, relying on hard workers and our only consistent goal-kickers being the undersized marking Fritsch and the young small forward star Pickett.

For all that, we were in the top-6 for scoring for all of those three seasons.

So, I think our relative lack of potency up forward has had a lot more to do with the available talent than with a failure of coaching.

Reiterating; add one or two forward line contested marks a game, and even just a couple more good contests to bring the ball down, and our results for 21-22-23 look very, very different.

If Van Rooyen and Jefferson can get a good show up and running this season, we're right back in business as an attacking power.

Good post

My original post was related to the make-up of our forward line on a damp day and the way we deliver the ball into the forward line in general

IMV we made it easier for GWS to transition the ball out of our forward line 

To be fair, Goodwin is probably the best defence orientated coach going around

Maybe we need an offensive coordinator who can call the shots

Edited March 19Mar 19 by Macca

  On 18/03/2025 at 21:08, picket fence said:

FLIPPING THE SCRIPT, How about clubs paying our MIDS same courtesy and us winning a close game for a change??!

I’m with you there. Hopefully that becomes a thing when some of these young fast midfielders add their speed to the old heads already there.

  On 19/03/2025 at 06:19, Macca said:

Good post

My original post was related to the make-up of our forward line on a damp day and the way we deliver the ball into the forward line in general

IMV we made it easier for GWS to transition the ball out of our forward line 

To be fair, Goodwin is probably the best defence orientated coach going around

Maybe we need an offensive coordinator who can call the shots

On that much and probably more we are in general agreement.

On the one hand, we obstructed GWS' rebound a lot better than Collingwood did (not a high bar, just mentioning to make fun of the 'Pies), and I suspect a few other clubs will struggle.

On the other hand, if we want to be premiers then taking the momentum out of rebounds is going to be critical and there's clearly space for improvement.

I suspect there's a bit of missing Nibbler to it, while we get the 'settings' right for the roles of Chandler, Sharp, Henderson and Sparrow.

The way I see it, two more weeks for these guys to sort out who will stay or who will go when Pickett becomes available.

Meanwhile, Van Rooyen and Jefferson are a project which simply must be made to work.

Fritsch... may actually be in danger of a spell at Casey if he can't either make himself dangerous or build harassment into his game.

There's an awful of variability to figure out.

 

  On 19/03/2025 at 05:50, Little Goffy said:

I can see why that impression holds for many, but I disagree, and please here me out! :D

Put your thoughts back to 2018, when we went berserk with scoring, easily topping the 'points for' ladder. In fact, no club has scored more in a season since!

There's no debating that Hogan was at the time an absolute gun tall forward, and has returned to that status late in his career. But the support around him was; Tom McDonald who is a very respectable player who had a excellent year, Jake Melksham who I love but it would be excessive to pretend he is the realm of say Breust or Green, Alex Neal-Bullen who we all know the strengths and limitations of, Petracca bobbing up impressively for almost a goal a game, and about half a season each from Mitch Hannan and Jeff Garlett. Even with Hogan, that is not a superstar forward lineup.

When we lost Hogan, there was just no way an attack-first method was going to get us a premiership. Acquiring May as a non-similar replacement proved to be a masterstroke, and getting Ben Brown in as a role-player was an injury burden risk which worked well enough to get us a premiership.

I suspect both losing Jackson and the disappointing Grundy season further limited our options for having tall marking targets up forward capable of capitalising on our brute-force method of getting the ball forward. Consider that just one or two contested marks taken up forward each game would have transformed our results in all three seasons of 21-22-23.

We clearly have prioritised the search for tall forward options, with Hogan, Weideman, Jackson, Van Rooyen and Jefferson all being high draft selections. Two of those players left and one of them never quite got it together. Now I'm sure the club is waiting through gritted teeth to see if Van Rooyen and Jefferson can mature soon enough to give us the marking options we need.

In the meantime, our forward line has been very much discount brand, relying on hard workers and our only consistent goal-kickers being the undersized marking Fritsch and the young small forward star Pickett.

For all that, we were in the top-6 for scoring for all of those three seasons.

So, I think our relative lack of potency up forward has had a lot more to do with the available talent than with a failure of coaching.

Reiterating; add one or two forward line contested marks a game, and even just a couple more good contests to bring the ball down, and our results for 21-22-23 look very, very different.

If Van Rooyen and Jefferson can get a good show up and running this season, we're right back in business as an attacking power.

We scored big in 2018 because we had very little to work with in our backline and Goodwin didn't trust Omac and Frost as far as he could throw them so he went with the old Malcolm Blight approach of if you score 100 points I'll just make sure we score 120.

It was a fun year, and there was a very clear difference in the way we played. We basically backed ourselves in to win clearance and contested ball and had runners streaming forward so we could kill teams with our extra numbers. We got a lot of joe-the-goose goals that year, something that hasn't been seen in our side for a while now.

The reality was it was never the style Goodwin wanted to play but the style he felt a bit forced to play until he had his backline set up the way he liked it. He definitely prefers defence over attack.

  On 17/03/2025 at 23:24, 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 think we should play McDonald as the relief ruck up forward/wing then Turner can play TMac's role in defence. We  should play Fritsch closer to goal and Roo at CHF

Some players don't get ruck craft. (Or don't want to)

Protecting the drop zone, early contact, switching arms, lifting your knee, turning in your leap, having and sharing your plan etc. Cam Pederson & David Schwarz got it and were not 2m plus.

But it hurts.

  On 19/03/2025 at 08:14, Little Goffy said:

On that much and probably more we are in general agreement

On the one hand, we obstructed GWS' rebound a lot better than Collingwood did (not a high bar, just mentioning to make fun of the 'Pies), and I suspect a few other clubs will struggle.

On the other hand, if we want to be premiers then taking the momentum out of rebounds is going to be critical and there's clearly space for improvement.

I suspect there's a bit of missing Nibbler to it, while we get the 'settings' right for the roles of Chandler, Sharp, Henderson and Sparrow.

The way I see it, two more weeks for these guys to sort out who will stay or who will go when Pickett becomes available.

Meanwhile, Van Rooyen and Jefferson are a project which simply must be made to work.

Fritsch... may actually be in danger of a spell at Casey if he can't either make himself dangerous or build harassment into his game.

There's an awful of variability to figure out.

 

Fritsch stays for mine ... in a stronger forward line he is a real weapon.  To me, he's not the problem, it's what surrounds him.  We need him to able to play as the opportunist and in 1 on 1's

Plus, if he wanders upfield his delivery into the forward line becomes another real weapon

I don't have any issues with our midfield or defence but I can't wait to see Kozzie, Melk & Tholstrup back to strengthen our forward line

Here's my forward line (which includes T-Mac unless Jeffo or AJ can establish themselves) With May back we can move T-Mac or even Petty forward (we won't need 4 talls in the backline)

But I'm playing T-Mac deep as he can act as a decoy or take a decent defender with him.  And only 2 KPF forwards

 

HFF (A) Kozzie & Petracca rotating from the middle

CHF  van Rooyen but he needs to get on his bike and get involved when applicable

HFF (B) Fritsch (with a licence to roam wherever)

FP (A) Henderson (I'm hoping that this kid becomes a good small forward ... in before Chandler for now)

FF  T-Mac (has the experience and an innate ability to find space.  Whether his body can stand up as a forward is the question) But he plays deep.  Failing that, AJ or Jeffo)

FP (B) Melksham or Tholstrup (experience or youth? Whoever wins out)

 

Back ups ... Chandler, AJ, Turner, Jeffo

And I've got Sharp, Langford, Lindsay, Sparrow etc as rotating mids

Sharp could fill in as a small forward and Langford might find himself on a flank as well

Edited March 19Mar 19 by Macca

  On 19/03/2025 at 06:19, Macca said:

Maybe we need an offensive coordinator who can call the shots

That's Chaplin's role...

  On 19/03/2025 at 09:06, Adam The God said:

That's Chaplin's role...

Forward line coach and team offence but the offence starts from Stoppages, Turnovers or Half back

Does he cover all that area, @Adam The God?

Edited March 19Mar 19 by Macca

  On 19/03/2025 at 09:12, Macca said:

Forward line coach and team offence but the offence starts from Stoppages, Turnovers or Half back

Does he cover all that area, @Adam The God?

I'm pretty sure he's responsible for ball movement and how we enter A50.

Edited March 19Mar 19 by Adam The God

  On 19/03/2025 at 10:10, Adam The God said:

I'm pretty sure he's responsible for ball movement and how we enter A50.

Righto, I like that.  A defined position that can be judged by all and sundry

And with that responsibility comes close examination (by us haha)

  On 19/03/2025 at 10:10, Adam The God said:

I'm pretty sure he's responsible for ball movement and how we enter A50.

Yeah that was definitely talked about that Chaplin was taking control of ball movement 

  On 19/03/2025 at 10:20, Macca said:

Righto, I like that.  A defined position that can be judged by all and sundry

And with that responsibility comes close examination (by us haha)

And as @Little Goffy says, and I've said many times, Chaplin was responsible for our 2018 forwardline, the highest scoring forwardline in the league, with a huge and varied spread of regular goalkickers.

It'll be a work in progress this year, but if it clicks early enough, we'll be a premiership threat.

Edited March 19Mar 19 by Adam The God

  On 19/03/2025 at 10:22, Adam The God said:

And as @Little Goffy says, and I've said many times, Chaplin was responsible for our 2018 forwardline, the highest scoring forwardline in the league, with a huge and varied spread of regular goalkickers.

Need an open forward line and that can only happen with fast ball movement.  The use of the corridor along with what has come into vogue ... the 45° criss-cross passing (at speed) 

  On 19/03/2025 at 10:28, Macca said:

Need an open forward line and that can only happen with fast ball movement.  The use of the corridor along with what has come into vogue ... the 45° criss-cross passing (at speed) 

Agreed, but what I think we'll also see more of this year is more space in the forwardline rather than clumping together all our tall forwards to protect against the slingshot.

I think we'll look to isolate our forwards more, it's a very different set up to the Stafford forwardline.

To my eye, Sunday was evidence of this already. And surprisingly, despite his wirey frame, on a dry day, I think Jefferson would have plucked 3 or 4 good marks at the top of the square. I don't recall him being beaten in the air. 

We were also playing a team that is devastating on the counter, so I think we got the balance right between kicking to contests in our forwardline and trying to isolate forwards and have the ball ping back against us.

  On 19/03/2025 at 10:42, Adam The God said:

Agreed, but what I think we'll also see more of this year is more space in the forwardline rather than clumping together all our tall forwards to protect against the slingshot.

I think we'll look to isolate our forwards more, it's a very different set up to the Stafford forwardline.

To my eye, Sunday was evidence of this already. And surprisingly, despite his wirey frame, on a dry day, I think Jefferson would have plucked 3 or 4 good marks at the top of the square. I don't recall him being beaten in the air. 

We were also playing a team that is devastating on the counter, so I think we got the balance right between kicking to contests in our forwardline and trying to isolate forwards and have the ball ping back against us.

Yeah well spotted Adam. I thought MJ got to good positions more often than not.

The setup is definitely different. Sure the ball still came out quick at times but I think this can work given time. 

 

  On 19/03/2025 at 06:19, Macca said:

Good post

My original post was related to the make-up of our forward line on a damp day and the way we deliver the ball into the forward line in general

IMV we made it easier for GWS to transition the ball out of our forward line 

To be fair, Goodwin is probably the best defence orientated coach going around

Maybe we need an offensive coordinator who can call the shots

I think we really miss the current Tigers coach. 

  On 21/03/2025 at 05:47, old dee said:

I think we really miss the current Tigers coach. 

I reckon it's more about personnel... Fritsch is still our best forward yet he is out of form and many here want him dropped!

I wouldn't drop him as we need to allow him to be the opportunist that he is and also, get him into 1 on 1 situations (where he also can excel)

After Fritsch?  There's not much talent there, certainly not proven talent

We'll almost certainly beat North but it's how our forward line matches up against the good sides which is the question

And of course, Kozzie, Melk & Tholstrup will return soon enough 

And I'd definitely play Petracca forward on Sunday

Edited March 21Mar 21 by Macca

  On 21/03/2025 at 06:09, Macca said:

I reckon it's more about personnel... Fritsch is still our best forward yet he is out of form and many here want him dropped!

I wouldn't drop him as we need to allow him to be the opportunist that he is and also, get him into 1 on 1 situations (where he also can excel)

After Fritsch?  There's not much talent there, certainly not proven talent

We'll almost certainly beat North but it's how our forward line matches up against the good sides which is the question

And I'd definitely play Petracca forward

Agree 99% Macca

  On 21/03/2025 at 06:22, old dee said:

Agree 99% Macca

North aren't good defensively and their better players don't track back ... they will battle to get the ball through our overall defence

But you may be right, it could be close

  On 21/03/2025 at 06:32, Macca said:

North aren't good defensively and their better players don't track back ... they will battle to get the ball through our overall defence

But you may be right, it could be close

I hope to god JVR and Jefferson have good games Macca or it does not bode well for us against the good sides. Our side has a habit of dropping down to the level of poorer sides when we play them. 

Edited March 21Mar 21 by old dee

  On 21/03/2025 at 06:35, old dee said:

I hope to god JVR and Jefferson have good games Macca or it does not bode well for us against the good sides. Our side has a habit of dropping down to the level of poorer sides when we play them. 

The make-up of the forward line can only get better ... this is what it could look like for the Geelong game

HF:  Kozzie/Tracca    JVR     Fritsch

F  Hendo/Chin  Jeffo or AJ     Melksham

That's a lot better than what we'll see on Sunday

So it's not all doom & gloom.  We can get better (personnel-wise) 

  On 21/03/2025 at 06:51, Macca said:

The make-up of the forward line can only get better ... this is what it could look like for the Geelong game

HF:  Kozzie/Tracca    JVR     Fritsch

F  Hendo/Chin  Jeffo or AJ     Melksham

That's a lot better than what we'll see on Sunday

So it's not all doom & gloom.  We can get better (personnel-wise) 

Milkshake Macca! Did he play in the Casey game last week? I like him but I reckon it is a bit early with his hamstring problems.