13 minutes ago, Doug Reemer said:

God that was enjoyable. Miserable hawks fans leaving at 3/4 time!

True. But he who laughs last laughs ......

1 hour ago, jnrmac said:

Reigning Premiers Brisbane Lions say hello

There is always an exception, granted. But my point was that from a statistical POV they are an outlier. 

Banking wins early is critical, otherwise you find yourself chasing your tale for the rest of the season. 

3 minutes ago, Go Ds said:

But he who laughs last  ......

... is a bit slow on the uptake?

Edited March 26Mar 26 by Demonstone

2 minutes ago, Go Ds said:

yeah, it's still uncharted/unchartered territory how to handle these longer seasons. The above examples are probably not all coincidences. Instead of having 3 or 4 preseason games and then having round 1 late March now there's 1 'match simulation' and only 1 practice match for each team and teams need to be match-ready 2 or 3 weeks earleir yet also not 'too' fit. People shouldn't take this for granted. I doubt coaches are. Back in the 80s and 90s teams would often try to win all their pre-season games as they aimed to win the pre-season competition. I'm guessing back then because many players would stay within 70m of their official position on the field all day they could easily get to Septmber with plenty left in the tank.... and often the pre-season premier would go well into September. But even by the noughties suddenly some pre-season premiers fell away badly including one or two ending up winning the wooden spoon. I'm guess even by then there was more running in games and more tired legs come September.

I doubt we'll do what Hawthorn did last year. But we may be one of the teams that will improve as some other teams lose their early-season fitness advantage. Fingers crossed.

I think that is a reasonable and pragmatic expectation. We should be able to improve faster than Hawthorn did over multiple seasons as their challenges were more from an experience and fitness perspective. 

We have the experience and we should have the miles in the legs over multiple pre-seasons. So the remaining variable is whether we have the prowess to take on a new game plan. Similar to what the Cats did in '22 albeit there game plan changes were more or less adjustments as opposed to an overhaul. On that, i think it again demonstrates Chris Scott's ability as a coach and tactician - perhaps the greatest?. Media give great plaudits to Mitchell for the modern game, but reality is i think Scott was doing it before Mitchell. Amazing i think it was Scott's response to try and take the game away from a Contest and Defense style, which we had just won a premiership for. 

You just hope that if we finally get around to having a list suitable for the modern game, that the modern game itself hasn't become outdated. 

27 minutes ago, binman said:

Can't argue that history says that going 0-3 makes top 4 very unlikely. A 0-3 start would be a shocker for us, absolutely no doubt. 

But I'm firmly of the view that the game at the elite level (ie AFL) is in the middle of a fundamental change to how it's played.

Almost every player now covers 12 plus kms a game - unthinkable even 10 years ago. As an example, two defenders in Tmac and Comben covered the equal second most kms in our last game, only 500 meters less than Sheezel. 

And the emphasis on fast transition and high-speed running means each teams needs to be stocked with elite runners with massive tanks (to enable the huge amount of two-way running transition footy demands) who can also reliably hit targets and play decent footy (ie the days of 'he's an athlete first, footballer second' are over).  

Of course, you still need the bulls who win the ball, and key position players to contest in the air, but the best teams have 10-12 elite runners. Logic suggests that the change to the style of play (from forward half footy to back half transition footy) and the athletic profile it demands that high performance and conditioning programs also have to fundamentally change.

An analogy might be training an elite squad of runners that for a decade or more were 70% power athletes (eg 100 and 200 metre) and 30% fast endurance athletes (eg 400-800 metre runners) but now the equation has flipped to 70% endurance athletes and 30% power athletes.

The high-performance programs at each club have to adjust to this new reality, one in which there is far less data available on best practice.  Which is why i think the lessons of history in terms of early season form are less relevant now. 

The goal remains the same for the genuine final's contenders - be in peak, optimal condition come finals time. But again, logic suggest the path to achieve that goal has to change.

At the risk of putting too much emphasis on last year, and acknowledging it represents small sample size, we all saw last season how demanding the game now is over the course of what is an incredibly long season given the physical demands of the sport (a brutal combination of contest and elite running).

And most clubs were trying to implement the transition game, so we have some data on the impact of the change to how the game is played in terms of early season form and peaking come finals:

• The Swans were, for the first half of the season were almost universally regarded as the fastest, fittest and best transition team in the AFL - on top of the ladder at the halfway mark of the season, having won their first 10 games they were 1.80 to win the flag at that point
• Come finals they started to flag (pardon the pun), lost their relative advantage in terms of running power and ultimately looked slow and struggled to transition the ball in their humiliating shellacking by the Lions in the Grand Final
• The Cats won their first 7 games, looked fast and in great shape - finished top 4 but like the Swans dropped off come finals, ultimately losing their prelim 
• The Lions, the premier, lost their first 3 games and looked slow and off the pace (their third loss was against the pies who had yet to win a game at that point) 
• The Hawks lost their first five games by an average of 32 points, including 9 goal shellackings by us and the suns, before roaring home and looking in great shape at the back end of the season, winning a final before bowing out in the semis 

Fully respect this point of view but this is not the make up of the current Premiers.  Maybe the exception that proves the rule, but the Lions 24 were a high mark, high kick, high clearances, low defensive 50 rebound, low handball and low intercept team.    They got the ball inside 50 and relied on some contested marking strength.   

The 'modern' game (statistically at least) is about outscoring your opponent on turnovers, theres a few ways to do that still.

Probably stating the bleeding obvious but this is really a crunch game which we MUST win. Don't care who is selected as long as the 23 players actually put in 110% effort and finally lower the eyes when going forward. If we don't respond this week then something is seriously wrong.

Time to stand up Dees.

1 hour ago, Doug Reemer said:

God that was enjoyable. Miserable hawks fans leaving at 3/4 time!

And it's worth remembering how that game played out.

The Hawks were slammed for their method - which involved chipping it around their back half for large parts of the game. Mitchell said a key reason for the method was to minimise the advantage he though the dees had in terms of scoring power (and IIRC speed and transition?)

Is it possible they weren't cherry ripe by choice as pet of their high-performance strategy, ie increase the chances of being cherry ripe come finals (which they were)?

Edited March 26Mar 26 by binman

5 minutes ago, binman said:

And it's worth remembering how that game played out.

The Hawks were slammed for their method - which involved chipping it around their back half for large parts of the game. Mitchell said a key reason for the method was to minimise the advantage he though the dees had in terms of scoring power (and IIRC speed and transition?)

Is it possible they weren't cherry ripe by choice as pet of their high-performance strategy, ie increase the chances of being cherry ripe come finals (which they were).

Are you comparing that to our first 2 games? I thought we chipped around more against GWS and were far better at moving the ball. Against North we were stagnant forward of the ball and watched in horror as we did exactly what we were told we wouldn’t be doing which was bombing it down the line. I wake up to Combden marking the ball!!

In - May, Johnson, Melksham (sub)

Out - Jefferson (inj), Lever (inj) Woewodin.

I know Goodwin was confident that Lever would be ok for next week but he has a history of over promising on the injury front.

The only positive about not having a first round draft pick this year is that winning games won't come at a cost. So if we do start 0-4 and finals are done and dusted, we can hopefully build as the season unfolds, accumulate some wins later in the season with the knowledge it won't cost us in the draft order, and then carry that momentum into next year (because we've sure carried our losing form from late last year into this year). 

 

Demons by 31

Fritsch 5.1

 

 

Bookmark it

27 minutes ago, Roost it far said:

Are you comparing that to our first 2 games? I thought we chipped around more against GWS and were far better at moving the ball. Against North we were stagnant forward of the ball and watched in horror as we did exactly what we were told we wouldn’t be doing which was bombing it down the line. I wake up to Combden marking the ball!!

No, i wasn't comparing it to our matches this season.

Just wondering if perhaps the Hawks high performance strategy was different to ours, knew we were in better nick at that point in time and didn't want to get into transition battle with us - which would be ironic given by the end of the season we had run out of puff and looked slow as wet week and the Hawks had morphed into arguably the quickest, best transition team in the comp (coincidence? - perhaps not) . 

2 hours ago, Ghostwriter said:

This is what our club doctor said yesterday. But I find it interesting that on Sunday he was on crutches with his foot heavily bandaged, mainly around his big toe, but yesterday there was no bandaging, no crutches, with just a little square patch, like a bandaid, on the back of his heel. He was walking around fine. 

Lies, damn lies and club doctors

Confucius say, games 4-6 are worth as many points as games 1-3

16 minutes ago, DubDee said:

Confucius say, games 4-6 are worth as many points as games 1-3

Technically. Maybe a computer program could check this but I suspect a team that wins one or less of their first three games and then wins its next three would have done worse historically than ones that  instead started 3-0 and went to 3-3 or 4-1. I can't help but think chasing your tail during the season or individual games is more stressful and more draining. Maybe it's only a bit worse. The main thing for Melbourne is to follow the processes they've decided on and hopefully start chalking up some wins.

2 hours ago, GS_1905 said:

Banking wins early is critical, otherwise you find yourself chasing  tale for the rest of the season. 

in those dim dark past days , i liked chasing tail  especially when one caught one

On 24/03/2025 at 10:50, Roost it far said:

I tend to agree but what forward set up are we actually trying to instil at the moment. If the idea is 2 talls deep and the rest further up the ground which led to the first Jefferson goal last week are we then replacing a deep tall with Fritsch? There is an argument that you play JVR, Fritsch, Pickett, Chandler, Spargo, Melksham and Petracca/Langford as our forward line. However if the ball kept getting bombed in guys like Combden would have an absolute field day. 
I still feel our problem remains we’re not sure how much we remain a contest and defence team playing a forward half territory game or a transition team. Thats the balance we’re still trying to find. Again if players fall back to bombing it long we’re in trouble. Against GWS I thought we looked much better at finding that balance for 3/4. Interestingly it was losing contest in the last quarter that ultimately cost us the game. 

To be honest, I'm not sure I know what the difference is or when we're playing one or another type. It all looks the same to me and has done so for the last 7 years or so.

In my opinion, irrespective of the game style we apparently are playing, if Max Gawn loses, we lose. If Max Gawn wins, we don't always win, but more often than not, we do. Against North, we saw what the future might be like once Max retires.  

1 hour ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

To be honest, I'm not sure I know what the difference is or when we're playing one or another type. It all looks the same to me and has done so for the last 7 years or so.

In my opinion, irrespective of the game style we apparently are playing, if Max Gawn loses, we lose. If Max Gawn wins, we don't always win, but more often than not, we do. Against North, we saw what the future might be like once Max retires.  

Maybe regarding Max. Not all teams play with a dominant ruck but clearly North do. GWS had Briggs out and we almost beat them so clearly some clubs are going with a big, strong ruckman. The thing about Sunday was that Max wasn’t just beaten he was flogged, I thought his second efforts were very poor and countless times Xerri got him at these efforts, that’s on Max. Regarding playing beyond Max, clearly that’s a hole we have to fill but I’m a believer in continuing to add mids and recruiting another clubs second or third ruck ala Meek at Hawthorn. I’m confident the club will do that when Max announces his retirement. We’ve got a strong under 24 list demographic. Yes we want to push for success whilst Petracca, Oliver and lever are still playing but those guys have got 3-4 more good years. Let’s keep recruiting how we have been and there’s no reason success won’t follow. For mine you now to stack your list with 12-14 really solid runners/mids/flankers who can kick. We’re on our way here in my opinion. I also believe that had we had Pickett, May and McVee available we may well be 2-0, we certainly wouldn’t be 0-2. It ain’t time to panic but we do need a win this weekend which is going to be tough. 

Edited March 26Mar 26 by Roost it far

Tom Campbell must come in to help Maxy . He provides good ruckwork (esp. with Langford in the midfield), a bit of grunt,and can take a mark in the forward 50, and kick well for goal. Gosh… he beat Xerri in the practice match, and conventional wisdom says he’ll be all Australian ruck this year.

Let Verrall continue to develop in the ruck at Casey, instead of playing him up forward, like against North. We need to see if Verrall is worth persevering with.

 

19 hours ago, Ghostwriter said:

I never said we were.

 

More to the point: you think our season is over if we lose this Saturday? You seriously think we’re done… for the entire season… and it’s still the month of March? Just to remind you of what you said four hours ago: “Lose this and it’s season over.” Your words. Do you stand by this?

of course finals is gone if lose this week next week is geelong at geelong so  0  4     Will be no chance at finals     I have $50 on us for a win this week  so I have not given up yet ...........but got my doubts after watching live last week. Skills !!!!!   FFS     Only forgive that performance if a bug went through club which would explain trac etc         I thanks the club for last few years  but I fear its over

6 hours ago, GS_1905 said:

On that, i think it again demonstrates Chris Scott's ability as a coach and tactician

Perhaps. But Scott has at his disposal a team that's much more even across the ground than ours, with both experience and skill. Not saying changing a game style is easy, but some players/teams are going to be more capable of making the change than others. 

(Not to mention that Geelong picked up both Cameron and Stengle prior to the 22 season ...)

On 24/03/2025 at 10:49, Adam The God said:

I guarantee you, Goody was not directing players like Viney, our Vice Captain and 200+ gamer to bomb blindly to a forward outnumber on slingshot.

But when we see the team tomorrow, we will see that he is accepting it with the recalcitrant mad bombers still there.

Sounds like May will be playing which is some good welcomed news.

7 hours ago, Macca said:

Fritsch 5.1

Do you mean 5 kicks 1 handball for the game?

Edited March 26Mar 26 by Doug Reemer

7 hours ago, gregdemon said:

of course finals is gone if lose this week next week is geelong at geelong so  0  4     Will be no chance at finals     I have $50 on us for a win this week  so I have not given up yet ...........but got my doubts after watching live last week. Skills !!!!!   FFS     Only forgive that performance if a bug went through club which would explain trac etc         I thanks the club for last few years  but I fear its over

How about that he played his first game in over 9 months and then second-up was a real grind?

17 hours ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

To be honest, I'm not sure I know what the difference is or when we're playing one or another type. It all looks the same to me and has done so for the last 7 years or so.

In my opinion, irrespective of the game style we apparently are playing, if Max Gawn loses, we lose. If Max Gawn wins, we don't always win, but more often than not, we do. Against North, we saw what the future might be like once Max retires.  

That's not a recipe for long term success when Max is 33yo