2 hours ago, Webber said:

Cheers for the shout out @binman, I think 😉. Yes, I was very harsh on the game, but will stand by my assessment of the first half. It was the most awful display of footy in my recent memory - slow, sloppy, mistake-ridden - poor sub-standard VFL stuff, both teams. And Richmond’s defensive strategy doesn’t soften that. Having straw-polled footy-smart non-partisan friends who saw it has universally confirmed as much. I happily admit though, that a big part of my frustration comes down to flawed expectation. The Freo game was a joy to watch for precisely the opposite reasons, so that’s where my head was at.

I will offer a complete mea culpa though on the match-winning third quarter, and my failure to admit that this was exceptional footy rather than just a relief from the first two. My bad. Should also have acknowledged the continued miracle season of Jake Bowey (Chin not far behind). I reckon he’s currently the best back half distributer in the AFL. Also to reiterate that Max is simply the best ruck-captain the game’s seen, grinning now, arm in arm with Robbie Flower on that pedestal.

I do reckon you’re being generous on the last quarter (taking the red and blue specs off, the Kosi ‘non-goal’ DID in truth deviate off the Tiges defender’s hand). It was back to horrible, marked by the absence of Maxy of course. It’s a truism that you’ll be worse without your best player, but we were verging on uncompetitive at stoppages when he went off. Fullerton vs Nank was comical, and even sadder was the truth that we were all watching, in real time, the end of a player’s AFL aspirations.

Overall, I reacted badly, and should have tempered my expectations for the team and game (love the Anzac eve fixture, and am used to us offering a version of our best) before spewing my distaste all over demonland’s notorious post-game distaste banquet. Such is the life of a footy fan I guess.

G'day @Webber - funny you should post the above. I was thinking yesterday that it was unfair (and a bit meta) of me to call you out on the pod for a post you made on DL, not to mention not give you right of reply.

To be honest i hardly ever go into post match threads anymore, or indeed a whole bunch of threads where negativity is predictable. I've done my time pushing back on over the top negativity - life's too short.

But i happened to see your post, and whilst not over top in terms of negativity, to be honest i was surprised how trenchant you were about the standard of the game. Seemed a little out of character.

I can see your argument about how poor both teams were, and how frustrating the turnovers and skill errors were, but personally i reckon the standard was better than in our loss to the Bombers. Now that was a horror show.

One reason your post surprised me is, unusually for you, you didn't factor in the impact of both teams coming off a five day break (and also 3 games in less than 2 weeks - 12 days for us, 11 for the tigers).

We had a 7 day break into the Freo game and looked fresh and running on top of the ground - and made far fewer basic skill errors. The tigers had 6 day break into their win over the Suns, looked fresh for the first three quarters before running out of gas in the last.

Unless a team has really planned to maximise freshness, like we did into the 5 day break against Port last season, all teams will struggle to play anywhere near their best on a five, or even six, day break, partic teams with so many first and second year players (they had 6 players who had played 15 game or less, we had 3 such players and 4 first or second year players). And fatigue of course exacerbates skill deficiencies, like our average kicking skills.

Look at the Cats Blues game. No doubt the media is pumping up the blues, but the reality is the Cats were coming off a 6 day break, a bruising match against the hawks on Easter Monday.

The Cats looked fatigued and miles off it against the Blues - and made howler after howler.

As an example of their woeful play, in the second quarter they did not score a single point from their defensive half - nuts for team that is one of the best transition teams in the AFL. And at half time they had 14 fewer clearances, their second-worst differential in the last five years.

Yes, fatigue is only part of the story (for example, the Cats have been struggling all season with clearances), but it is a part nonetheless - as was the case in our game.

As for our last quarter performance, i would argue when a team has a match winning lead at 3 quarter time (eg 6 goals plus) often the last quarter devolves into a training run with the losing team kicking goals that tend to 'flatter the scoreboard' (though i actually think we played ok up until taking Maxy AND May off - we did have the same number of scoring shots)

One such example this round was Dockers leading by 42 points against the Crows at 3QT, not kicking a goal in the last and only winning by 18 points.

Just listening to the podders now.

As to your question about around the ground stoppage set ups and numbers @binman , to me it looked like we were actually playing +1 behind the ball and then sending up a half forward to the front of the stoppage. This leaves an outnumber forward of the ball, which works if you chain out of the stoppage by hand.

Which is why if we can get better decision making from our midfield, they should be able to give hands to the +1 behind the ball. Ideally, this is someone like Windsor with leg-speed, but he needs to hit more targets.

You might also be onto something about around the ground stoppage deficits the last fortnight with the defensive role Jack Viney is playing. I don't have a problem with losing around the ground stoppages per se, and it depends whether those stoppages are repeat pressure-building that eventually lead to scores or whether we can actually intercept them and prevent a score.

Edited April 30Apr 30 by Adam The God

Listened to the podcast last night. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Informative. Entertaining. Engaging. Confusing. Range of thoughts.

Loved the positive talk. Bowsa 👏👏 Maxy 👏👏Langdon 👏👏Chin 👏👏Sparrow 👏👏 keep it up

Agree Fullarton and Fritta were actually very very disappointing. Yes the Umps were pathetic for both teams.

Have to clarify though

• Dees cannot afford to rest Gawn for 3-4 games. They can’t afford to rest him for 8 minutes if the last quarter was any indication. Yes I agree he getting physically hit each week, but he’s a warrior. Max didn’t want to rest and itching to get back on. Certainly not to rest him this week. Tom Campbell had just got back from injury and played 3/4 qtrs for Casey. Was good but is break glass in case of emergency player imv.

• Hopper had 23 possessions (not 4!) for Tigers and was in their best 5-6 players. He went head to head with Clarry. He didn’t tag Clarry. Clarry had a poor 1st half (very poor) but like a champion, responded with a dynamic 3rd qtr. Clarry has work to do but showed glimpses of his best.

• Amiss doesn’t play for Tigers. Why was he mentioned? Strange.

Like the proposed changes … in- Turner JVR & AJ outs-Fullarton, Sharp and we’ll agree Fritta (Kolt as the sub)

Zero tackles. Guards grass. Burned Spargo!! But honestly do we think Goody will drop Fritsch. Two opportunitist goals. Probably keeps his spot unless we say Managed (fatherhood duties ).

@binman love the stats especially the pressure stats but seemed like overall it was too too much. Maybe more game talk and keep stats to 10 minutes max (certainly no more chat-GPT talk on loading!!)

Last thought - new segment … WHAT I LOVED … let’s go through the positives because in the last fortnight, there has been plenty for the MFC

GO DEES

Edited April 30Apr 30 by spirit of norm smith
V

As always, brilliant job lads.

I just want to touch on something George mentioned about a possible advantage Richmond had over Gold Coast in round 6 which would subsequently put less stock in Richmond's win, and then devalue our win over Richmond.

George correctly alluded to the fact that Gold Coast were coming off a 7 day break off stinking heat in the Barossa the week before, and that Richmond would reap the benefits because they would be fresher. However, Richmond also played in the Barossa off a 6 day break in ever more stinking heat. So if anything, it makes their win over GC even more meritorious and it reinforces that we didn't beat a mug team the other night.

As always, another entertaining and informative pod guys ……… ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you!