its going to come down to beating collingwood in the final round to make the finals, isnt it

51 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

I swear I read on twitter laat night something along the lines that we are in the top 3 premiership teams on some stat metrics based on form over the last 3 or 4 weeks i think it was. Collingwood and Geelong were also up there.

Need to find it..

Expected score ???

2 hours ago, cookieboc said:

its going to come down to beating collingwood in the final round to make the finals, isnt it

Nick Daicos has already phoned in 10 free kicks

13 hours ago, Adam The God said:

I've been surprised by the lack of commentary on game style regarding yesterday's game. Our approach yesterday was very much 80% 2021-2023.5 method. Which is: win the contest, bomb long to create repeat inside 50s, and hope more shots on goal leave us ahead of the opposition at the end of the day. (the NBA 3 point method - data drives most elite sports in the world and the tactics employed by coaching teams)

The remaining 20% was where we changed our angles when we went longer, tried to use forward handball on the rare occasion and a very small amount of uncontested possession at the back.

But our entries were sloppy, high and often to our disadvantage. Melksham and even Petty did well on a few occasions to halve a contest versus 2 or 3 defenders.

I'm not sure of the stats, but we did appear to use the corridor more than we have in the past, but that's a function of playing a team that gambles so much with numbers forwards and leaving space through the corridor to ping back into.

I was most disappointed with our entries though and it was the most similar style to the way we played in 2022-2023 that I can remember. We know this is a highly competitive model, there are a few Demonlanders, myself included, who think we left a flag on the table in 2023 with this game style. It matches it with the best, but aren't we trying to evolve our game style? Use more aggressive forward handball, use more uncontested possession to open up their defence and control tempo?

I find it really fascinating that there are no cries on Demonland last night or today about the game style being outdated when we go close in games, but when we turn off our pressure (not a function of game style), it's an outdated model and Goody needs to get with the times.

I've seen posters say Goody has worked out how to stop these sides playing fast. This is not new. We were masters at this in 2022-2023, so much so we finished top 4 both years playing against this fast ball movement. I just think people see what they want to see sometimes.

I'd prefer we continue to evolve our game style, particularly, how we move the ball and how we enter forward 50, because if we do this, the forwardline will function and we'll start to blow teams away. Until then, we'll be ruing missed chances, scoring shot differentials and inside 50 differentials.

I think we can win a flag again soon if we get this right.

Honestly think something we need to get much better at is roosting it long out the back into space that Kozzie and others can run onto. Something like the old Pagan's paddock.

Freitch did it pretty much to perfection with a handball well into space for Kozzie that resulted in a snap goal to him. Melksham could have done the same but even better in the second quarter on Monday, with a penetrating kick out the back and Kozzie would have smoked Howe and everyone else in the area. Instead Melksham tried to finesse a pass on the full to Kozzie, slightly over cooked it and it was cut off by Howe arially. I know it's easy as an armchair expert and Melk is actually one of our best kicks to an option inside 50 (if not the best), but I just feel we seldom use one of Kozzie's best assets to advantage in these situations and/or look to create these types of opportunities for him enough.

Similarly, I think if we got a bit more creative a bit more often and tried to play Trac one out as a deep forward it would be hard for the opposition to respond to and help give us better value for our entries. Just look how many goals St Kilda scored against us last week by moving it quickly and directly into a forward line with pleanty of space.

Edited Tuesday at 17:162 days by Rodney (Balls) Grinter

17 hours ago, Harvey Wallbanger said:

My two cents worth is that from the back half we always considered the switch as a first option (and I think it is still the "go to" option based on all the arm-waving and pointing from players encouraging it to happen). However Collingwood seem to be alert to those possibilities and defended well - "layers and spreading" they call it. (It helps having the experienced Sidebottom and Crisp on the wings). So the switch doesn't happen and that turns the game into more of an aerial defensive battle with Howe excellent for them and May and Turner the same for us.

I suspect tactics around game style have to be adapted to the strengths of the opposition and Collingwood often score from turnover in their back half and corridor, and we seemed to nullify that by perhaps not taking as many risks as, say, we did against the Swans. See Wheelo's stats on how we quelled their defensive half to forward 50 and to score - we did really well.

But you're right - a narrow honourable loss leads to less discussion about game style. However, I don't think it was evidence of Goody "putting the new game style away". Let's see how we approach things against Port next week.

I think the slippery conditions also put doubt in our mind about the short kicking/switch game. We are not the most skilled team obviously and the wet weather combined with Collingwood's structure meant we were a higher chance of turnover which Collingwood thrive on so went for the conservative down the line approach.

10 hours ago, Jaded No More said:

Nick Daicos has already phoned in 10 free kicks

5 of them in front of goal

19 hours ago, Adam The God said:

I've been surprised by the lack of commentary on game style regarding yesterday's game. Our approach yesterday was very much 80% 2021-2023.5 method. Which is: win the contest, bomb long to create repeat inside 50s, and hope more shots on goal leave us ahead of the opposition at the end of the day. (the NBA 3 point method - data drives most elite sports in the world and the tactics employed by coaching teams)

The remaining 20% was where we changed our angles when we went longer, tried to use forward handball on the rare occasion and a very small amount of uncontested possession at the back.

But our entries were sloppy, high and often to our disadvantage. Melksham and even Petty did well on a few occasions to halve a contest versus 2 or 3 defenders.

I'm not sure of the stats, but we did appear to use the corridor more than we have in the past, but that's a function of playing a team that gambles so much with numbers forwards and leaving space through the corridor to ping back into.

I was most disappointed with our entries though and it was the most similar style to the way we played in 2022-2023 that I can remember. We know this is a highly competitive model, there are a few Demonlanders, myself included, who think we left a flag on the table in 2023 with this game style. It matches it with the best, but aren't we trying to evolve our game style? Use more aggressive forward handball, use more uncontested possession to open up their defence and control tempo?

I find it really fascinating that there are no cries on Demonland last night or today about the game style being outdated when we go close in games, but when we turn off our pressure (not a function of game style), it's an outdated model and Goody needs to get with the times.

I've seen posters say Goody has worked out how to stop these sides playing fast. This is not new. We were masters at this in 2022-2023, so much so we finished top 4 both years playing against this fast ball movement. I just think people see what they want to see sometimes.

I'd prefer we continue to evolve our game style, particularly, how we move the ball and how we enter forward 50, because if we do this, the forwardline will function and we'll start to blow teams away. Until then, we'll be ruing missed chances, scoring shot differentials and inside 50 differentials.

I think we can win a flag again soon if we get this right.

I was surprised as well.

Everyone pre game was wondering how Melb could make it a game and felt we needed to stop Collingwood's ball movement. Well we did it with a solid plan which was solid contest footy, territory and forcing repeat stoppages. Definitely felt like watching a 21-23 kind of game. However there is that different flavour of switching and looking for the inboard kick occasionally rather than coercing it down the boundary line.

I think we as fans look back at individual instances of something not working in a game and decide that it doesn't work when the big picture says otherwise. Just like a forward press can work for 90% of a game but that one time they get out the back and score it 'doesn't work'.

I actually think if the effort and intensity is consistent we will win many more games than we lose from here on out. The 0-5 start is the killer so I'd have us finishing around 10th.

we need to win 8 from our next 10 to be a chance at finals

time to stick a fork in us

we’re done

Yes we can make it but my concern is we lost to the Pies because of the umpires or May and Gawn on field blow up is the focus instead of "WE JUST DID NOT TAKE OUR CHANCES AGAIN". We lost on Monday because of ourselves and infill that becomes the focus we will keep losing.