6 minutes ago, Sir Why You Little said:

We are still are a mess up forward, with that amount of pressure yesterday, we should have won by 4-5 goals.

I am not talking about the opposition here, the forward structure is still a mess.

When Fritta came on with the angry pills it improved, but 4.8 is still such a waste of energy

Much work still to be done

I actually thought we went at about 40 or 50% of our potential yesterday. Our transition really struggled, we missed too many gettable shots on goal and our ball use from the back, particularly in the first half was very ordinary.

The forwardline was looking good to me. It was the finishing that was lacking. Really good movement from our forwards made us very dangerous. Petty 0.2, Kozzy 2.4, Spargo on the full, LIndsay, Trac and Sharp all 0.1. That's a lot of missed opportunities.

1 hour ago, Adam The God said:

I actually thought we went at about 40 or 50% of our potential yesterday. Our transition really struggled, we missed too many gettable shots on goal and our ball use from the back, particularly in the first half was very ordinary.

The forwardline was looking good to me. It was the finishing that was lacking. Really good movement from our forwards made us very dangerous. Petty 0.2, Kozzy 2.4, Spargo on the full, LIndsay, Trac and Sharp all 0.1. That's a lot of missed opportunities.

A Forward line that doesn’t finish the Job still has a lot of work to do.

The Reward for effort up the ground is still far from good enough

You might think the Forward line looks good, but it is far from efficient

I for one think the season is pretty well dead in terms of finals success. We're too far behind, have a shocking percentage, and while we're starting to show that we're on the right track, we're still going to lose matches. We also have a lot of young/er players, and their progress is never going to be linear.

On the other hand, for me what's important now is to a) bed-in the way we want to play and b) finish off the season strongly, whatever that looks like (caveat: no major injuries). If we can achieve both of those, the season will have upside and more importantly, will go a long way to setting us up for 2026.

IF we make the finals anything can happen when Gawn is playing.

Every other club wonders why they always kick it to Max. Part of the reason is because players like Sharp , Sparrow and Spargo that are much meligned cover ground to block a switch and force the opposition to kick down the line.

It might not be our year but when you have Essendon death riding you, every win is important

Edited yesterday at 08:341 day by Wrecker45
Spelling

5 hours ago, Adam The God said:

I actually thought we went at about 40 or 50% of our potential yesterday. Our transition really struggled, we missed too many gettable shots on goal and our ball use from the back, particularly in the first half was very ordinary.

The forwardline was looking good to me. It was the finishing that was lacking. Really good movement from our forwards made us very dangerous. Petty 0.2, Kozzy 2.4, Spargo on the full, LIndsay, Trac and Sharp all 0.1. That's a lot of missed opportunities.

Forward line look good ...

Or

Melksham plays on another level

They are different things.....just sayin'

On 14/05/2025 at 21:23, dazzledavey36 said:

I think Brisbane are gettable. Win that and i think there is a pulse even though I wrote our season off after the Gold Coast game.

Get Petty and Melksham back in this week and then Lever and Viney the following week.

Not far off.

7 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

A Forward line that doesn’t finish the Job still has a lot of work to do.

The Reward for effort up the ground is still far from good enough

Lots of work from the 22 is required. Too many mids and wingers miss goals, just a forwards do.

But Kozzy is a good example. He usually turns 6 scoring shots into 3.3 or 4.2.

7 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

You might think the Forward line looks good, but it is far from efficient

I just said that.

2 hours ago, beelzebub said:

Forward line look good ...

Or

Melksham plays on another level

They are different things.....just sayin'

As I said, our forwards alone had 21 shots on goal for a return of 10.11. It's not how we're structuring up that's the problem, it's our finishing. Which I've said multiple times now.

9 hours ago, Adam The God said:

It's not so much the forwardline, but goalkicking and our disposal at half back.

In the first half we gave them all their scores from unforced errors and turnovers by foot.

Take those out and the game wouldn't have been close at all.

I heard hoyne say on sen that 8 of the top 10 rated kicks are half back flankers.

Shows how important it us to have elite kicks behind tge all in terms od both creating scoring chains, but perhaps even more importantly not turning it over taking on high risk kicks that create scoring g chains (eg yo the corridor).

Windsor is a weak link atm re: kicking skills, but great to have Mcvee back and Bowey playing so well. And tmac is generally excellent by foot too.

Edited 16 hours ago16 hr by binman

8 minutes ago, binman said:

I heard hoyne say on sen that 8 of the top 10 rated kicks are half back flankers.

Shows how important it us to have elite kicks behind tge all in terms od both creating scoring chains, but perhaps even more importantly not turning it over taking on high risk kicks that create scoring g chains (eg yo the corridor).

Windsor us a weak link atm re; kicking skills, but great to have mcvee back and bowey playing so well. And tmac is generally excellent by foot too.

This one's a difficult one too because those half backs get a lot of those short uncontested kicks that pad our their stats.

But no doubt having guys that don't repeatedly hand the ball back to the opposition is absolutely gold.

I thought we'd been trending upwards in this phase, but IMO we let ourselves down in the first half against Brisbane.

25 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

This one's a difficult one too because those half backs get a lot of those short uncontested kicks that pad our their stats.

But no doubt having guys that don't repeatedly hand the ball back to the opposition is absolutely gold.

I thought we'd been trending upwards in this phase, but IMO we let ourselves down in the first half against Brisbane.

He actually mentioned that they don't get many easy kicks to pad their stats, to the contrary they are taking on high risk kicks under pressure.

10 hours ago, Yarra Valley Demon said:

If we beat Sydney and St.Kilda we can be 6-6 and around 10th at King's Birthday (assuming other results lol)
Beat Collingwood and that's a fairly substantial block of games to get the season back on track

In the spirit of this thread what you’re talking about is for a first year med student performing successful triple bypass surgery without the aid of medical imaging equipment. It’s possible… but let’s not get carried away.

We have much work to do. Our forward line looked much more functional and midfield was working well. But still making costly turnovers that were preyed upon by the Lions.

I actually think it is in the lap of the gods, we have the talent and the effort, the god part is the confidence, our small forwards nail a few on the run and we’ll skewer sides. Our leaders continue to shank goals from gimme positions the season will sink without a trace. My very knowledgeable Hawks mate was laughing at how the Hawks escaped with a win. Dogs and Collingwood are the only teams I’m really worried about. Dogs and Melbourne might just be the heavyweight clash of midfield clearance for the year. Collingwood I think we will beat once, (maybe) twice would be a miracle because they are annoyingly good. Dogs while more consistent I think we match up well on them and have good recent history.

The undead?

The lack of coverage surrounding the win on Sunday on the likes of SEN is laughable. Sentiment is, “Brisbane were horrible”… if someone astute like Josh Jenkins, who is typically right with his predictions and analysis wrote this game off can be proven so wrong surely tells us that the win up in Brisbane has a lot more merit to It than that?

Absolute joke that the [censored] Andy Maher and his radio show decided to lead off and focus on St Kilda and West Coast of all the [censored] clubs. They were more than happy to lay the boots in the first 5 rounds but fail to seriously backended the impressive win against serious opposition.

This win shouldn’t be underestimated and I hope we seriously put Sydney to the sword and prove to the rest of these inbred [censored] that this club is on the way back!

Edited 22 hours ago22 hr by VNightCityLegend

6 minutes ago, VNightCityLegend said:

The lack of coverage surrounding the win on Sunday on the likes of SEN is laughable. Sentiment is, “Brisbane were horrible”… if someone astute like Josh Jenkins, who is typically right with his predictions and analysis wrote this game off can be proven so wrong surely tells us that the win up in Brisbane has a lot more merit to It than that?

Absolute joke that the [censored] Andy Maher and his radio show decided to lead off and focus on St Kilda and West Coast of all the [censored] clubs. They were more than happy to lay the boots in the first 5 rounds but fail to seriously backended the impressive win against serious opposition.

This win shouldn’t be underestimated and I hope we seriously put Sydney to the sword and prove to the rest of these inbred [censored] that this club is on the way back!

I listened to a fair bit of SEN yesterday and other footy media and thought Melbourne were well covered and applauded.

Andy and Gazey’s drive slot is hardly the place to go for meaningful match reviews.

Also, the bigger story there is St Kilda. What a mare.

As for us, we've got to keep plugging away, getting better at the transition game, and ball retention.

There are likely to be some blips along the way, but if we stay fit, we can definitely get on a run.

Our pressure game is a non negotiable every week, otherwise what will be will be with our goalkicking.

If the latter clicks, we are going to get our percentage back to a healthy spot.

Edited 19 hours ago19 hr by Adam The God

I looked for the reaction of two groups of Dees after the game, the oldies and the younger guys.

The oldies were grinning from ear to ear and you could see they were thinking we are not out of this season yet.

The younger guys were hi fiving and you could see them thinking we are a good team going places and that they belonged.

Completely different changing room obviously, to the one during the run of losses.

These types of wins give everyone belief, including the fans and bring the optimism back to a club.

Before Sunday , I was looking for an oration for our season . Done dusted and Gawn.

Even up to half time I barely smiled.

But, there is a heartbeat, and I think Goody is getting encouragement to make moves.

He seems invested and the players respond in kind. And to him particularly I think.

I do not mind being out of the media spotlight, it gives me hope. Not sure opposition coaches will ignore our success, but their players just might.

I almost choked when I told my darling, I think we will win this. 2 minutes to go.

Love to feel the same next week. Go Dee’s

3 hours ago, VNightCityLegend said:

The lack of coverage surrounding the win on Sunday on the likes of SEN is laughable. Sentiment is, “Brisbane were horrible”… if someone astute like Josh Jenkins, who is typically right with his predictions and analysis wrote this game off can be proven so wrong surely tells us that the win up in Brisbane has a lot more merit to It than that?

Absolute joke that the [censored] Andy Maher and his radio show decided to lead off and focus on St Kilda and West Coast of all the [censored] clubs. They were more than happy to lay the boots in the first 5 rounds but fail to seriously backended the impressive win against serious opposition.

This win shouldn’t be underestimated and I hope we seriously put Sydney to the sword and prove to the rest of these inbred [censored] that this club is on the way back!

agreed. at 3/4 time i though thats the best side we've played this year by the flemington straight. i thought we were playing well but they just turned on the jets when needed like they did in the grand final. I did sense though, that some lions players thought it was 'in the bag' not just celebrating but so relaxed it was like 'show time'. So glad we continued the pressure and gave it back to them. interesting they were so clean all day but once we got in front good players started fumbling under pressure.

20 minutes ago, Bay Riffin said:

agreed. at 3/4 time i though thats the best side we've played this year by the flemington straight. i thought we were playing well but they just turned on the jets when needed like they did in the grand final. I did sense though, that some lions players thought it was 'in the bag' not just celebrating but so relaxed it was like 'show time'. So glad we continued the pressure and gave it back to them. interesting they were so clean all day but once we got in front good players started fumbling under pressure.

This has long been the question mark on Brisbane though. They're arrogant and downhill skiiers. And had they not come up against a mentality weak, choking Sydney, they'd still be flagless after playing so many finals series in recent memories, including in their home state during 2020 COVID.

Brisbane have not only been blessed with Academy accesses, they've been blessed with father sons that can win Norm Smith's straight up.

Their older group though is soft bellied. Think Zorko, Andrews and McCluggage.

I know it's a few weeks out, but it will be interesting to see how we play Collingwood.

I thought there was too much down the line against Brisbane, and not enough handball chaining, but we've shown remarkable tactical flexibility in recent weeks.

Depending on the opposition we've shifted between lots of uncontested marks and lots of switching to widen the ground against some teams, but against others, we've been more than happy to go long down the line.

I suspect that we were happier going down the line this week due to both Max's form and Brisbane's lack of leg speed, although they are much quicker than they were a few years ago.

Against Collingwood, they're quick, and I think a long down the line strategy could ping back very quickly on rebound if that's the way we go.

On KB 2023, we let Collingwood move the ball into our press and then tried to strangle them and get them on turnover. It worked a treat. It'll be interesting to see in 2025, if we simply go with frontal pressure and try not to allow any short kicks from half back, or whether we're happy to let them get to the central part of the ground and then press for a turnover, providing ourselves room to slingshot behind.

Goody's tactics are definitely evolving and if Solomon was right on SEN (I wasn't in Brisbane to see the game live), pushing two extra forwards up to the ball draws their opponents up, congests the stoppage and puts the onus on our bulls to win stoppage. When they do, our forwards have more space to work into as there are only 4 forwards left inside 50.

It's a hard move to counter, and if our mids win more of the stoppage, we can either chain it out or go forward quickly to more space and less contests.

But Sydney is a different proposition. We have to match them in the stoppages and get that frontal pressure happening.

Fascinating to watch how our tactics evolve over the coming weeks.

16 hours ago, bing181 said:

I for one think the season is pretty well dead in terms of finals success. We're too far behind, have a shocking percentage, and while we're starting to show that we're on the right track, we're still going to lose matches. We also have a lot of young/er players, and their progress is never going to be linear.

On the other hand, for me what's important now is to a) bed-in the way we want to play and b) finish off the season strongly, whatever that looks like (caveat: no major injuries). If we can achieve both of those, the season will have upside and more importantly, will go a long way to setting us up for 2026.

We need to win 9 of the remaining 13 games. That means winning 2 from every 3 games. Achievable imo

48 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

This has long been the question mark on Brisbane though. They're arrogant and downhill skiiers. And had they not come up against a mentality weak, choking Sydney, they'd still be flagless after playing so many finals series in recent memories, including in their home state during 2020 COVID.

Brisbane have not only been blessed with Academy accesses, they've been blessed with father sons that can win Norm Smith's straight up.

Their older group though is soft bellied. Think Zorko, Andrews and McCluggage.

In their pregame huddle, Andrew’s was giving his pep talk. You could see some of their players laughing. All I could think was you arrogant %%{}!.