This discussion is a good 'old el paso girl' one.

Why not have both - clarry is still a good player and GWS got a great deal, and equally MFC commited highway robbery to get Jack Steele out of the saints.

1 minute ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

In a vacuum I reckon he’s been pretty good for GWS this year.

I don’t have the stats to back it up but the 2026 version looks better than the 2025 version and a lot better than the unfit 2024 edition.

However (right now) I don’t regret moving him on and getting in Steele. Not for a millisecond.

Leaving aside all the fugazi - and also the leadership Steele brings to the club (not even Claz'z biggest fans would argue he added anything at all in that space) and how Claz has performed so far this year (id argue he played pretty well for us last year too) there is zero doubt in my mind Steele is adding way more from playing perspective than Clazz did since before he did his hammy.

Huge credit must go to the club for getting Steele in. Let's see how it plays out this season, but on the small sample thus far i reckon Steel could well become one of the best trades in the last 25 years, particularly considering we got him for basically nothing.

By the by, i reckon Lever, May and Langdon are the three best trades we've made this century.

1 hour ago, Lucifers Hero said:

Not sure that all long kicks qualify for long bombs.

In the past we had hurried kicks that went long, high and floated ie long bombs to i50 packs and most often intercepted. This year fwds have better running patters and are spreading better; sometimes leading, sometimes out-maneuvering their ops. Mids are finding them, sometimes with long kicks but rarely long high, floaters. GCS def were taller than our fwds yet didn't outmark us very often.

An example is Sharp's bullet pass from just inside the 50m line that found Melksham at the top of the goal square. It was low and flat. As an aside, two of Sharp's prior attempts were points when he burnt a player better placed and closer to goal. Reckon someone told him to lower his eyes. At the ground you could see players do that, look for targets and not just throw the ball onto their boot.

Excellent post

In previous years what we saw primarily were long bombs down the line (from anywhere on the ground) long bombs to packed forward lines and scrubber kicks forward that amounted to not much at all.

Our teamwork on offense was poor

Compare that to now and it's like chalk & cheese. The eyes have it

It does help when the chief culprits aren't playing but I'm not sure that the chief culprits can't mend their ways anyway. It just needs a complete buy-in

Fresh start, different voice, different method, different FD, etc etc

We played a certain way for 10+ years and it's hard to change, just like that

Goodwin did try and change things from early 2024 and in 2025 but we needed a different voice. But the players themselves were at fault as well (on and off the field)

Edited 4 hours ago4 hr by Macca

3 hours ago, binman said:

As i note above - we are bombing it to our forwards (medium and tall) more this year than last season.

Don't believe me?

Watch the all the goals video from the Suns game.

Of the 16 goals we kicked, only five involved hitting up a target inside 50 (and one of them was a shank kick by Sharp to Melky):

• Koz out of the centre square spotting up Melksham

• Lever's beautiful pass to Langford

• Checkers hitting Sharp wit his left foot after inexplicably being called to play on

• Latrelle nailing a beautiful pass to Roo (the only pure goal we got from a leading forward that got free of their defender - Langford's lead and mark was under huge pressure)

• Sharp hitting Melksham with a shank kick

With the exception of the 50 to XL, the rest all involved either long bombs or shanks (eg Steele's scratchy kick from a centre clearance that checkers read best and marked) that were either marked (Checkers x 2, Maxy and Melk's screamer) or we won the resulting ground ball (eg our first goal - Salo's snap, Melksham's gather and handpass to Koz and Latrelle's goal after the cleaver kick off the ground by Koz)

RD 4 | All the Goals

According to Fox Footy, we are ranked 5th for mark retention inside 50, a stark contrast from last year.

While we are aiming to get forward half territory with these kicks, they are not 'bombs'. Our players clearly have way more clear instruction on how and where to move the ball.

Yes, we may not be hitting our forwards lace out like the Hawks do. But we are certainly not bombing in willy nilly like last year.

12 hours ago, picket fence said:

Yeah well take another crack at Clarry

Yes Steele has been good but STILL STILL People want to denigrate a MFC legend in Clarry!! DEESGRACE

To be fair picket, it’s probably been your infinite posts on what a champion he IS and what a disgrace the MFC are for forcing him out, that has led many posters to seize any opportunity to show why he is not a champion any more.