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 10 hours ago10 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.

4 hours ago, Macca said:

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

In reality, we haven't changed the way we play as much as people are making out. As both King and numerous players have commented, the starting point is still contest, which was always one of our strengths. Amongst the commentary on our win on the weekend, a number of pundits highlighted how strong our contested footy game was: clearances, stoppage wins, tackles etc etc

Which is one of the reason we've been able to turn it around so quickly, the basic building blocks were already in place.

Of course, what happens AFTER you win the contest is where the real change starts to be seen, not to mention the attitude to the system/plan where players have more freedom and thus more ownership. Which is what King and co have brought.

Getting rid of a few boat-rockers from the locker room has also helped team buy-in and cohesion, which is why we're discussing all this in a thread about Clayton Oliver.

2 minutes ago, bing181 said:

In reality, we haven't changed the way we play as much as people are making out. As both King and numerous players have commented, the starting point is still contest, which was always one of our strengths. Amongst the commentary on our win on the weekend, a number of pundits highlighted how strong our contested footy game was: clearances, stoppage wins, tackles etc etc

Which is one of the reason we've been able to turn it around so quickly, the basic building blocks were already in place.

Of course, what happens AFTER you win the contest is where the real change starts to be seen, not to mention the attitude to the system/plan where players have more freedom and thus more ownership. Which is what King and co have brought.

Getting rid of a few boat-rockers from the locker room has also helped team buy-in and cohesion, which is why we're discussing all this in a thread about Clayton Oliver.

Aesthetically it may not be much different. When you factor in the mentality, philosophy and instinct part, it is quite different.

In the past we would sell out to the system and not deviate too much. This meant defaulting to long down the line kicks and up and unders out of the middle. We now see guys playing on feel ie. taking the first option, surging and paddling it forward at every opportunity, forwards moving and speed of ball movement off the charts.

Last year there were games we barely laid a glove on opposition mids, now we are tackling ferociously and keeping it in there giving us a better chance to win the clearance. I think this is the biggest reason for the increased clearances.

We might have been trying to evolve to something similar in recent years but the way we've gone about achieving it this year has been very different.

On 02/04/2026 at 06:54, Neil Crompton said:

I’m sure no one ( except perhaps a few journos) “makes up stuff”. What would be the point? You’d be ostracised like there was no tomorrow on this site if found out. People pass on information they are told - some correct, some not always correct. So what.? Are you silly enough to take as fact everything that is stated on a fan’s forum? Heaven help you if you are. Maybe this is not the place for you.

Naive comment.

Plenty of people have blatantly made up stuff to score some points with others in life so what is stopping them on here. Ive seen a bunch of things that were said and no-one got ostracised either. Its just like news outlets, they aren't bringing you news because they love you they have an agenda.

Dont be someone that just believes that everyone has your interests at heart all the time. Otherwise this might actually not be the place for you.

Edited 5 hours ago5 hr by Bowserpower

5 hours ago, binman said:

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.

Hibberd would have to be a special mention too.

Steele epitomises the character and leadership, selfless player that went missing in both former 13 & 5, a tale of 2 players, a person who wanted to feel appreciated and found it at the MFC vs players who were given long term contracts and were wanted, bent over backwards to help them and sure there were a errors done with number 5 but turned his back on us and 13 should gone 12-24 mths earlier, Steele is a leader who would wants to be part of the solution…

6 hours ago, binman said:

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.

Yeah that hammy really was his downfall. Never the same after that. I wonder how Trac will return from his funny... imagine if it played out the same. I doubt it will as Trac is an a hard trainer and will rehab, but following his spleen injury he took almost 18 months to regain some confidence.... I think we will see something similar where he wont trust his hammy completely for at least a few more weeks after returning.

51 minutes ago, layzie said:

When you factor in the mentality, philosophy and instinct part, it is quite different.

Isn't that what I'm saying?

Yes, there have definitely been changes to the game plan, but the biggest change is in how players approach it. And the biggest change there has been in the freedom that the players have - which comes from King's main message: you won't be hammered for stuffing up.

Fast ball movement and quick decision-making is great - but it's also a recipe for turnovers and the ball coming back over your head real quick. Our fast ball movement is a byproduct of giving the players permission to fail. And that's the key change from last year.

25 minutes ago, Bowserpower said:

Naive comment.

Plenty of people have blatantly made up stuff to score some points with others in life so what is stopping them on here. Ive seen a bunch of things that were said and no-one got ostracised either. Its just like news outlets, they aren't bringing you news because they love you they have an agenda.

Dont be someone that just believes that everyone has your interests at heart all the time. Otherwise this might actually not be the place for you.

Congratulations on your thinly veiled comment. You have made it obvious in your previous posts who you are referring to here

Edited 3 hours ago3 hr by Mgdee
Spelling

10 hours ago, Engorged Onion said:

The downgrading of Goodwin/

Downgrading ??? Really !!

How about you give us a deep dive analysis of Goodwin's coaching in 2017, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024 & 2025 ?

12 hours ago, jnrmac said:

We took 19 marks i50 and laid 14 tackles i50. 10 from 15 goals were from marks

Some of the goals were clearly longer bombs but the one to gawn was a clear mismatch strategy as Witts was standing the mark in the centre square. the 2 goals to Langford were from a clear mismatch in height and Uland and 1 other, a Sharp goal was a clear kick over the top as he was in clear in space.

combined That represents a stark difference to previous years

12 hours ago, binman said:

Absolutely, i agree (though less about the tackles inside 50 -we have long been good at that, though not so much last year which was big factor in our 'inefficiency' - ie unlike this year were not failing to trap it inside 50 when the ball hit the deck inside 50)

I don’t think it’s the same this year, on my observation whilst we still go long , we move the ball a lot quicker especially from D50 rebound and do not allow opposition to get back and structure up. We also have greater separation with our forwards and are no longer going long to the pockets like previously to create forward stoppage.

Really going to be an interesting game when we play the Dogs who almost flood numbers back behind the footy

3 hours ago, Cranky Franky said:

Downgrading ??? Really !!

How about you give us a deep dive analysis of Goodwin's coaching in 2017, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024 & 2025 ?

Except for 21 Goodwins coaching was very very ordinary! Cost us at least another 1 perhaps 2 Premierships!