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A nothing story So what exactly has De Goey done wrong here? He's entitled to a holiday and he's entitled to dance badly. Hasn't broken any club rules. The HUN just trying to create a story out of nothing much What he has shown is a lack of professionalism. But we already knew that

Bartlett just can’t catch a break. Everyone trying to steal his thunder.

If there is any integrity in the system Gus will be an AA half back. This combined with his heroics in the GF make him indispensable. Hopefully he will retire as an all time great Demon.

The more Gus plays at half back as filler he has gone from a stop gap whilst Salo out, to a quality half back to recent games where he is playing at a level I would consider All Australian and significantly impacting the flow of games. I do wonder what games like last week have done to both his value inside and outside the club but also in his mind the role he wants to play whichever club he is at. For the record I know what I get with Gus and we gain nothing but cap room and a token pick to bargain with (or has that changed) if he leaves. With Dogga (who I want to stay if he chooses to at fair $$) we still dont know what he is and how far he will take it. If he chooses to go home, as long as Freo and Eagles are both pushing hard we need to leverage the draft/trade position to solve our longer term elite key forward gap and maximise our ability to address shorter term needs whilst we are in the window. So if given choice Gus over Dogga would be my current thinking.

I would rather keep Gus.

We will find out good he really is in the absence of Max.

Love this is a story! But gotta ask, is this really a story? Footy player drinks, and dances, and flirts with hot bird in Bali, while on holidays... 🤷‍♂️

Threw a few bucks on methcoke. Not often I'll barrack for them but geez I hate the cats and at $7 snort it up boys

Ahhh, the drug cheats. As opposed to Carlton, the salary cap cheats or Bulldogs, the throwing/not handballing cheats.

The Straw lobby disowns this nonsense and wants nothing to do with this farcical notion.

I reckon 15 wins will be enough to secure Top 4. And I'm not that worried about playing an inter-state final if we have to

One thing which will come apparent in the later stages will be team fitness. Younger teams like the Swans , Pies will eventually fall away as they haven’t had the years to build that base. We will also be playing other top 4 at various stages of their fitness program so I’d be interested to see how other teams will approach the finals. I’ve listened to a number of different pod casts and one (will not mention the name) said it was undeniable we are loading giving how out of puff we have been in the last month and mentioned several times that teams just don’t lose fitness as quickly as we have shown. Kind of makes sense. Nevertheless I am little more optimistic now and would probably be surprised if we fall out of the top 4. Top 2 will probably boil down to beating Lions at the Gabba. Which reminds me to give the AFL a big F U for fixturing the reigning premiers an away game against the prime contender for the final game of the season. Seriously wouldn’t be surprised if Bartlett had organised that little parting gift.

Not a go at you but pretty sure Darcy Moore hasn’t faced sexual assaults charges. They’re two different cats.

There's no way he wrote that. To many big words in there

If they value him that highly they'd have to be prepared to hand over a mountain of players and picks in a trade.

That sounds ludicrous

Aside from the injuries…Pondering if Swans and Saints supporters have heard of this so called loading phenomenon? Or whether to explain these quite surprising losses, they just think their teams are just not ‘switched on’ ‘hungry enough’ ‘just don’t have enough pressure’ ‘Have inherent structural problems’ ’have been worked out’ 😇

I'd rather Gus thanks.

I dunno Uncle... he looked pretty lit to me

What ever else emerges out of this event, I am now confident in saying that De Gooey is not a very bright lad.

A bloke on a break goes to a party. Slow news day

I've always really liked Brisbane. They have been my second team for as long as I've followed footy, and have always found their fans to be down to earth, knowledgeable and pleasant. This thread just proves it. Everything they've said is correct. Nothing over the top, happy Gawn is out but also acknowledge injuries are never nice to see. Not writing us off or big noting themselves, which they have every right to given they are 1st on the ladder. If we lose the flag to anyone, I would be happiest if it's to one of Brisbane or Freo. Just PLEASE do not let Geelong or Carlton win it. 2022 has been rough as it is.

Thanks for the guidance....😘 anyways... 2019 - Richmond's Mid Season Report Card...directly after 3 straight losses. ""The times Richmond have come up against the leading teams in the competition - Geelong, Collingwood, GWS Giants and even Adelaide – the yellow and black have been well beaten. Throw in costly losses to North Melbourne and Western Bulldogs and that means a third straight finals berth – not to mention a top four finish - is in peril." This sounds like a familiar narrative in the media! Now I bet if I posted this last year... there would have been howls of derision, as we had not won a premiership yet... (I get it, people require evidence first) - but now having won a premiership...things feel pretty familiar with last year, and even what other premiership contenders have done over the last 4/5 years as a bit of a philosophy.... All of those teams though, have to contend with legitimate injuries to the top echelon of their playing group...as we are... and this provides another bit of context to make sense of why have we lost 3 in a row...and yet why all is not lost... actually... it's a familiar sight if you're prepared to look amongst the nuance.

Pert should just go to WA, find Luke’s mum at her favourite cafe, get out the 5 year contract and just say: ”Sorry, Ms Jackson? I am for real.”

Post of the year. Absolutely brilliant 🤣

That is funny

My thoughts are very much along these lines Gonzo, we made the ground small and it was intimidating. Teams coughed it up in bad areas and we pounced. It’s my armchair opinion that to cover the loss of May (and even Langdon to an extent as he is limited) we decided sitting back a bit deeper with numbers was the way to go about this, and maybe it was. However it does move away from what the gameplan is built on and it is hard to apply forward pressure when you aren't as high up the field. I hate to bring up a Soccer comparison because I know that not everyone likes it but in the EPL Liverpool went through a very similar things last year when their star Centre Back and leader Virgil Van Dijk went down with an ACL. This guy is akin to Steven May in many ways with his ability to cover territory quickly, strength in contests and also his ability to direct the troops on the field. The other thing with Liverpool is they typically play a high press where a lot of their goals come from the two full backs Alexander Arnold and Robertson who get very high up the field and put in damaging crosses if not scoring themselves. Van Dijk was so quick and able to react quickly that you never worried about pressing too high because he tracked back every time to cut out the danger without fail. When Van Dijk went down things changed dramatically. The two full backs had to sit much deeper than they were used to so they could cover while a few different backup centre backs and even midfielders were trialed through there but either injury prone or not able to offer anywhere near the same output. The different structural shape really did change everything and it ended up being a very average season. The point I’m trying to make here is that while a team should never be relying on just one player and you should be able to cover for them, the loss of that player can sometimes have a real flow on effect structurally with the way you setup territory wise. Which as silly as it sounds can make a team look completely different. In footy a tactic or strategy never works 100% of the time. On one day sitting back and letting them try to pick through us can work absolute wonders and you’re just waiting for the turnover, on Monday it almost seemed as if the Pies were relishing getting their hands on the footy more and getting a head of steam up. Those quick short passes succeeded in shifting our zone just enough to break through and kick the winning score. I also noticed more numbers running forward, which is strange because it goes against the narrative that we’re tired but where I noticed little ‘unrewarded’ running in the second half against Sydney last week I saw often waves of 2 or 3 players regularly. The real shame being that we fumbled relentlessly at those moments and failed to execute, Pies rebounded through the middle and you know the rest. Lastly, I supported the decision to drop Jayden Hunt and Trent Rivers in the last few weeks but possibly we could have used some speed to try and break a line when we had the ball deep in defence and nothing was working? Just brainstorming there but we did look predictable exiting the backline.