watchtheeyes

He's shown he can be a decent decision maker and 1:1 defender, so I think he can play a role. What I like most about it is that we have someone down there who can win it in the contest, I think we've been let down in that area. If the ball comes in, and we're not intercepting, then we've got to be able to win it on the ground and get it back out cleanly. Don't mind it to be be honest.

As you say Goody's mantra is very telling, and reveals the culprit in my mind. I think he has drilled contested ball above all else and now players instinctively go to the contest. 100% this is coaching and I pray Goody has the humility to see the error of his ways before the preseason. The effort thing is as much despondency i reckon. Yes I think there is a little bit of 'what's the point', which is crap, but mostly I reckon its the response to consistently poor skills and decisions. It happens, the ball goes back the other way and players throw their hands in the air. I started very much in the bad preseason, injuries and the impact that had on confidence camp.. and to a certain extent still believe it has been a factor. But I'm also now increasingly of the view that the coaching has been a large culprit and would have no issue with Goody being replaced early next year if we're heading the same way again. This year has completely undermined my enjoyment of the sport. I can't stomach watching other games at the moment and watch most of our games on fast forward.

Surely worth consideration as a rookie.. what do we lose?

Lyon was overly emotional, which is fine as a supporter and really was just expressing our collective frustration. But I don't buy the aberration bit. You can't fluke 2 finals wins against quality opposition. You can't fluke a percentage of greater than 130% - that is a reflection of a large body of work. An aberration is a couple of wins against good side, not a whole season. I also think about it this way.. What makes more sense? That ordinary (not good) players dramatically outperform their abilities over a sustained period of time (season 2018) or very good players underperform their abilities over a sustained period. To my mind it is extremely difficult to perform at 140% of your abilities even once, let alone a whole season. But it is very easy to perform at 70%, for a whole host of reasons. The reasons? I've said it before, I'm also a subscriber of the preseason, injuries and impact on confidence theory. But I'm also open-minded to the coaching criticism. Fritsch being played out of position ALL year is just one of several examples of that. Looking forward to 2020...

Skills are a function of a number of things.. Firstly ability and training, but also, crucially, confidence and fitness. When a player is confident they have a far greater ability to hit kicks they otherwise wouldn’t be able to, the game slows down, they get an extra 10%. When they’re not fit, they lose 10% control, they start reacting rather than being proactive. So looking at what’s happening now, for those out there not of VFL standard, we know they have ability because we saw it in 2018 (everyone remember we played in a prelim...). I have absolutely no doubt they are training. So that leaves confidence and fitness. Fitness is shot because of the preseason. Confidence is shot because of the what has transpired as a result. It all seems very simple and explainable to me, the wrist slashing is all a bit much.

I never buy the comment that players aren’t giving effort (with a few very rare exceptions). No one will ever convince me that players are running out to play a game of AFL half assed..

No doubt, it’s been a shocker! Huge disappointment. But having so many substandard players out there has an impact on the roles, performances and confidence of the other players around them. It might sound like I’m giving them out, and I don’t want to. The skills of a number of our ‘better’ players must improve, but their mistakes are amplified right now because there’s no cover coming from the other players. Plus there’s what we know about the preseason which also massively impacts form and confidence. Strangely I’m finding myself quite circumspect about this season, I’ll wait to grab my pitchfork until the second half of the season when we have players and conditioning back.

I really don’t see the point in getting carried away when we’re running half a VFL side out there.. The doomsdaying seems a bit blinkered!

Wow, wasn’t able to catch the game, came on here to get some colour before rewatching... so you’re saying a shouldn’t rewatch it?? It would have to be a real dumpster fire to justify the negativity on these boards!!! Yikes!

I really don’t know what everyone thinks we could’ve changed instead, look at the VFL team...

Salem maybe?

Love the 12 tackles from Sparrow! Has to be rewarded..

It’s easy to say the massively interrupted preseason the team had is an excuse, but could it actually be a key reason. Our players looked cooked in the 2Q and their skills completely fell away.. which is entirely consistent with fatigue. They are running hard one way, but are buggering themselves by having to turn around. The butchering of the ball going forward can explain a lot of what is happening statistically

Slaughtered the ball, pure and simple.

Would love to see some on analysis on the correlation between the pre-game pesimism of demonland against game day performance of the team.. Dees to win.

This feels like the kind of game that Garlett tears apart, and kicks three goals.. And then in four weeks he will drop off alarmingly before being out of the side again by mid-season. At that point I imagine it will his last AFL game. I'm ok with that if it helps us get a win tonight.

Hopefully the additions of Lockhart and Garlett will solve the ground balls inside 50. Stretch and ANB need to be given simple tasks, run up and down all day and tackle. Don’t need their involvement on the inside - sick of seeing all of our players sucked in to the contest. Tmac goes back with T Smith replacing him, hopefully more mobile up forward. I’m interested.

Nice to read some proper, level headed analysis! Couldn’t agree more. The whole ‘win the ball at source’ philosophy is fine, but you better dominate in there. A territory game can also be fine, but you better have the players, and in our case we went in with 3 talls. And the game awareness/structure in the D50 is shocking, which fees like Chaplin. Or they relied on May and when he went down we weren’t prepared. Lewis, Jones are clearly now liabilities.. so what the hell were they doing on the wings against such a fast team? Why the hell didn’t we send TMac back? Petracca to the ball? Fritsch forward? Anything at all? I hate the rubbish about ‘not trying’, ‘no heart’, in my view this is never the reason. In this case it was coaching, all over the place. Just. Dreadful.

I don’t buy in to the emotive crap, no heart, passengers etc etc. There have no doubt been some really bad performances (Lewis, Spargo, McDonald, Jones etc), but this is so clearly coaching to me I’m astounded others don’t see it. Structure, selection and game day. It appalling and questions must be asked!!!

I don’t buy in to the emotive crap, no heart, passengers etc etc. There have no doubt been some really bad performances (Lewis, Spargo, mcDonald etc), but this is so clearly coaching to me I’m astounded others don’t see it. Structure, selection and game day. It appalling and questions must be asked!!!

So much of this feels like coaching. Serious questions need to be asked.

Chaplin needs to be hauled over the coals!! Shocking!!!

I reckon Melksham (or Melsham if you're Bruce) has been one of our best this year. So dangerous whenever he's in the play. Reckon Lewis has to come straight back in, we've so desperately missed his leadership/direction this year. I can't believe he wouldn't be a better option than Josh Wagner at this point (who was fine on Thursday). I'm on the fence with Spargo, I think he's a smart footballer, just not athletic.. Was C Wagner playing forward this week? If so than its a choice between those two for Lockhart, because I've loved what he's done this year. A firing Garlett and Lockhart (based on exposed form) is very appealing. Agree that its about time Petty got given another chance (but my opinion is still tainted by his horrific debut). I think we are getting too many changes at this point in any case given Jetta should come straight back in too. Out: Wagner, Wagner, Stretch, Spargo In: Lewis, Jetta, Lockhart, Garlett Guess Spargo had to go in the end... To think, we've still got May and Lever to come...

I actually reckon we could really use JKH right now.. Had a feeling he was going to have a big year. He was really showing something late last year!

I'd love to see a statistic like: fumbles to an opposition player. Seems like he constantly fails to grasp the ball in contests, and when he does it he inevitably knocks it to an opposing player who bursts away from the stoppage. His absence will do wonders in my view.