von

Someone needs to get into langdons ear about his short sleeve jumper. He looks ridiculous.

Don’t know how you play well when you have a certain amount of injuries and are loading. Form isn’t a magical thing. It is often explainable.

Aren’t we looking ordinary today. Nothing unexpected though.

Gonna be an ugly slog

There are performance trends that correlate very strongly with last year. It’s a matter of when we play teams not who we play. We’ve hit contenders in our mid season run this time with other factors such as injury also playing a part. We looked just as sluggish last year but the stats will be different because we are playing different teams in different positions. Stats don’t tell the whole story. Injuries tell a lot of the story too. Teams trying different methods against us are also part of it. I’m not sure why losses to contenders are worse than the losses last year to bottom dwellers by the way. When I say what will happen once will happen again that doesn’t translate to a result, it translates to our ability to perform at an optimal level. This doesn’t guarantee a win. I go to all our home games and without question there is a difference from us against the saints or tigers or whoever else from early in the year in the way we cover the ground, get off the mark and get to the contest etc. I didn’t have the luxury of being at the ground v Geelong but we were slow off the mark, which is all I could see on tv. That to me says sluggish. Even without loading as a factor, the 5 day break and a tough, hard game in Adelaide against a 5 day break and a training run against a team that rivals us at our worst could explain the difference there. I’d also throw in kardinia park being no good for us. I was tearing my hair out at times last year during winter. The gws game in particular, after the Adelaide and Collingwood losses really worried me. I wrote us off. Things changed and I think they will again but you are right it is speculative. All of it is. The running in mud look is awfully familiar and doesn’t last forever. That’s where my hope lies. I think everyone is trying to be objective when they talk about our performance. We are all doing various versions of guessing though. The loading argument is speculative but it isn’t without merit. It’s been admitted to this year by Geelong and us last year. There are signs of it across premiership teams of years past when seasons are looked back at. The only real difference I see between your analysis and the loading is the loaders are trying to view things over a longer time scale. Im Sure some of our short terms stats worry the coaching group week to week, no doubt. But there are layers of perspective to look at them through. I just think wait off a few weeks before the doom and gloom kicks in too hard based on last year, and I don’t think that is a ridiculous stance.

This thread sounds like the guy who says “I’m not being negative, sometimes a realist comes across as negative because others can’t handle reality” or something along those lines. But in reality they are indeed a negative Nelly

Short memory. Do you remember the middle part of last year at all and how ordinary we looked? If you’re going to bag everyone who isn’t a doomy gloomy such and such at least be accurate. Most loaders have discussed how we looked just as poor during this period last year. Which is accurate. Yes injuries play a part as well. Also no one thinks oh it’s fine we will still win the flag. They think we will show a lot more before the season is done. That’s never been a guarantee of a flag.

Given he won us a flag last year doesn’t he get the benefit of the doubt at least till the season is done.

We have had to piece together a backline a lot of the season. The flow on effects from that are that we aren’t statistically where we were last year in some areas although our points against has still been very good. We had an outstanding run with injury last year. Our offence comes from our team defence and where we turn the ball over. We’ve been turning the ball over too deep and haven’t had the turn over scores from last year.

Is anyone denying reality here. The cats were all those things. But we are here for the why and we have some decent reasons as far as I can tell. Yours included.

It applies equally when we win. It’s really not relevant to the result but more relevant in explaining what we are seeing on the day. Why are our clearance numbers up/down, why are our league leading defensive running flankers who are fitter than everyone else’s not covering the ground as well this week etc. It correlates to result but doesn’t have to be the cause.

Or maybe they realise that a football season is more complex than one game, and despite what the media do to us, some like to try and understand the game on a deeper level than the reactionary, you’re only as good as your last match style. Poor form can be a result of many things. For a young team those reasons are different to an established team. If you can’t see trends in sport that occur over a season for teams in specific situations then you aren’t looking very hard. I wrote us off after we lost to gws last year. I was way off the mark and have learnt many things since then. Following a good football team and their practices throughout a season is very foreign to me. It’s barely happened in my life time. There’s new things to look for other than who we are drafting to save us and it’s heaps more fun this way. Not saying we will win the flag or another game even but there are reasons form fluctuates and it’s interesting to explore.

We could have taken the lead 2/3rds of the way through the Geelong game despite looking sluggish and fumbly. We were under more physical duress than they were. Geelong said they are running on top of the ground now and felt good. They built their season around this game it seems. It will be interesting to see how the two programs play out come season end. They look good now.

Didn’t realise the loading theory or practice depending on your stance was purely a coping mechanism for your stress around supporting the dees

Do you think that was the case watching the game?

I accept all that. The cats are good. They are the most impressive club of the last decade and a half. I don’t think we gave anything away

I always liked takk the most. They are fantastic

I don’t think we are a team that make drastic moves ever. I meant those smaller details like a semi tag on bont by Clarry in the grand final when he got going. We could have affected their set up at contest potentially last night but didn’t seem to bother. We have some options around contest, stoppages etc that we choose to use or not at times.

The fact we were in a position to pinch that game despite being so poor is a big plus. Geelong will be aware that we were off. It was interesting in Chris Scott’s presser he went out of his way to say that’s as good as they have essentially. Meaning us. But I think he knows it wasn’t

We didn’t really look to change things much during the season last year. Move things around etc. why give away your tricks before finals. Our game plan is built on predictability but there’s always a few moves you can make to nullify things or create advantages. Clearances for example. Yes we were tired but if it was a prelim we would have worked on nullifying that, I don’t think we did last night.

They had about 12 days with a nice hit out in the middle to blow the cobwebs out

Good for them, they can have it. Our midfield won’t play like they next time.

Very good chance we showed them nothing deliberately

We looked rough up until round 19 last year. Very similar form, problems etc.

That’s all Geelong have. Played well on their home ground. Selwood said post match we prepared for this period in the season and we are running on top of the ground now. We quite obviously were not. We had all the signs of a high loading period. Slow off the mark, fumbles, poor execution. The ball fell in their favour time and time again, partly because they were playing fitter and got to the drop and partly football gods. positives were we held their tall forwards well despite being very average for the night. The ground cost us, we didn’t play it well. Things look different on the mcg. They may have timed their run to peak too early. We look like we will be back week after next.