dazzledavey36

After last week's effort I think we beat the giants and beat them comfortably. It's the following week that I'm more concerned about.

No way is he worth a 1st rounder.

They'll never drop him.

Not sure I'd have Sparrow up there. Is his form any different to last year?? Yet to see anything from him that suggests he's taken the next step.

Yeah he's an absolute gun. Been fan of his for a while. He's just a tad on the shorter side of a genuine KPF but then again, it hasn't stopped Charlie Curnow.

Or maybe we just strip Clarry'a running and footballing program back a tad so he can actually try and regain full recovery. Bizarre decision to let him start running 3 days after he initially did it against Port..

No Oliver and Hibberd for this weekend. Confirmed by the club.

Bravo post @jnrmac

We've been doing this since 2021. I don't mind the dump kick here and there especially when we move the ball quick and fast. This is why it worked in 2021 because we had McDonald, Brown and Jackson as our 3 talls. If they weren't marking it they would at least bring it to ground for our smalls to pounce on What I do hate is that the last few weeks we're just doing dump kicks on the top of the likes of Chandler, Pickett and even ANB deep inside 50 against much taller opposition. At one stage Sparrow kicked to a Pickett vs De Koning deep inside our forward 50 in the 3rd quarter I think. If we're going to do a dump kick then bring in Brown if we have too. He draws defenders and at least we can halve the contest once the ball hits the ground with our smalls.

Someone remind me why are we playing games in Alice?? Am I correct in saying we sold this as a home game?

That's all I needed to know. Cheers. First of all, my argument isn't about that loading doesn't exist because I know it does. And maybe I need to clarify that a bit more clearer. My argument is that we have a loss against Geelong and all of a sudden excuses come out straight away that it's all purely due to loading. And let's not pretend we've been here before last year. The argument was raised that the wins were going to come in the back half off of last year and set us up cherry ripe for September. Those wins didn't exactly come. We had a poor 2nd half of the year and if you go back to our losses last year there was a concerning trend of 2nd half fade outs, especially last quarters. Come September, nothing changed. W See I didn't blame that on loading or anything even though it was a concerning trend in our game. I still maintain Goodwin was incredibly stubborn on a number of factors including tinkering our game plan, forward connection and his inability to make team changes when it was evident certain same players were playing injured or badly out of form. This is why this is more my biggest concern then loading because alot of the bad habits the coaching department had last year are starting to creep back in again as per the points i raised above. Also no one has even mentioned or factored in that it was a wet weathered game which has been one our biggest weakness so far this year. Geelong, Port Adelaide and Essendon are games in the wet where we've failed to adapt to conditions and we've looked generally fatigued throughout those games it takes away our game and we then don't have a plan B to adapt too. In the games previous to Geelong we've ran out games well, but just haven't executed the basics right. If we were in a huge loading phase in that period then again, I would argue that it actually hasn't hindered our performance because we've ran those games out well. Just on the Adelaide Collingwood game. I thought Adelaide looked a team full of running and played with high energy and excitement. Certainly did not play like a team that was going through a Burgess style heavy loading program as you pointed out.. I would factor that they were absolutely mauled by the pathetic umpiring that cost them in the last quarter. They looked far more fresher then Collingwood. Collingwood certainly the team that looked like they were feeling the effects of having a week off, but credit to them they rose in the last quarter and piled on a few goals to eventually win. But their form leading into the bye wasn't exactly top seed material.

What's Geelongs excuse for kicking 6.2 in the last quarter in wet and heavy conditions? Collingwood kicked 5.2 in the last quarter and ran out winners. They're loading in a heavy block of training too??

Whilst our 4th quarter against Geelong was unacceptable, I could also mount an argument that our 4th quarter against Collingwood we had the chance to blow them away early. We missed 5 shots on goal in a row which would have iced the game. We were running well over on top of them. We let them in the game purely because we missed gettable set shot goals in front. I mean, we kicked 2.7 in the last means we had 9 scoring shorts. Turn that the other way around and we're pumping Collingwood close to 40 points. Even against Carlton and Freo we still won the last quarter and again, had opportunities to extend the lead further but wasted our opportunities in front of goal. Go back to Port Adelaide and no coincidence that they outscored us in the last quarter in wet and heavy conditions similar to Geelong. See where I'm getting..?

And yes, @binman my bad on the personal jibe at you. My apologies.

I'm sorry, back them up with what exactly? If you're believer by the looks of it then what's your take on it? Intrigued to hear your personal opinion you have on it as you are a regular training attendee. Because I would like to think you're simply not just jumping on the back of others purely because your dislike for myself has a different narrative that doesn't wear rosy red and blue glasses like you'd all like us to be and just calls it as he sees it....

If you think there isn't far more pressing concerns other then your 'loading' fantasy then you're delusional once again. Bit like last year. The fact that you genuinely think that the cats the just clicked their fingers and realised that all those years it was all just due to loading is a [censored] take from your end. You don't even have the facts to even back this up. Cats have been loading year after year. The fact is, the cats had a complete revamped of their whole footballer department at the end of 2021 after the loss in the preliminary and had a mini review at the end of the season. Scott completely changed his whole coaching structure and brought in new Intel into the group which meant they had a complete revamp of their game plan. They played a far more attacking style that was a complete opposite to what Scott had ran with previous years of the chip, slow and controlled ball movement. Not only that, they rested players in the 2nd half of the year which had them absolutely cherry ripe for September. They had the luxury of doing as they played some lower end teams. Complete opposite to what we did last year when we sent Gawn and Lever up to Perth against West Coast with back and ankle issues when the opportunity was there to rest them. So as I am pointing out, Geelong identified far bigger concerns that was holding them back instead of pin pointing loading as their main key target. I mean thanks for the laugh though. In terms of more pressing concerns then 'loading'. • Forward connection is one. Forwards starting behind defenders and not willing to lead at the ball carrier. We struggled to connect in the first quarter. This has zero to do with 'loading'. We're still fresh even in the first quarter. No player ever goes into a game feeling gassed from a main training session especially when recover now days is at an all time premium. Nothing to do with loading. • Botched team selections. Playing a completely underdone Petty off 6 weeks with zero match condition over an in form and fit Tomlinson. Not only that, he started down back after Goodwin promised that he'd be spending most of the year up forward. Spargo as a sub was just bizarre. James Jordon who has zero influence over the game ahead of Jake Bowey who would have added cleanness and speed off half back. Again, nothing to do with loading. • Form concerns of certain players. Pickett, Langdon, Gawn, Spargo, Chandler, ANB, May are all in a form slump and need to find ways to get themselves out of it because it's costing us. They all seem bereft of confidence and are simply struggling. When I see Kozzie picky try and toe poke a ball forward instead of bending down and picking up the footy then it's got absolutely nothing to do with loading, but more so on confidence. • Game plan. We've reverted back to the slow ball movement style which simply gets picked apart, eerily similar to last year as well. I remember watching the Doggies and Sydney and thinking that this will be the game plan that'll win us the flag this year. We played a fast attacking brand that caught teams off side with the way we were able to sling shot off half back generate scoring pressure so quickly. It's why we were at one stage the highest scoring team in the competition. Nothing to do with loading, it's the tinkering of game plan that is evident.

Funny that.

I think people want to find excuses for the sake of it. It's like putting a band aid on a bigger wound. There are more pressing concerns then then this loading myth which was put to bed the moment we lost our first final. The believers were telling us all that we were in a huge loading phase this time last year and it would set us up well come September. How did that go? The believers went MIA after our finals exit last year and couldn't even come up with an answer when they were questioned about it. And here we are again, Déjà vu.

Oh dear... Loading discussion has reared its head into this thread for the 2nd year in a row @JimmyGadson Couldn't make this stuff up.

On top of the disgusting 50m penalty against Sloane..

Umpires cost Adelaide the game.

Tex!!

Taylor Walker is a genuine [censored] star!