At the break of Gawn

The Pies turnover game makes us look slower than we are. We actually looked really fit against the Suns last week. That’s because their midfield is full of butchers who don’t punish off turnover.

I’m really not a fan of him playing so high up the ground. It really makes us look impotent when the ball goes quickly into the 50. This guy is our best natural forward and had a stellar start playing deep this year. I’m not sure if it’s because of Petracca’s injury but we need him deeper next year.

This is an open ended question, but do you think we are starting to value the wrong things at this footy club? We bring in competitors who will play our contest and defence mantra, but what about valuing the skills of the game? When was the last time this club recruited an absolute elite field kicker? I’m talking a Gulden, Blakey, Daicos level. I see so many guys come through the door who are just average or maybe above average kicks. If we’re ever going to improve our turnover game we’ll need some sort of drastic improvement in kicking skills and decision making under pressure.

Surely no one turns the ball over as much as we do. Need some serious focus on skill execution over the summer. We won 2021 off scores from stoppages, however scores from turnover is the new norm. We’ll never become a good scores from turnover side unless we seriously improve our skill execution.

They are an elite turnover team, apply excellent frontal pressure, swarm at the contest and they have a very solid back 6. Nothing to do with psychology. Goodwin and the coaches need to seriously work on our turnover game, kicking skills and pressure game.

Wow the weather forecast has really turned. A few days ago it looked like a clear night. Typical Melbourne weather. If it’s a wet weather game I think we’ll lose. Of all the times we’ve played fast and attractive footy it’s been dry conditions (West Coast, Gold Coast, Saints). I was hoping a repeat of the Gold Coast game but with this weather, I think it will be a very dour affair.

Darcy is giving Xerri a bath when he’s going in the ruck and then drifting forward. Hopefully this damages Xerri’s chances of AA.

If Kolt can fix up his kicking, he’ll become our best young player very quickly. Runs to the right spots, has pace and loves the contest.

Anyone else confused how Viney can play some games at 110% and go full beast mode while some games he just goes at about 80%? If he played with that intensity every week he’d probably be a top 3 player in the comp. Just incredible.

Surely one of Petty or Turner will have to go back though eventually? I’m a massive Turner fan and I think his attack on the football and his kicking for goal means he’s the better forward.

Stolen from a post on Twitter, but this a great pick up. “Trac spent months in Queensland then conveniently avoided this away trip when so many of the injured players travelled, and our twos were up here too. Today was a very ‘whole club’ vibe. None of this is reflecting very well on him. This is a direction, and he’s not in on it.”

Hope you enjoyed that one, Christian and the “direction” of the club. The only non QLD team to win at HBS this year.

Rivers has got to get those dinky flashy kicks out of his game.

All the off-field stuff has taken the focus off this week’s game. I think we’ll be competitive but ultimately I think the Suns will win by 5 goals. Also predicting the first question from the post match presser to be about the game with the rest to be about Trac and the off-field stuff.

I find it hard to believe that this footy department, which won a flag 3 seasons ago, wouldn’t be receptive to Trac’s feedback on performance, which then led him to go public with his grievances. It’s not like it’s Ablett at the Gold Coast here. I hear guys like May say the Melbourne way, and many media people say we train the hardest (King in particular). I wonder if it’s more to do with this current group’s flag prospects over the next few years. Morris did say “direction of the club”. Trac has his brand and he knows he’s probably only at his peak for 3-4 more years. I can’t wait until he breaks his silence, but he has a lot work to do to make it up to this playing group. Tomorrow’s game is almost a side-show for the media. Goody wasn’t even asked about the game this weekend during his presser.

Yes please

It can often be just one player. I know for 99% certainty that Morris was getting his Bulldogs intel (that caused the Bevo blowup) from a certain key defender who he played club cricket with.

Sayers was fronting up a lot when Voss was under serious heat last year. He backed him in and they went on to make a prelim.

After part 1 of the Fremantle horror show.

I honestly opened this thread expecting it to be a joke. Feel like there’s a bit of a domino effect going on at the moment.

Please post more often. This is the reality check a lot of posters on here need.

Moving to Marvel won’t solve a thing. We would have had 15k if it was there. As I said in an earlier post, the whole problem is the time slots for these interstate games. Not even Collingwood plays interstate teams at home on a Saturday night. They play all of them in an afternoon slot. I suspect the club has something to do with these night game schedules and we need to abandon them asap. We had 32k against the Eagles on a Sunday afternoon. It would have been 25k if it was a Saturday night. Pert needs to lobby for us to have all our home games against interstate teams to be an afternoon slot next year.

Probably the second most important position at a club behind the head coach. Very good appt from the Hawks.

Love them. Let’s go under the radar. The Hawks have barely played a free to air game this year and a drawing massive crowds with how well they are playing.

I’d argue the game plan going in was very good and I think Goody has always been strong in this area. Where he falls down is his match day coaching which we’ve seen on numerous occasions and is why he has a poor record against experienced coaches such as Scott and Longmire who are brilliant with in game moves. Last night was a good example of some poor in-game coaching decisions such as JvR being subbed off, and moving Clarry to halfback which cost 2 goals.