At the break of Gawn

Not worthy of a new topic, however, would like to know if people think this group of players gets a bit of stage fright early in front of big hostile crowds at the G? I know they’ve got Grand final experience (albeit at Optus) but it seems that whenever we play in front of a large MCG crowd against a another big Victorian team we start poorly. Some recent examples: Round 6: Richmond ANZAC eve - poor start Round 13 - Collingwood KBD - poor start Round 22 - Carlton - poor start QF - Collingwood - poor start. I know we had finals wins in 2018 but Geelong and Hawthorn crowds don’t have the same level of goading and intimidation as a Pies/Blues/Richmond crowd.

I think your GA split is a bit too one sided towards Carlton. To say Carlton has a 4:1 ratio of supporters is a bit far fetched. I think it’s probably more 8k Melbourne and 12k Carlton. I know the roar was loud with Collingwood but the roar of that first Fritsch goal was a lot more than 35k people.

Has anyone else read this on SEN? Seems awfully desperate to make amends which to me seems like he’s feeling guilty more than anything. If it was a complete accident, I’m not sure he’d go to these lengths. Also, who doesn’t call ahead?

Surprisingly a lot more modest than the Collingwood BF board. I think both teams will have problems with their forward half on Friday night. Everything will go to Curnow so we'll plan for that. I really hope we bring in another tall for JSOS. That will give Lever free rein to mark in front of Charlie all night.

I'm actually surprised this hasn't made twitter (or at least from what I've seen). I saw that interview and shortly after the Brayshaw hit, that quote came to mind. I know he was saying it in jest, but it's not a good look. If it wasn't a final, would Maynard have gone full tilt jump in the air to spoil that? Probably not. He plays on the edge and he would have wanted to make any sort of impact early.

One more question from me, does Goodwin need to instruct the players to use the corridor more? We are ranked 18th from use of the corridor and it’s robbing us opportunities of really good looks. There was a great segment on this on First Crack on Saturday night. I feel this must be tweaked for Friday.

I’ve just finished watching the replay. It wasn’t as obvious to me at the ground, but I think the main part of the reason we lost is the coaches didn’t anticipate some of the structural changes Collingwood implemented behind the ball. They held their defenders (particularly Moore and IQ) very deep. Perhaps it was the absence of Murphy/Moore for a few weeks but Collingwood were pressing too high the last few weeks and were leaking goals out the back. They clearly worked on that during the bye. Even when our players created a forward half turn-over, Moore was always there in our D50. Our coaches were too slow to react to this and I didn’t think any meaningful action was done to bring their defence higher. Perhaps bringing up JVR, Smith and McDonald higher up the ground, isolating Kozzy. Even isolating Trac if that was an option. Collingwood were successful isolating Elliott but unfortunately for them he couldn’t kick straight and Hibberd was huge. I agree at times we bombed it in and didn’t try and bring up the Pies defenders, but I think one thing we’re overlooking is the smart and strategic coaching by Collingwood to hold their defenders back. They were excellent and we failed to adjust. So my question to Binman/George is this: If Carlton employ a similar tactic and hold Weitering really deep, what can our forwards and mids do? When Carlton has their defence set, do we kick around and chip the ball to bring forward their defence? Isolate Petracca and encourage the other forwards to get higher? I felt we had near to none genuine one-on-ones on Thursday. I haven’t watched the second half of the Swans v Blues game in detail, but I’m keen to see how Sydney got really good looks against the Carlton defence.

We lost to Carlton by a finger nail in the rain (which we’re terrible in). We’ve now got another chance at them in bone dry conditions If we can’t get it done, then we don’t deserve to be in the prelim, let alone the GF.

Brisbane had 64 inside 50s (still 5 less than us) and they kicked 70 more points than us. Unbelievable

If we somehow miraculously fix our forward issues and beat Carlton, I think we can beat Brisbane. We’re the last team to beat them there and they will be a bit shell shocked to play a game with a defence as good as ours. But, ultimately I just have a feeling that with the momentum Carlton have, they’ll get over the top of us.

We need the GWS forward line coach. They’ve averaged over 100 points the last 5 weeks and look super efficient. Forward efficiency will be the story of this finals series.

https://x.com/cleary_mitch/status/1700421909945765913?s=46&t=PgGGBVtPGxmKYqlW0SqdRw

I think we’ll throw everything at Carlton and put in a really spirited performance (just like in round 22) but ultimately fall short because of the lack of forward talent and mix.

Expected score is a fallacy and I really hope Goodwin doesn’t just think our forward efficiency is just a simple fix. I hope the FD pauses the tape at every inside 50 and shows where the better option was. Also the lack of leading is extremely concerning. It’s either they’ve been directed not to because the FD just wants deep entries or the forwards are lacking some sort of confidence.

Finishing 3rd would have been much better in hindsight. A free hit at the Lions at the GABBA while they have all the pressure on them. Then if we had lost, an MCG home final against probably the Giants where we would have had the 19th man

I think we need another mid as the sub. We need extra mids coming through if Trac is to play forward and we can’t be robbed of that again if someone like a Viney goes down. I also think we’ll need an extra tall down back if Silvagni plays.

Voss has said McKay is in the concussion protocols.

I’m not fussed about McKay playing or not. If he plays we will probably play a third tall which will suit us. The weather looks dry all week so it’ll be a dry deck. Martin not playing is a bigger win. He was very good against us last time.

Why were the Fox commentators lauding Sydney for their comeback but bashed us even though we did exactly the same thing?

Carlton have been better without McKay to be honest. They won’t miss him next week.

More likely to turn it into fever pitch.

Both. Doesn’t matter how fired up we come out next week. We’re unable to kick a winning score.

Straight sets coming up again for us.

I think Schache has to come in. At least he’s a reliable set shot. Grundy into the side and moving Gawn forward will tempt the mids to bomb in long again. We brought Grundy in against Carlton last time and couldn’t even crack 60pts.

💯. The coaches and media were lauding our defensive prowess but no one was pointing out that we were averaging 60-70pts the last 3 weeks before this game.