At the break of Gawn

I’ll be happy with 15 wins to be honest.

Just a couple of observations from me: 1) We have lost contested marks the last 3 weeks (and badly). You’d be hard pressed to find a game last year where we lost that stat and from rounds 1-10 we won contested marks every match. Anyone have any thoughts on this? 2) Opposition efficiency inside 50. Most of 2021 teams would average around 20-30% against us. In rounds 1-10 it was still mainly 30% with an occasional 40% and one 50%. The last 3 weeks the opposition is scoring >50% of the time for each entry which is just unsustainable. Is this from Steven May not being there or is it more related to our poor pressure on the ball carrier?

Geez I’m glad Howe will never taste premiership success.

Think there was a bit of a collective gasp of shock in the crowd when he won which then the boos followed. Cox should have won it.

Really don’t want to see a thread like this again until we are absolutely humming and won 5 in a row.

AnB is a real concern. His disposal has dropped off significantly and he just can’t convert at all.

As many have mentioned earlier, we’ve been flat for 5-6 weeks. I’m not sure about this training load theory. From memory that happened after the bye last year and not before it. A couple of observations - Why are we insisting on making the ground so wide? Time and time we had players free in the corridor but opted for the Wings/flanks. I understand turning it over there is risky and a lot of the top 4 teams are keeping width, but when we turned it over, Collingwood had so much time and space to use the corridor they cut us to ribbons. - Teams are holding their defenders back against us now. We are a turn over side and when it’s our turn to go, we run harder than anyone. Unfortunately, teams have worked out you can’t get sucked up high against Melbourne or they’ll get out the back. We scored 2 goals off turn overs today and 0 last week. It’s diabolical and we need to figure this out. Unfortunately we don’t have the talent of a McKay or a Curnow, so Goody and Stafford need to improve that connection with the midfielders and our forwards. - Our pressure is way off - especially our tackling pressure. Our mids just aren’t closing space well enough. - No Steven May really hurts and a few times Collingwood got players out the back.

Pretty sure I predicted a low scoring game. 70-55 I think. But the other way around…

Crazy to think we haven’t beaten this mob on QBD since 2017 and Jack Watts’ goal. We’re too good of a team to not beat them today. As I said in another thread, I think we’ll win today but it’ll be a smallish margin. It’ll be low scoring like 70-55.

Anyone know average age and experience between us and the Pies for tomorrow’s line-up? Pies often touted as a young list but pretty sure they’re quite the opposite.

I honestly can’t wait to see how we respond. I’m really curious to see if we steel ourselves or turn to water. Regardless of how intense our attack on the ball is, our problems run deeper than just an effort level. Our forward line is completely at sea and we’re a long way off from clicking, so even if we do win, it won’t be by much as I think we’ll struggle to kick over 70-80pts.

Goody should have asked where were all the Tigers supporters last night…

It was obvious Mitch Brown was staying. Goody said he was playing better footy over Weideman. I’m happy to trust Goody on this.

I sort of feel an incident like this can go only one of two ways; it emboldens us and we go onto having a great season or everything starts to unravel.

Goody admitted on SEN this wee Goody admitted on SEN this week that he struggles against the most experienced coaches (and mentioned Longmire). This game is just par for the course for him. His record is 2-5 against Longmire.

I think part of the poor attendance, even before tonight, is just the way we’re playing. We don’t put on big scores, we don’t belt lowly teams, we were just grinding out wins… and now losses.

Petracca let him know on one of them too. The selflessness sometimes is detrimental to the team.

If you go back to last year, forward connection was one of our main problems during our mid season slump. One of things Goody preached was lowering the eyes, yet this year we continue to just bomb it in forward and try and win a ground ball. Our forwards just aren’t competing enough and we’re not winning clear ground balls. Secondly, our pressure is just way off which I think is hurting our intercept game down back. I’m not sure if it’s because teams are playing keeping offs against us and that’s why our pressure is down but I just can’t understand why we’re not bringing the heat.

We’ve been belted. Only one decent qtr from us.

Agree - quite a few premiership players still there. It's there engine room that really lets them down though. Lots of new guys.

I know it’s only small fry, but we really need to go out and belt West Coast and North. We’ve had a history of losing to teams who’ve had the blow torch on them all week. In terms of longer term prospects, I’d like to see where we sit at the end of 2025. If we have multiple premierships, finals appearances every year and a real sense of confidence going to a game as a supporter knowing you’ll get a really good effort, it will go a long way to removing this veil.

I’m a big Rivers fan. His grand final performance was remarkably unheralded. Didn’t make a mistake. I can’t see him being pushed out. JJ the most likely vulnerable.

Not sure you could call Fritsch’s season quiet, averaging 2 goals game as third tall (if you can call it that) and has kicked a goal in every game so far this season.

From the stands - round 22 2019.

What makes his rise even more fascinating is how far back he’s come from. If we went back to 2014 on this forum, no one could have predicted he would lead us to our first premiership and be considered one of the greatest ruckmen of our time. It’s just a wonderful story.