At the break of Gawn

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 

Just now, Lord Travis said:

If we get past Carlton next week, Brisbane at the gabba looks a bridge too far. We’ve performed far better at Adelaide oval so was hoping Port might get up tonight, but Lions are an offensive juggernaut up there. It’s a real tough path for us now

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

5 minutes ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

Despite our forward issues I actually think our leaders will be laser focussed this week to ensure we don't go out in straight sets again. 

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.

20 minutes ago, ElDiablo14 said:

I hope Goodwin is reading this.

I am not very fond of the team naively taking the expected score stats as a "win" or an indication that things are OK and will sort themselves out.

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.

4 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

From 4th position since 2000, no one has won the flag.

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. 

5 minutes ago, leave it to deever said:

Maybe stopping the Carlton hype is our consolation  prize.

 

More likely to turn it into fever pitch.

3 minutes ago, Chook said:

Because we're bad or because the oppo are good?

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.

19 minutes ago, leave it to deever said:

Backlines may keep you in a game or season for a while.

But forward lines win flags.

Always was. Will always be.

💯. 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.

Consecutive straight sets for us I think. Carlton will most definitely win tonight.

They defend their D50 better than anyone. 

Extremely flat this morning. Last year’s QF I just felt we were genuinely outplayed and came to the realisation we’re just not that good. This year I think there’s no real stand-out team in our way and it will genuinely be a missed opportunity if we don’t win it this year.

We absolutely shot ourselves in the foot. Just dumb, easy to defend entries, time after time. We were our own worst enemy.

I suppose instead of looking at the last 6 weeks of form, all we really needed to focus on was the last 3 weeks was leading to this game. We’re averaging just 68pts per game since Petty went out. In my mind, we’re just an upmarket version of the Saints.

What worries me the most is if we do go out in straight sets again I really feel it may break this group. What’s the point of finishing top 4 in season if you can’t win a final? I think it will severely dampen this teams confidence and even our supporter base for next year if we can’t win at least one final this finals series.

Collingwood actually defend their inside 50 really well. They have been off for a few weeks and they’re vulnerable on transition, but if it’s just bog average repeat entries, they’ve got 4 very good interceptors (Moore, Quaynor, Murphy and Howe). I listened to Sparrow after the game on SEN and the coaches were trying to get them to add more speed on the ball and different angles but we couldn’t execute as well. In my opinion, this game was extremely similar to QB. The only difference was that Fritsch nailed his set shots that game. 
 

I’ve got no confidence against Carlton next week (if we play them). They defend their D50 better than anyone.

To think we’ve gone from winning a flag to staring down 4 straight finals losses is inconceivable.

I’ll just leave this here:

Goodwin: “In finals, your vulnerabilities are exposed”

Our vulnerability is our ability to score. It’s been our vulnerability for 2 years, and we thought we could fix it with an old forward who hasn’t played AFL footy in months

1 minute ago, Jaded No More said:

Not great conditions for us I would have thought 

Not great conditions for Cox or Cameron either