At the break of Gawn

Dogs should be 5 goals up. Just dominating. Why couldn’t we play a Richmond side with their defence in a shambles?

Lewis won’t coach when he retires. He basically works part time at Fox Footy. He’ll go full-time at season’s end and also work at SEN I reckon.

Well according to his presser, Simon Goodwin agrees with me, although acknowledges his importance in structures and communication. If Lever can play that general role, then I can’t see a need for Lewis.

Great win by the club today, but felt Lewis was really poor again. 8 kicks, 5 handballs. 5 turn overs and a disposal efficiency of 54% 1 tackle, 7 pressure acts.

6. Harmes 5. Oliver 4. Gawn 3. Frost 2. Salem 1. Lockart

I just rewatched that part. It was there but only just. Was bloody borderline.

So wrapt with that win. Should’ve gone to the game in hindsight... Can anyone please explain that second 50m against Harmes? I saw no player run past the Hawks player at all. They didn’t show a replay either.

Apart from that horrible set shot, Petracca has looked dangerous all game. He’s got the yips when the pressure is on. Needs a psychologist for his goal kicking.

Nervous toilet break?

I agree that his job isn’t on the line right now, but no one likes being under unnecessary pressure. Having said that, coaches get sacked all the time mid contract so, it’s not iron clad.

Holding your breath out of water can also achieve hypoxia. What’s the benefit of doing it under water?

Never forget. Lied to a man on his death bed.

Need oMac back for Roughead so Frost can play on Mitchell Lewis and/or McEvoy resting. I’m actually a fan of the changes. Harmes and Stretch on the Wing. Salem in the middle Fritsch and Tmac back forward Hunt running off half back My biggest concern is the weather. Looks like it is now forecasted to rain during the afternoon.

I actually miss the Sunday games. At least the disappointment only occurred the last few hours of the weekend rather than on a Saturday or Friday where it lingers round longer spoiling your weekend.

I hope it doesn't rain or be a wet game otherwise it might be a replay of round 4 last year. I still have rude flashbacks of O'Meara running past every Melbourne player on the field to kick a soccer goal. Forecast says it may rain in a bit in the morning, but hoping it holds out until Sunday.

just great...

Not sure how anyone could draw some conclusion that Pert could be responsible for this drop off - he's only been around for like 5 minutes. Has even made a decision yet that would affect the FD? At least he got Jaguar on board (albeit one year) More interested to see how he responds at the end of the year if the poor year continues. If he's a good operator, you'll see a clear out of underperforming assistant coaches, and hopefully an appointment of a world class fitness coach to replace the already exiting Misson.

Really good point. That reminds me of a comment on SEN I heard a week-or-two ago where they said the winter months slow things down a bit, bigger body midfielders have more dominance. I'll definitely revisit this thread at the back end of the year and see if this trend continues.

All the stats referring to other grounds (non-mcg) in my post were across the 3 seasons (so before and after bye rounds). I didn't think there was much of a sample of other grounds before the bye rounds so included the entire season. Absolutely. Funnily enough going into this season, our record at the MCG before the bye rounds was 27% winning ratio. So, this poor start isn't exactly out of the ordinary when you consider how poorly we play the MCG in the earlier part of the season. Begs the question, why do we get it "right" at the latter part of the season and can win at the MCG (71%)? Is it just game style and the sample size probably isn't big enough, or is it conditioning, or is it something else?

Yes, but the reality is that isn’t going to happen while our home is the G. The fact that our winning % is quite decent after the bye round might actually strengthen the theory regarding a conditioning issue our list has playing on big grounds early in the season.

I started writing this post talking about our poor record at the MCG (which I know is often discussed here due to our poor leg spead, lack of spread, two way running etc), but when I looked more into the data, I was horrified at what I found when it came to our record at the MCG before the mid-season bye. Here are the numbers since Goodwin has taken over: Total games at the MCG before the bye rnd: 15 games Wins: 3 Losses: 12 Winning % of 20% Average losing margin of 19pts, avg. winning margin of 56pts. Avg. Points for: 88, avg points against: 92 If you take out the two Carlton games from here, it drops to 1 win (North Melb) and hence a winning % of 7% (1 win from 13 games) So, over the last 2 and a qtr seasons, before the bye we've only ever beaten two teams at the MCG, North Melbourne and Carlton.. Geezus. Our worst streak of losses at the MCG is currently 4 (equal to rnds 4-9 of 2017 vs rnds 1-6 of 2019). I wonder if they'll achieve 5 losses on a trot this weekend? On the flip side, after the mid-bye round, our winning % jumps up to 71% (10 wins, 4 losses). -- For those interested, our record overall at the MCG under Goody is: 13 Wins, 16 losses, 44% winning ratio. That is bloody poor for a team's home ground. Can't think of many 'good' teams who have as poor of a record. - Also, for those interested at our winning % at other venues, it is: Marvel: 6W, 1L - 86% Gabba: 2W 0L - 100% Ade Oval: 2W 1L: 66% Domain & Optus combined: 2W, 1L: 66% TIO (darwin): 1W 1L: 50% TIO Traeger (Alice): 2W 0L: 100% GMHBA : 0W 2L: 0% SCG: 1W 0L: 100% Blundstone: 0W 1L: 0% Manuka: 0W 1L: 0% So one last sobering stat, for all grounds where we've played 3 or more games at over the last 2 and a bit seasons, the MCG winning % is the worst.

I honestly hate the "drank their own bathwater" comments. It implies that each individual in the entire team has that mindset when that just simply can't be true. I can accept that a few might have that mindset/attitude but to say that every individual has a shared mindset of arrogance is just absurd.

Defence is still a problem. We let Richmond had something like 70 inside 50s. That shows poor pressure up the ground and poor defensive work in our forward line. We are a forward half team. Good forward half teams don’t let the opposition get 70 inside 50s in regards to our forward problems, I see it mainly as a problem with our talls not marking it or bringing it to ground for our smaller players to do the work. Lowering the eyes and all that is great on turn over entries when the opposition defence isn’t set up yet, but it’s like threading a needle when the opposition is fully set up. In those cases taking a big contested mark or getting a good ground ball opportunity from a small forward is a good way to score. Another thing worth mentioning is that in many ways I think making a Prelim smoothed over for what was largely a good but not great season. Before rnd22 we hadn’t beaten a top 8 team, and we were still dropping games we were expected to win. E.g. Saints rnd 15, Sydney Rnd 21, inexplicably lost to Cats after being 30pts up.

Almost the same team we played last year (minus Walsh) that we belted by 100pts. when your out of form, everyone looks better than you. Having said that, I think their spine is bloody good but you’d expect that when the number of high draft picks they’ve had.

Max Gawn penned a good article today in the Herald Sun. Pretty sure it’s behind a pay wall though. He basically said that being unfit is a myth and a lot of the players hit PBs in pre-season time trials. The team knew there were no guarantees about playing finals again and knew they had to go again (so it’s not a bath water thing) Basically said we haven’t improved our defence as a team while other teams have over the off season.