stevethemanjordan

I suggested that the scaredy-cat view taken by many supporters on here was a weak and pathetic one, there's no need to take it as a personal attack. And strangely enough, I don't feel anything close to a goose. Our loss in my eyes had nothing to do with our JLT 'form'. Our loss had nothing to do with you or me. Our loss came from a number of problem areas, the selection table and a bunch of individuals not playing to a consistently high level for long enough.

How about that Oscar and Frost though. Wowwwwzeee. (can't be bothered going into actual analysis of the game).

What a silly comparison.

Yeh for all the good work they've done, that sure was a howler of a mistake Vs Brisbane at Casey. A) Going in with a smaller squad. (Risk) B) Keeping an injured player out there when there was absolutely no need. (Mind boggling).

When teams match us at "our" game, (winning ball at the coalface) then we generally struggle. See Brissy in JLT, West Coast Prelim, Collingwood Queen's bday last year etc. We were able to come back against Hawthorn after half time of the semi because of our talent. They were also missing Jaeger. I just want to see us evolve so that if teams do match it with us in the middle of the ground, we have some other ways of winning. The game requires that. And I'm not sure you can put Jones in the same category as those others you've mentioned. Last year was the first year I saw him drop off a little with his ball use. Years gone by he has been a really smart kick which was almost always kicked to the advantage of a leading forward.

Yep. Demonland is a place of extremism. If you give criticism, you must be a hater. Kicking to the advantage of a forward is obviously very different to a lace out pass, which is different to kicking to a contest, which is again different to kicking to a contest to the advantage of an opposition player. And there are in between kicks in all of that too. With or without pressure, our players need to be smarter with ball in hand. Jones made the change after a couple of years in the system and Brayshaw needs to follow suit along with a few others.

The same can be said for many of our players who drop off significantly in any area of their games. ANB is another perfect example. I'm completely aware of the role he plays within our team. He is a high pressure and gut running half forward who creates an outnumber at contests. But when his skills are as down as they were for both JLT games, he is rendered useless imo because he is giving the ball back to opposition. Too many were down in certain aspects of their games against Brissy which is why they got us in the end. Whether it's Oscar not being able to halve enough contests, ANB being way down with his skills, Gus and Petracca not being damaging enough with their ball use, it all adds up. During this flag window (next 3-5 years) we need to find individual consistency in game day performance so that if players like Oliver, Viney, Gawn, T-Mac or Jetta have down days, we have others playing high level footy that ultimately get us over the line in games. All the great teams of previous years have had this. We're still young and there's still a lot of growth left.

It's a bit of both sometimes but generally I'd say it's more to do with the quality of ball coming in to our key forwards. It's a concern I have for this season and have always had. Game-style wise, we're fairly one dimensional. We rely on grunt and contested ball winning and have recruited players who fit that mould. Unfortunately it has resulted in players who are not so strong with their ball-use. Brayshaw is the perfect example, if you go back and watch the Brisbane game you'll see that most of his forward entries were actually more advantageous to the opposition backmen and the same went for the Richmond game. A prolific ball winner, but generally he kicks to bad spots or misjudges his kick when going long which made it very difficult for Tom and Sam to play to their strengths in the JLT. I'll have no concerns with the amount of ball we'll win in the midfield against Port on the weekend, but it's going to get quite annoying if we see no improvement in connection from mid to forward from players like Petracca, Brayshaw, ANB etc. As great as it is that Gus is back playing his natural position and winning ball, he is not hurting opposition with his ball movement on most occasions and I'd like to see that change.

❤️

As the great philosopher, @Satyriconhome once said: "Opinions are neither right nor wrong". Poster @58er illustrates this quote perfectly with his words above. Great job everyone.

Weideman kicking 10 and Oliver collecting 57 contested possies is still astonishingly more believable than ANB having a fumble-less game.

Your defeatest attitude is carp.

ozbargains, greatest website in the world.

Also, losing games to teams like Port at our home is infact a big deal. I don't know why some don't think it is. Last year should have proved that to all. We travelled to West Coast and got smacked in a prelim and we were one win away from finishing top four and avoiding that disastrous day. And who knows what would have happened had we taken Hawthorn's place and played Richmond at the G first week of the finals. We should be absolutely taking care of teams like Port at our home ground. [censored].

I've always been the first to criticise our form during JLT, but you're completely wrong. We lost JLT one by a few points against a pretty much full-strength Richmond side and how many important players did we have out? We performed well given the outs we had and most of our first half was outstanding. Against Brisbane, we lowered our colours and I agree that overall we were poor in a number of areas. Individually we had some players who stank it up also. What's important to remember however is that JLT is the only time in which coaches experiment with set-plays, team structure and positional changes. How much of that unsettled us and influenced the result? We don't know. What we do know is that Port's JLT form has hardly been awe inspiring and they'll be missing a big part of their core and are traveling to the G to play against us. Why some of our supporters still have this scaredy-cat syndrome I have no idea. As a club, we need to move past this way of thinking. Players and supporters alike. We should beat Port by no less than 30 points on Saturday if we play the way that Goody and the team consistently preach. Ruthlessness should be the cringe word for us this year.

Weak and pathetic.

Christ we have some weak-minded supporters who absolutely typify the stereotype that is bandied about. If we lose to Port at the G with the outs they have, it will be nothing short of embarrassing. This is the lack of ruthlessness that is consistently associated with the MFC. We should account for Port easily in round 1.

Jeez I've missed Demonland.

Agree. The result of wanting to get a specific amount of game time into a smaller number of players. A risk that shouldn't have been taken and we're lucky one of our more important players wasn't injured.

Extremely unlucky and unfortunate incident but he won't get off. Already having nightmares of Frost and O-Mac lining up for us round 1.

Been saying it for years. Finally we see eye to eye!

Well at least there's no rehab group in early Feb as some stated a month or so back...

It's a crazy world we live in.

A common misunderstanding. One's work ethic has a direct correlation to their aerobic capacity (or any fitness component for that matter). Guys like Viney and Jones have become some of our strongest runners. Players that weren't considered elite runners before they came to the club, but are now through sheer determination and will. So it's actually completely between the ears. You're right that Trac may never become an aerobic beast. But not for the reasons you think. Trac could become anything if he adopted the same mindset as someone like Viney. I'm sure everyone has heard about the story of Ablett before he reached greatness..

Feel for him, terrible injury.