titan_uranus

I thought I did OK with my almost-live-post attempt! Goodwin's comments about Weideman really stood out to me, more than anything. Incredibly blunt.

There's no evidence of this "loading" thing. There is inside mail on here all the time, but not one post from someone professing to know for sure that the training loads have increased. I suppose we may never know for sure, and if we get better as the year goes on we may look back and confirm the suspicion now, but in the absence of good evidence/mail on it, I'm hardly inclined to accept it just because we happen to look a bit tired right now. I mean, we had a few ill players last week and this week brought in five new players, three of whom were coming back from injury and three of whom hadn't played at the top level for a long time (M Brown, Salem, Tomlinson). Coupled with a physically intense match, perhaps that explains the perceived slowdown?

Not sure about the frees. It didn't feel like we were giving away frees for in the back or holding the man too much. We seemed to be giving them away for getting caught with it or in marking contests. And as you know, I also don't agree that them kicking straight would have ended the game in their favour. The third quarter had the same logic but the other way around - we kick straight there, we may have had the game done at 3/4 time.

Well it's not that simple of course - the Browns had bigger and better defenders on them most of the time, as did Gawn when he was forward. Fritsch is able to get off the leash for that reason sometimes. But also, simply put, Fritsch is better than the Browns right now. He's in better form, he's holding his marks better, he's got enough pace to get away from his opponent but enough strength to not drop it in a contest. As for the crumbers, part of the problem was we were being outmarked in our forward 50. Can't put pressure on them when they're marking it. In the fourth quarter we were crying out for the ball to hit the deck if we couldn't grab it, but we kept getting outmarked. Coaches routinely talk about the importance of bringing the ball to ground. B and M Brown last night failed in that regard.

Good discussion points in this post, @fr_ap. On the bolded bit, how can anyone blame them - just look on here. When we win it's "well that was expected", when we lose it's "we're stuffed". Either way, there's far less excitement than there should be. Now that we've won it, I think there are parts of our core supporter base who have lost the desperation and passion that the 57 year drought brought to all of us. A bit of "oh well, so what if we lose it this year, we won it last year!".

I'm not against the Brayshaw move. I like him in the backline, but I've been thinking about whether we're better off with Hibberd and/or Rivers in Brayshaw's spot, Brayshaw in Jordon's spot and Jordon in Sparrow's spot (dropping Sparrow). From what I saw of Hibberd he looked good, but then again most of what I saw was when Casey was dominating in the second half. I mentioned this earlier, but I don't think there's much doubt that Hibberd is capable of playing taller than his height, whereas Hunt, Brayshaw and Salem aren't (nor are Bowey or Rivers). We don't need another 195cm+ defender, we'll be rolling with May, Lever and Petty/Tomlinson next week and that combination is fine. But Hibberd is more flexible than all of our other defenders when it comes to height match ups. It's something worth considering IMO.

I actually agree that we're not that far off our form. The question isn't the gap, it's how we go about closing it. Remember, we led last night for 83 out of 106 minutes, and were leading with 5 minutes to go. We have issues, no doubt, but we're not that far off where we need to be. My query is how we go about fixing the issues. We've done it before, when it comes to mid-forward connection and midfield defensive two-way running. It's time to see us do it again. Given you've correctly identified Lever isn't the only player who is below his 2021 form, why the outlandish "what does he offer the side" comment? Last night we had no May, a rusty Tomlinson and an injured Petty. We turned it over repeatedly and gave Sydney acres of space. And despite everything on here, Lever wasn't even that bad! His rushed decision-making and poor kicking was no good, but his defensive work was nowhere near the top of the list of problems for us, especially given the context. I'm far more concerned about our inability to hit the scoreboard, the severe drop off in form of B Brown, Jackson, Sparrow and Spargo, and the slump Petracca's currently in.

It took Fremantle back-to-back losses to wake up. They didn't treat their GC loss properly, tried to write it off as a one-off, and paid the price the next week. We weren't as bad against Sydney as they were against Collingwood, but perhaps similar principles here - maybe we thought the Fremantle loss was a one off due to the injuries/players missing, and now realise there's a bit more to it?

I'm increasingly of the view that our supporter base just don't go to night games (finals aside). The one thing I'll say is that the public transport situation is a debacle. Left the ground at the final siren, straight to Richmond station, where there was a 10 minute wait for a single train to any of Glen Waverley, Belgrave and Lilydale. Platforms 9 and 10 fully clogged up. If you have kids and you're leaving a game at 10pm and you can't even get on a train until 10.30pm because there aren't any, I can (kinda, somewhat) understand why you might not want to go to more night games in the future.

Amazing game, totally deserving of 3 Brownlow votes. It is of course concerning, though, that despite that level of performance we couldn't get the win.

The only thing interesting about this question is that you've asked it. One of the principal reasons we won the flag and then won 17 in a row was that we have a system and we back the system in. I'm absolutely in favour of Goodwin not changing things up drastically, as you're wishing he did, after two losses. Instead, I think he's right to have approached things by working on the parts of our game that are obviously down (mid-forward connection and turnovers) which, when fixed, can result in our usual system working. Throwing random players around the ground didn't get us to last year's flag and I don't think is the answer. Also, he moved Weideman back halfway into the 3rd quarter, not the 4th, and that was probably the right timing given we were 20 points up halfway through the third.

Gawn going forward is currently weakening our midfield, but it shouldn't - remember the Grand Final turned when we had Jackson in the middle. Jackson's performed as an AFL-level ruck and then midfielder before, but right now he's out of form. Which is killing us because Gawn was winning us the match wherever he went yesterday, including FF, but we couldn't get it to work because Jackson was being beaten in the ruck.' I'm really unsure about Petty to the forward line. The May-Petty-Lever combo won us a flag and they work very well together. He hasn't trained as a forward in a long time and one of our major issues is connection - the mids and Petty aren't just going to start magically working out leading patterns/timing etc. when we flip our lock-down defender to the forward line. And it would mean retaining Tomlinson, who maybe needs a week under his belt to get back into it, but last night was really poor.

The tackle issue is legitimate, but I'm less concerned about the scoring shots one. They outscored us by 7 shots, which is the result of the second quarter (they kicked 5.4 to our 2.0). And that in turn was in no small part due to Petty being off getting his shoulder fixed. In the third quarter, for example, the favour was returned, but we kicked 1.5 to their 0.2. We should have turned our third quarter dominance into 4.2 or better, and then the fourth quarter could/would have looked a lot different (going back to your earlier post on how we approach fourth quarter leads and how we play).

Key takeaways (at least IMO) from Goodwin's presser: When asked about how we lost it in the fourth quarter, he immediately focused instead on how we dominated the third quarter everywhere except on the scoreboard When asked about our forward line, accepted we'll look at personnel but also method (I mean, that's obvious to all of us, but a reminder that swapping B Brown for Weid isn't going to make us score if we keep delivering it as poorly as we did tonight) Directly asked if Ben Brown was fit, and said yes They kicked 8 goals from turnovers, to our 0 Was asked about us being complacent, and denied it Was asked why M Brown got the spot over Weid: "he's playing better footy". Weid has to play "a big man's role". Was actually kinda brutal about this, I thought Petty had a hit to his shin, after the knee last week and then the AC joint tonight

You know he coached us to a flag last year, right? FFS. The reactions of some, seriously.

Too many on here probably did. Fuelled by the media who had nothing to say about us in the first 10 weeks other than various forms of "how will they ever lose".

Brown's out of form, but to be fair to him and as has been noted already, there were a number of times tonight when he was either leading and ignored, or leaving space to lead into but the kick went somewhere worse. We overcame poor mid-forward connection last year. We're going to need to do it again, because it's the dominant reason for our loss tonight.

Spargo repeatedly takes too long to dispose of it after a mark, and repeatedly runs into the pocket then tries to pass it when he should be running straight at goal and scoring. ANB's becoming too fumbly under pressure, although he's certainly not alone. I'm far more lenient on Lever and Petty than most. Sydney moved the ball well, but that was in no small part because of our turnovers. We exposed our backline through giving the ball up. And that was contributed to by our forwards not just failing to mark, but failing to bring the ball to ground.

6 - Gawn 5 - Petty 4 - Jordon 3 - Oliver 2 - Fritsch 1 - Brayshaw

But you know as well as I do that Hibberd is far better one-on-one than either of those two, and can "play tall" much better than those two.

Focusing on the positives for just a second: Gawn was phenomenal tonight, should get 3 Brownlow votes for that. Bounced back from being beaten by Darcy last week in stellar fashion. Petty was our best key defender despite a knee and a shoulder injury. Salem looked great early - not sure he ran the game out all that well though. Brayshaw's still composed as ever in the backline. And of course, most of us looked at that game and thought we were pretty poor and yet we led for most of the night. Which is the glass half full reminder that we're not as far off as the losses make you think.

The forward line is a mess. Ben Brown's far too far out of form to warrant selection next week. The problem is that there's no good replacement. It seems TMac's out for ages, and Weideman keeps putting in poor games even after he looks to have shown some AFL form. IMO, we have no choice but to drop B Brown for Weideman and give M Brown another game. B Brown has to go find form at Casey. Elsewhere, if Petty's fit then Tomlinson goes straight back out for May. We then need to make calls on Sparrow, Hunt and Spargo. Bedford could take Spargo's spot, and I'd be thinking about getting Hibberd into the backline for some height to help out. We're just a touch too small with Bowey, Salem, Hunt and Brayshaw back there. Hibberd's height helps take pressure of the talls, particularly when Petty's half-fit. But that's probably only 2 or maybe 3 changes. Like last year, the improvement has to come from the core A-graders. Trac's got to turn his slump around, Viney has to fix his kicking, Lever has to fix his decision-making, Oliver has to work through his tags, and anyone delivering the ball inside 50 has to think about it before they kick it.

Playing a stable 22 last year went a long way to us winning the flag. Awful take.

Yep this was a rubbish crowd. If you're not going because you think we don't play exciting football, you are the problem. Get off your [censored] and go support us. We are the reigning [censored] premiers and we're top of the ladder. [Censored] it infuriates me to hear Melbourne supporters say "oh I just don't think we play exciting football".

There's plenty to think about and cause for concern, but not for most of the reasons people are suggesting in here. If you're potting the backline, you're focusing on the wrong thing. What did they score from turnover tonight? I don't know the number but i know it was far too much. If you're potting our lack of forward half pressure, you're focusing on the wrong thing. We can't pressure them if they're marking it, and they marked it far too much. We lost this game in two areas - belted in the middle in the second quarter, and a horrendous lack of connection in the forward half in the second half. We held them to two scoring shots in the third quarter, they barely had a look at goal. We had 16 inside 50s. But we scored 1 goal. Then in the fourth quarter we still generated opportunities but whether it was Fritsch not scoring from 30m out, Gawn missing from 5m out, Gawn then missing his pass, Sparrow missing his handball, Spargo centring when he should have had a shot, Viney turning at least one inside 50 kick over - this is why we lost. Ben Brown's either injured or out of form. Regardless of the reason, he's ineffectual right now. It doesn't help that he has no foil when TMac doesn't play, and it doesn't help when we continually miss him when he's on a lead, but when he has the chance to impact he's failing to do so. Mitch Brown's not up to it. It's sad that Weideman hasn't been able to cement his spot in the side because we are crying out for a key forward right now. Jackson, Sparrow, ANB, Spargo and Hunt are all out of form. Last year the first four were key reasons for our flag. This year, they're not able to lift when we need. Our poor form is compounded by Sydney, like Fremantle, playing probably their best game for the year. But that's something we have to expect now. Opposition sides set themselves for us. They plan for us, and because we're out of form, it's working. That's all then further compounded by some critical umpiring decisions that hurt us. The late Gulden and Papley goals were from soft free kicks. The early Reid goal was not a mark. And in the third, ANB and Oliver were both denied 50 metre penalties that were there (in ANB's case would have led to a certain goal). But the umpiring compounds the poor form, it doesn't cause it. It's hardly time to throw babies out with bathwater, because the first quarter is a reminder that our best is still the best, but we need to fix our forward half connection very soon, or we're not going to make the most of this season.