titan_uranus

Presumably Fritsch, Trac and Melksham are going to be played as marking/leading forward targets to support JVR, and particularly when Gawn's on the bench and JVR's in the ruck.

Fagan? They guy who took six years to win a flag after five years of finals which included two straight sets exist and a lost home prelim in 2020 when a home GF beckoned? And has the same number of flags as Goodwin? And it took Scott 11 years to win a flag. Critics of Goodwin on here say he was "gifted" a list by Roos, or by JT (you've just argued this today in this thread). Scott took over the Bomber Thompson squad, won that flag, and then had Selwood, Hawkins, Duncan, Guthrie, Taylor, Enright, and later Blicavs, Stewart and then Cameron, and still took 11 years to win another one. Trac is playing forward though. Not exclusively, but we'd be stupid to give him 0 midfield time. He's majority forward, and that on its own is working for us. By now I think the evidence is clear - Oliver can't be a defensive mid because when the going gets tough he resorts to "see ball, get ball" too much. Who knows if Viney could be a forward though, because that's a lever we've never properly pulled. And agree re: Max, his lack of form is killing us everywhere (at stoppage and on transition).

Meanwhile how can any of us have any confidence that the FD knows how to improve our forward half woes, when we don't appear to even know how we want to line up in the forward half? Round 1 we went with JVR, Jefferson and AJ. AJ relief rucked, during which we had JVR and Jefferson. Round 2 we went with JVR, Jefferson and Turner. JVR relief rucked, during which we had Jefferson and Turner (until Jefferson got injured). Round 3 we went with JVR and AJ. AJ relief rucked, during which we had just JVR, until the fourth quarter when we also sent Petty forward. Round 4 we went with JVR and Turner. JVR relief rucked, during which we had just Turner. Round 5 we are going with just JVR. When he relief rucks...? AJ's suspension and Jefferson's injury have obviously mucked around with our plans, but to me this is all over the shop.

This where you lose me. You hold absolutist views and don't appear to appreciate there are layers to selection. Yes, stability is important. Yes, the players not in last week's 23 who are available (other than Lindsay) are fringe players. But where you see "backing the players in to get the job done", most of the rest of us see out-of-form, or even worse, not-playing-their-role players who are continuing to be selected. Repeatedly playing players who are out of form or not playing their role sends bad messages everywhere. Is there sufficient pressure on Sharp, or Spargo, or Melksham, to lift their games, when they continue to be picked? Is there sufficient motivation for Fullarton, Laurie, Brown and Woewodin to keep busting their gut at Casey, when they never get picked and/or only get picked as sub? Further, you say you're happy with the changes, which presumably means you're happy with Turner being dropped. Why does Turner only get one game to try to fit in with the side, when stability is so important? So yes, stability is important. I accept that there is merit to giving the core of our side more time to work together - forward cohesion requires the mids understanding the forwards and vice versa, and that is harder to develop if we keep changing the personnel. But this has to be balanced against form. Stability cannot, with your level of absolutism, always trump form.

Meanwhile if the players show no emotion, Demonlanders would say “look at them, they don’t even care”.

Pretty sure the one @Sir Why You Little is talking about was Clarry shaking Nat Fyfe’s hand at the start of the match, which isn’t in that batch, but it’s the same point - he looked a lot trimmer. But if course, it was 4 years ago.

TRUE is the statement of our club’s values. It’s not a football department motivational piece. All clubs have value statements or similar corporate-style speak pieces like this.

Haven’t seen the segment het, but that’s true, and our forwards were asking what was going on at that first bounce, that’s incredible. I can’t think of an explanation for that which doesn’t reflect awfully on the coaches. We either enacted a plan which we failed to properly explain, or we failed to address a mistake (no one covering Sparrow in the forward line) and then left it and allowed it to destroy us.

He said it, but in relation specifically to tagging. In a post-game interview on radio. It was the standard Geelong disrespect, but it's correct. We should know how to tag, but we don't, and running a half-forward up to tag without replacing him was moronic.

We could throw anyone back there and they'd barely perform worse than Rivers right now. This isn't a case of Rivers being strong at half-back but the team desperately needing a midfielder. This is a case of Rivers having no impact on matches, so maybe for his sake he needs to be moved. Find someone else, even if we have to go to Woewodin. Throw Sharp back there. Yes, those options are not enticing, but leaving Rivers to wallow at half-back isn't going to help us either.

I mean, come on now. If Ross Lyon was our coach the exact same topics that we have now on Goodwin would still exist on Lyon. Primarily a defensive-minded coach who leads a side who generally can't score. Multiple years of being in the middle, with finals appearances (let alone wins) sporadic. Has led teams to decent/strong H&A seasons but no flags. Yes, today was a good win, but Port look like a bottom 6 side so far this year. If Goodwin had that record he wouldn't be getting pats on the back, nor would Demonland regard him as better than any of the premiership coaches going around right now.

I've made it very clear that I think we're in more than just "all sorts". I just find it jarring, to be honest, to read a 59-year supporter referring to our club as "them" and "Melbourne" and not "we" and "us", but anyway, you've got the runs on the board, it's your prerogative.

Just out of interest, are you a Melbourne supporter? Most of us don't refer to the club as "Melbourne" in every post. There's at least an occasional "we" or "us". Not sure I've ever seen you use those words.

I don't have any confidence, the way we're playing, about Essendon. They can't defend, sure, but neither can North. It didn't matter for North because we can't score so we can't take advantage of it. Meanwhile we're so poor at defending transition that if Essendon get their ball movement going, they have enough weaponry.

Yeah but then again he's so out of form in the backline, maybe for his sake and our midfield's he needs to go into the middle and someone else needs to take his half-back minutes.

Fixed it for you. We could. We won't. And I'd argue we're more likely to lose the next 4 than win them. FWIW, even if there's an argument that we can lift and beat Essendon, Richmond and/or West Coast, we can't beat Fremantle even when we're good. The way they're playing today against the Dogs, I would rate our chance of beating them at about 0.5%.

Fitness seems a clear part of it to me. There's always a mental side to fitness but to my eye we don't seem to be capable of running and spreading to the required level, and it manifests late in quarters and late in matches.

I know. I'm trying to say the box ticking matrix system doesn't work when Archer gets 3 but Houston gets 2.

But Archer's is a different offence, he didn't elect to bump like Houston and Pickett did.

In Rounds 1 and 2, May was injured. In Rounds 3 and 4, Lever has been injured. Also in Round 1, Petty was one of our best. He's been poor from Rounds 2-4, but there hasn't been a better option to bring in, with Hore injured and Adams not clearly ready.

If I'm looking at the trade correctly, we traded 14, 27 and 35 to Gold Coast for their pick 11, which we used on Tholstrup. Players who were picked from 18 onwards (pick 14 became 18 due to academy and f/s), who weren't also academy and f/s, and who have debuted so far, are Darcy Wilson, Wil Dawson, Riley Hardeman, Lance Collard, Archer Reid, Angus Hastie, Cooper Simpson, Shaun Mannagh, Tew Jiath, Clay Hall, Kane McAuliffe, Liam Fawcett, Joe Fonti, Joel Freijah, Harvey Johnston, Hugh Garcia, Archie Roberts, Will Lorenz, Arie Schoenmakers and Lawson Humphries.

The list is such a problem. No one is really falling over themselves to pick Spargo, Sharp, Woewodin, Billings and Laurie. That's five players who are too "samey", none of whom appear to be capable. I'd keep Henderson out of that group for now, given he can run, has a bit of pace, and can kick, but the point remains - swapping Sharp/Spargo for Woewodin/Laurie doesn't really have much appeal.

This won't be the lowest point. Richmond on ANZAC Eve, followed by West Coast, is where that point will be. Even if we beat Essendon, if we lose one or both of the Richmond and West Coast games, that could (should) be tipping point.

He plays in a very different side. He has Walker and Fogarty (and Curtain) presenting as marking options around him. JVR has Turner (a defender with, what, 15 games experience as a forward), Jeffo (1 game experience) or AJ (2 games experience) for support, and at times when we go with two talls, he has no one. Which raises an interesting point. So many on here have argued that because Hawthorn have just Chol, that we should be going with fewer tall forwards, not more. But there are plenty of sides who are going with 3 talls and succeeding. Adelaide is one, Sydney is another (they went into last night with Amartey, McLean and Ladhams, alongside Grundy). Both Adelaide and Sydney move the ball with pace, like Hawthorn, but kick big scores with tall forwards. Brisbane won the flag last year with Daniher, Hipwood and Morris, too.

Assuming that we didn't try for these players (I know it didn't seem to come up in the media but that doesn't necessarily mean we didn't try), I suspect there are two big reasons we don't seem to go after these players. The first is the salary cap - I assume we've had TPP issues with the coin we had to shell out in 2020-2023 on Trac, Oliver, Gawn, Pickett, May, Lever and Brayshaw. The second is our draft attitude - we have consistently prioritised obtaining and using first round draft picks where possible. That attitude will hold us in good stead in the medium/long term, now that we have Langford, Lindsay, Windsor and McVee. But it means I suspect that we've reserved our draft capital for only the A-graders (e.g. Houston) or otherwise for the draft. Which is why the 2nd rounder for McAdam stands out like a sore thumb. Also, I was at Marvel last night and if we had taken Jack Darling this board would be losing its mind right now. It shows you how bad we are that he played well against us, because he's utterly finished at AFL level from what I saw last night.