titan_uranus

If we finish 3rd or 4th, but the top 2 are the Dogs and Geelong, it won't matter so much. Almost 0% chance of a Geelong v Melbourne QF being played at GMHBA, and even if a Dogs v Melbourne QF is played at Marvel, we play Marvel well enough. My main concern is missing the top 4 altogether, which we will put in jeopardy if we keep losing games to bottom 10 sides. Having said all that, my preference is a Dogs win. Geelong scare me more than the Dogs, so the more games Geelong lose, the better IMO. Same principle for the West Coast v Richmond game.

Not an unreasonable post: I'm one of those fans who thinks the criticism of Gawn is usually too harsh but I didn't like his game yesterday, particularly given the vanilla-ness of his opponent. One issue I do have with your post is the double reference to Collingwood missing players. They were actually missing only three of their best 22: Adams, Grundy and Howe. Good players all of them, obviously, but this wasn't a decimated Pies outfit. Doesn't really change much but still.

Did we? I'm not sure that for this round the AFL gave us the MCG as an option. It wasn't explicit in the press releases or reporting in the same way it was today with the Geelong game. When I said 25,000 I meant the crowd. I have no idea what they make from it but it sure as hell isn't the $1.5M we've lost from our two games.

Whilst I agree with the second line, I can't agree at all with the first. Fritsch had 18 pressure acts for the game (our 5th highest), and TMac was one behind on 17. Weideman had 2. Both TMac and Fritsch worked hard to try to make something happen both up the ground and inside 50. All three struggled to get involved aerially but Weid was the only one who then failed to do anything to follow that up.

Hugely different circumstances. We've just lost our NT sponsored game and then an MCG Queen's Birthday crowd. They stand to lose...what...25,000 at GMHBA against the Dogs? And how are the two clubs going financially? We may be unassisted but we also rely on that sold game to the NT to get there. You're not comparing apples with apples. Sure. I should have said "contributed to costing us the game". IMO, the shortness of the ground did not help us set up and did not allow us to exploit our traits as much as a bigger ground would have.

It's hard to see why we'd do that: the main financial damage to our season has already been done. Unless we chose to play that game at Giants Stadium or Manuka, we won't pull a crowd to that game and hence it won't help us. Very different to playing Collingwood, a big club with a big fanbase in NSW.

It's easier to do when the game in question isn't the financial windfall of the NT sponsored game or Queen's Birthday, and it's the first home game Geelong's had in this period. As to the latter, they have to make the call now no matter what happens on Thursday, and there's no way the government will have decided now what they're going to do, they make all their calls the day before.

It's not hubris. The call that was wrong, IMO, was dropping Brown over Weideman when we did. Since then, Brown had one chance at Casey to get form back and didn't take it. Weideman did just enough to warrant further chances. Whilst IMO Brown would have made a sizeable difference to how we moved the ball and what we did with it inside 50, reality is there was too much else wrong with us to win today.

Two games shifted out of Victoria this weekL North v Brisbane moved from Marvel to Hobart Hawthorn v Essendon moved from the MCG to Launceston In news that @Bring-Back-Powell will no doubt lap up, Geelong has chosen to leave its match at GMHBA, in front of no crowd. https://www.afl.com.au/news/631692/r14-fixture-two-games-moved-to-tassie-crowd-call-for-cats-dogs

As painful as the loss is, your position on this issue is both annoyingly repetitive and unrealistic. It's bad luck in the extreme that we're the only club to have had two home games which have had to be moved out of Victoria. It's even worse luck that they happened to be two of our three biggest profit-making games for the year (the third being ANZAC Eve). We're 11-2 in no small part due to the contributions of our assistant coaches, fitness staff, development staff, etc. If we don't recoup some of the $1M+ we are going to lose from missing out on the two games, we're not going to make it where we want to go. It's entirely understandable that they looked to move the game somewhere where, through ticket sales, we could recoup some money.

Why? I'd have picked Brown over Weid the entire time but having backed him in and having beaten two top 4 sides in a row, we didn't miss a trick with selection this week.

Do anything about what? We got to 11-1 by implementing a gameplan and structure and following it. We're not about to throw the magnets around. He correctly put the onus on the players to right the ship, which they'd done vs Hawthorn and North, but this time it didn't happen. Not Goodwin's fault, and not lost at selection either.

Weideman - must be dropped Jackson - our best player Jordon - another promising performance Petracca - too many turnovers Oliver - couldn't break free Gawn - below his standard Petty - not good enough Spargo - a lionhearted effort Pickett - opposite of Spargo TMac - mind elsewhere perhaps? Brayshaw - know your limitations

Really well spoken by Lever. I encourage everyone who complains about Goodwin and players when they speak in the media to listen to this:

A key reason I hate losing: a couple of stand-out posters have, like clockwork, shown up on here, having been largely unsighted for most of the season to date.

I believe we chose that ground, as opposed to the AFL forcing it on us. We will have done so for the money, given there were 20,000+ there and I doubt that many would have gone out to Giants Stadium. And that was the right call given how much money we've lost from these two home games having to be shifted. But it's arguable that it's cost us the game today.

B Brown may not have set the world on fire in his three games but if he got dropped after the form he showed, Weideman must be dropped now too. 0 marks, 0 kicks, 1 tackle. The lack of goals is bad enough but it's the lack of contest. Brought the ball to ground once I think, and only because he was so far behind he had to spoil rather than try to mark. Outworked in the air, non-existent on the ground. It's time for us to make the switch and plan for and play with a TMac/B Brown forward line from here on.

6 - Jackson 5 - Jordon 4 - Lever 3 - Petracca 2 - Langdon 1 - Oliver

Getting in early given we don't play for another 12 days, but: In: B Brown, Viney Out: Weid, Sparrow The poor performance is very little to do with player selection and a hell of a lot to do with application.

It wasn't the lack of goals as much as it was the lack of contest in the air. They dominated the air in our forward half. Brown does two things: worries defenders, and kicks goals. Weid hasn't been doing enough of either of those.

Obviously our worst game for a long time. Nothing we did today resembled our 11-1 start. We were slow, fumbly, unstructured, second to the ball, lazy. You have to think there's something wrong with how we approach and/or prepare for games against weak sides. Our worst games for the year have all been against bottom 4 sides - our two losses were to sides who, at the time, were in the bottom 4, and our next two worst games were against North and Hawthorn. Old habits returned. We were +7 in inside 50s but -7 for scoring shots. An indefensible game from Weideman. That change must be made. We cannot carry players as awful as that, particularly in our forward line. Petty was horrendous in the first half on Mihocek which forced us to switch Lever over, but that wrecked our back half structure as Lever couldn't peel off. The game was there to be won for us in the third quarter. We had all the momentum and all the inside 50s, but the three goals we kicked wasn't enough. How many times did Brayshaw get it on the near-side flank but kick it on his left? Low percentage stuff that we couldn't afford. And then TMac's third quarter miss from dead in front was a momentum shifter - would have put us a goal in front and would have been our fourth straight goal in that quarter, but from that miss they kicked 5.3 to our 2.4. It's easy to panic and throw the baby out with the bathwater, but we're 11-2 so it's not exactly a disaster. After the Carlton win when we hit 9-0 we knew we had a tough month, so to come out of it 2-2 isn't a bad result. It's also better to drop these games to bottom sides rather than to our competitors: If we had to go 2-2, it's better this way than the other way.

First time for the season we’ve been behind at three quarter time. We clearly lifted but yet again didn’t score enough from our ample inside 50s. Let’s see if we spent all our tickets in that quarter or if we’ve got something left.

Collingwood is scoring from 57% of their inside 50s. I think Adelaide is the only side who’s been above 40% in that metric against us all year. Petty getting belted by Mihocek didn’t help.

Couldn’t be playing worse. We look slow, tired, unstructured, unskilled. Everything we haven’t been this season. +4 inside 50s but three goals down. Kicking it to Moore isn’t helping but that’s in part because Weideman is just so far off it he’s not worth aiming for. So many of their goals have come from our forward half turnovers. About the only positive is that we’re only 16 points down. We’ve flipped switches a number of times this year. Let’s hope we can again, because we’re sure as hell not winning this the way we’re playing so far.

On any measurement we should win this game by a solid amount, but I doubt it will be a smashing: Collingwood's biggest losing margin this year is 30 (vs GWS and Sydney). They can defend reasonably well but they really struggle to score. Even last week when they won, they only scored 78, and they were super accurate with 12.6 to Adelaide's 10.13. They've only scored above 80 three times all year, against weak defensive sides (Carlton, Essendon and North). Against stronger defensive sides they've struggled to score (53 vs the Dogs, 42 vs Sydney, 51 vs Geelong). Elliott and De Goey are dangerous in the forward line but they have to get it there. We know that when we're at least breaking even in the middle, and when our forward half game is on, even the best forward lines struggle to score: the Dogs and Brisbane over the last fortnight are the perfect examples. If we do what we know we can do, there is a comfortable win here for the taking. But the Adelaide game reminds us that if we're off, any side can beat us.