titan_uranus

I doubt they did anything strategic with the ruck: without Martin they don't have a ruck on their list capable of competing with Gawn in hit outs, so IMO it's not as if they had an alternative plan of trying to win hit outs but chose not to go with it. I think like many sides, once they know they can't compete with hit outs they focus on what to do with Gawn's hit outs but for a side whose 2021 strategy has clearly been to beef up their midfield to unprecedented levels of quality, it's hardly surprising they were able to shark the taps. The "chaos ball" forward of centre point is interesting - they may have taken the ball away from May and Lever to an extent but I felt our guys were very much still in the game and if they weren't marking it they were spoiling it out of bounds or killing contests pretty well. And I felt like Libba killed us when he was in the middle but otherwise wasn't too damaging (whereas Bontempelli and Smith were noticeably dominant on the spread). My view is that the Dogs did nothing surprising tactically to beat us, they backed in what they're good at (smart delivery off half-back from Daniel and Dale and a dominant midfield) and we failed to do what we needed to do to compete with that (forward half turnovers, laziness at defensive stoppages, and missed shots on goal that we need to be kicking). I may well be unreasonably optimistic about it all but my view remains that all of our losses/the draw, except the Collingwood loss, are more attributable to our mistakes than our opponents' strategic successes.

Whilst I agreed with them seeking to move their Richmond home game to GMHBA, I agree with you on this: clubs have been flying all over Australia over the last two months, with Sydney and GWS sharing a plane at least once. This sort of stuff cheapens their legitimate gripes: fingers crossed if we end up finishing in the top 4 slated to play away to them in the first final, this comes back to bite them!

I agree with the personnel points you've mentioned but I'm interested in the Bevo tactical point. Out of interest, what do you (or King) think Bevo did on Saturday night that was tactically sound? On the leap of faith point, one key difference between us and the Dogs is that the Dogs have had injuries which has forced them to try different players. We haven't, so Goodwin has had the ability to keep picking the same 25-odd players. Whilst I have all season considered there to be merit to backing the same guys in who have taken us to wins vs the best sides, there is now more than enough evidence of poor form from those you've mentioned to mean it's time to start dropping players.

Not always. West Coast in 2018 went 3-2 through their final five games. The Dogs in 2016 went 3-3 through their final six games. Sydney in 2012 went 1-3 in their final four games. Obviously we'd rather be winning in our last month than not, but it's not necessarily the end of the world.

Really hard to know what's going to happen with us this weekend. Seems like we're reliant on Queensland allowing us into the state without needing to quarantine. Otherwise it looks like the West Coast v Collinwood and Bulldogs v Adelaide games are going ahead, which means our only other possible opponent is Geelong, if they can't get the North v Geelong game to work. Would imagine we'll end up in Queensland one way or another though.

Agree on most of this. Harmes is not good enough right now to be in the 22 IMO. That's the opening for Melksham, I reckon, if we want to give that a go (I'm no Melksham fan and his 2019-20 form was terrible, but if we can get something like 2018 Melksham into this side it will make a huge difference). I don't think he's capable of resisting the urge to be Dustin Martin. Viney's best football yesterday was in the forward half and his worst was at defensive stoppages. I think that's the signal anyone needs as to his best role in the side.

Sounds then like your criticism is about how we score, not how we defend. Given our scores against and scoring shots against remain low, I remain of the view we're hard to score against. We're still generating plenty of inside 50s and scoring shots, so I also don't think our ball movement or transition is markedly worse, albeit it was much better vs Port and Essendon than it was vs GWS and Hawthorn. The difference in our form pre- and post-bye is, IMO, a much smaller difference than many posts suggest. We're doing a hell of a lot similar to what we were doing to get to 11-1, but a few small differences are proving crucial and costing us games.

The Dogs had 20 scoring shots last night, their equal second-lowest for the season. Two weeks prior Port had 15 scoring shots and 55 points, their lowest number of scoring shots and second-lowest score for the season. We're averaging 68 points against post-bye. We averaged 72.5 points against pre-bye. The Dogs' 20 scoring shots against us last night is the most we've conceded post-bye. Meanwhile post-bye we've had at least 20 scoring shots in every single game we've played.

What's he actually saying here? "It's really about maximising opportunity and being efficient when you need to. Clearly we had our chances tonight to kick a bigger score, there's no question about that" - we didn't maximise opportunity and weren't efficient inside 50, such that we could have kicked a bigger score. Everyone agrees with that, don't they? "Would we like to score more? Of course we would. But it wasn't a major issue. We had our chances tonight" See above "We sit here confident" - this may be true, and if it is, is that a problem? I'd rather us be confident than to have lost all our confidence. And being confident doesn't mean we don't appreciate we need to improve "They kicked six goals from their forward-50 stoppages, and normally in a game it's one-to-two, so that's a big differential and it's an anomaly" - we lost by 20 points where our opponent kicked 6 goals from forward 50 stoppages, against an average of 1-2. So in a 4-goal game we conceded 4 more goals from that source than normal. So in other words, he's squarely addressed our problems whilst maintaining confidence in the players and our system. Which, when we're 3rd on the ladder, half a game off the top, with four games to go, isn't anything other than reasonable.

Yep we were a mathematical certainty last week, as 8th was on 8 wins and we were 13.5 with 5 to play. Top 2 is locked in if we go 4-0, as we must pass Geelong in that event. 4-0 means 2nd if the Dogs win out, or 1st if they drop 1 or more games. 3-1 guarantees top 4. We could finish as high as 1st (would require the Dogs and Cats to go 2-2 and Port to go 3-1 or worse) or as low as 4th (if the Dogs and Cats go 3-1 or better, and Port goes 4-0). 2-2 puts top 4 in jeopardy. We could theoretically still finish as high as 1st but far more likely we'll be 4th, 5th or 6th - 4th if Brisbane and Sydney lose at least one game each, 6th if they both go 4-0.

Why didn't you just come out and say what you wanted to say, that they've "gone past us"? Pity they ended up losing and making your argument sound even dumber.

If you've only just now noticed Langdon and Brayshaw getting back into defence, you clearly weren't watching hard enough at the start of the year. Your comment about us scoring more pre-bye than we are now is precisely what I was talking about. You are seeing lower scores and equating that with being "boring" and a change in style, neither of which is accurate because we haven't changed how we play at all, we're just doing it worse. Again, go back and watch us play Richmond, the Dogs, Brisbane and Port. If you find the footy we played those nights "boring", then I'm sorry but I can't help you.

I genuinely disagree with everything in this post. We haven't changed how we play this year: one of Goodwin's biggest traits (many will say flaws) is that he wants us to play the same way all the time. We've always targeted the boundary with kick-ins, for example. We don't flood back now any more than we did prior to the bye. And we've always been "defensive first". Maybe you're being clouded by our lower scores and you think that scoring in the 60s means we've become "dour". When, in my view, the reality is we're doing everything the same as we did earlier in the season, but at a slightly lower level of execution.

The same Kane Cornes who said we "want for nothing" about six weeks ago?

For those who want to get their hopes up unreasonably, Fremantle currently leading Sydney by 8 points. A win to Fremantle means that 2-2 from here guarantees us a top 5 finish.

Agreed. Ladder predictors show you what will happen with your predictions of games but your predictions of games will almost never be right. What we know is the maths: 3-1 from here guarantees top 4, 2-2 requires Brisbane or Sydney to win out to pass us.

2.2 from 11 disposals, 6 marks, 2 tackles, 6 score involvements (our second highest). Neither amazing nor terrible. Was involved all night, unlike TMac or Weid in the games he's had this year. The missed shots killed us but they were the sole difference between an average game and a great one.

Agree. These losses happen to all sides every year. The only reason this hurts us is because of the Adelaide, Collingwood and Hawthorn results. Ridiculous. Were you "bored" when we beat Richmond, the Dogs, Brisbane or Port? Losing games does not automatically mean "boring". If your response is "we don't score much", that's not because we play "boring" football, that's because we miss shots on goal. As has been covered in this thread, since the bye we've had more scoring shots than our opponents every game except last night which was even.

I don't agree with you on your ongoing war against Gawn and his hit out stats, but also whoever we bring in if we drop Jackson is going to be worse in the ruck so they won't help this problem anyway. Part of the issue with Gawn IMO is he was belting it out of stoppages repeatedly tonight, but it hardly ever appeared to be to our benefit. I don't know if that's a pre-meditated tactic or just something he thinks he can/should do to mix things up but I don't think it works for us.

That was a free kick to Harmes. We got one on ANZAC Eve vs Richmond for a similar thing. Add it to the list of decisions that went against us.

It's about the midfield. Someone has to ruck the contests when Gawn is on the bench, and in general play when we want to sit Gawn a kick behind the play we'll disrupt our forward structure if we have to send Brown or TMac up to the wings to contest throw ins. Jackson allows us to be flexible with Gawn. I'm concerned if we drop him and don't bring in someone who can take those spare minutes in the ruck, we'll run Gawn into the ground and/or not get the benefit of Gawn sitting behind the play.

We didn't get overrun in the fourth though. We just didn't take our chances. We kicked two goals to one point by the 18-minute mark when the margin was 4 points. I'd love to know how many inside 50s we'd had to that point and the time in forward half stat. I'd reckon both were heavily in our favour. If we'd managed another goal or two, taken the lead from our hard work, who knows how the rest of the quarter plays out. But instead Bont gets a goal from a stoppage because Harmes and Viney are ball chasing not defending, instead of being in front we're 10 points down, and our belief sags. All I'm saying here is that this wasn't a situation of us being outrun in the fourth. it was very close and had a couple of things gone our way, we could and I think would have seen a very different result. There's been too many instances of too many mids going to the ball in the last month. After the win vs the Dogs in Round 11 Petracca did an interview talking about trusting the tackler and not having two go to the ball carrier. It's frustrating that this is creeping back into our game. I think it is in part because when we fall behind too many of our mids try to be the hero. It also doesn't help that Viney and Harmes are players who seem to be incapable of standing off at stoppages. I wonder whether we simply cannot play both Harmes and Viney in the same midfield.

3-1 from here guarantees top 4 as neither Brisbane nor Sydney could pass us. Two wins from here gets us to 15-1-6. If we do that: Brisbane has to go 4-0 to pass us. They have Hawthorn, Fremantle (away), Collingwood and West Coast. They could easily win that entire lot. Will really need to hope like [censored] the Fremantle match is actually played in Perth as that's their hardest game at this point; Port has to 3-1 to pass us. They have GWS, Adelaide, Carlton and the Dogs. I'd back them in to go 3-1 from that lot. Sydney has to go 5-0 to pass us. They have Fremantle, Essendon, St Kilda, North and Gold Coast. That's a harder draw than Brisbane or Port IMO. I can't see them winning all five. Of course, if we only go 1-3 from here we're in big trouble. That would mean Brisbane can drop a game and still pass us whilst Port would only need to go 2-2 to pass us. In all likelihood 1-3 means 5th (6th if Sydney do well), 2-2 means 4th and a final vs Geelong or the Dogs, and 3-1 puts us in contention for top 2 (particularly if we beat Geelong in the final round).

They're now up on the AFL website.

Yep. The game would have had a very different feel if we'd kicked 4.1 instead of 1.4 in the first quarter. We haven't kicked more goals than behinds since the Brisbane game, and we've kicked more behinds than goals every game since the bye. It's the single biggest problem we have right now and it's costing us premiership points and may well see us slip out of the top 4.