titan_uranus

People have suggested Petty and Hunt forward. We won't fix our problems by creating more. Hunt's most consistent football in years has been in the backline this year. He's a game removed from one of his better performances on AMT. He stays right where he's been all year. Ditto Petty, for whom we don't have a good replacement anyway (don't tell me Majak Daw can play his role, he hasn't played FB for Casey all year).

We're not pretenders. Pretenders don't get to 12-3 with wins over the three best sides in it (Bulldogs, Brisbane, Geelong), and a record of 5-1 against the top 8 and 8-1 against the top 12. Pretenders are sides who inflate their W-L record with wins against lowly sides but struggle to back that up against good sides. Like, for example, Port Adelaide (1-4 against the top 8). Losing games doesn't automatically mean we're a "pretender".

Sure. Doesn't mean we can't beat them. We already have.

This is precisely what we must not do. We are where we are because we have developed understanding of roles and of each other. Losing doesn't mean starting again. Daw isn't going to solve our forward problems, he's been playing ruck at Casey. Smith's playing defence at Casey. This much change will make us worse. Selection goal this week is a few strategic personnel changes but the far more important goal is to ensure the 19-20 other blokes who hold their spot improve on the mistakes they were making. This is rubbish, utter rubbish. We're generating plenty of ball inside 50, we're indeed generating enough scoring shots. This isn't a problem of us not being able or willing to move the ball forward (a comparison is Collingwood, a side which actively prefers slow and sideways movement). This is a problem of us falling down at the final two hurdles - finding a suitable target inside 50, and straight kicking for goal.

Yes I was at the game. If your summary of it is “we never gave a yelp” then I’m not interested in your analysis. We did most things right all game, but made the same small category of errors. You talk as if we have fallen apart but the reality is yesterday was a poor stoppage performance with missed set shots. Most of the rest of what makes us a good side was still there, including the defensive work and ability to transition the ball from the back half to a position to score from. If yesterday is the sole determinative factor for the rest of the season then sure, we’re stuffed. Bur it isn’t. Yes. We were screaming out for a marking option forward of centre.

Well, we’ve put ourselves in this situation by not picking Brown after he kicked 5. Now he has this weird “did he play” game and the angst sets in further. IMO it can’t be Weid next week. We gave that an extended crack and it didn’t work.

How does vandenBerg fix our midfield problem? Who does he replace and what does he bring that the player he's replacing doesn't? And can we carry someone who can't kick when one of our biggest current problems is poor kicking forward of centre?

Well good for you. I don't. We're 12-3. We may be in a form slump right now but if you want to give the season up, feel free. I sure as [censored] hope the players and coaches have more resilience than you.

I'd watch the game before criticising Jackson, or at least look deeper into the stats. Jackson attended 35 ruck contests. Gawn attended 36 (Mumford, by contrast, 56). Jackson spent a lot of time in the middle and up the ground. He wasn't the forward line problem today, at all.

So Brisbane thump Adelaide and now they're 6.2% in front of us, but a game behind. We're 6.3% in front of Port before they play Hawthorn tonight. Next week Brisbane plays St Kilda and Geelong plays Carlton. You'd expect that if we lose to Port, we'll either be 4th on percentage over Port, or 5th.

More than anything i want to see Brown do well, as I want the FD's hand to be forced. Weid playing well will help but I'm not sure Weid is the answer right now. Given the way our forward line's going, would be a good game for Chandler, Bedford and Melksham to play well in.

If Joel Smith starts getting games you'll know our season is done. FFS, there is no way at all we drop Petty for Joel Smith.

Some of the rest of your post I agree with (e.g. the comments on Petracca, Harmes and Viney). But this I don't agree with at all. The "real defensive based game style" we've been playing the last few weeks is the same one we played all season. The difference today was a thrashing in stoppages, which meant we couldn't maintain time in our forward half (which is what Goodwin wants more than anything) and bad play forward of centre - turnovers and missed shots on goal. You're talking as if we couldn't even get it forward of centre. The slide from our form to the 11-1 point is not nearly as big as you're suggesting.

This isn't correct, at all. GWS didn't "work us out". Lever and May both took 5 intercept marks (for comparison, Davis took 4 and Haynes 3). GWS didn't "work out" how to break down our defence. They scored 9.10.64, their second lowest score for the season and fourth lowest number of scoring shots. 19 scoring shots against is right about our average, too. This wasn't lost because they "worked out" how to break down our defence, this was lost because we couldn't get our hands on the ball in the middle and we couldn't kick goals from the time we did spend in our forward half.

The pressure acts stat is now up on the AFL website. Viney again leading the way for us with 24. Pickett third for us with 21. ANB 15, but Spargo only 8. Spargo also had 0 tackles inside 50 (Viney had 2, Harmes, Pickett, ANB and Gawn had 1 each). ANB 4 score involvements, Pickett 3, Spargo 2. These are some key metrics that I'd suggest the FD will be looking closely at for our small forwards and, I think, spell trouble for Spargo.

It seems to me that no one likes TNF as a spectacle to go to. People who like it seem to like having footy on the TV on a Thursday night. That's precisely why TNF exists, and precisely why I hate it. If Friday night ratings/crowds are down, maybe stop with the 7.50pm starting time and bring it forward to 7.20pm.

I'd forgotten about that Greene free kick until now. That hurt us so badly, given how the game played out. We were leading at that stage (albeit just by 1 point) but had been doing most of the attacking and had been holding him, and the other GWS forwards, out pretty well.

This is exactly what we shouldn't do. Bringing in Bowey and vandenBerg in the same week when neither has played seniors all year cannot, and won't, happen. It's disruptive in parts of the ground where we don't need to disrupt anything. I'm not suggesting the four you've mentioned played well enough to avoid being in discussions for the outs, but they won't all go, nor should they.

There was a passage of play where they encroached in the protected zone after two of our marks twice in a row without a 50. There was another, which I think you're referring to here, where Brayshaw was at CHB and Daniels came up out of nowhere in his way. A clear 50 not paid. The Mumford one was a disgrace. Anyway, as I said, I'm surprised more hasn't been made of it but that's probably a refreshingly good thing.

The point about referring to scoring shots is to try to contextualise our lack of scoring. It's not from a lack of opportunity, because we're still getting inside 50s and shots on goal from the rest of our play. Doing everything right to get the ball into Petracca's hands 30m out directly in front is good play until he misses, and then you forget about it because we didn't score a goal. It's this context which helps us work out how to fix it. It's less about wholesale change and more about converting the opportunities we are already generating. That comes from identifying what we can do better inside 50, and IMO that's: another tall forward; putting the heat on Pickett, Spargo and ANB, who aren't playing as well as they were earlier in the season; and fixing our wayward goalkicking, so that we don't keep deflating our momentum (see Petracca, Fritsch and TMac all missing shots they should have kicked today).

Hibberd kept Greene to 7 touches. Yes he kicked three goals but he barely got near it all day. Hibberd's effort pales in comparison to the other issues we had today. And when you say "small defender?", you're defeating your own suggestion - if you can't name someone to take his spot, he doesn't get dropped.

I'm surprised there haven't been more posters focusing on the umpiring. Not because it's a valid argument to make as to why we lost, but because there genuinely were some critical decisions that were missed in the fourth quarter that could have directly impacted the game. The two which stand out were the mark Fritsch took that wasn't paid (that gets paid 99 times out of 100 I reckon) and Mumford's late hit on Petracca which should have been a downfield free to us resulting in a shot on goal within 20 metres. They were momentum-changing, IMO.

6 - Salem 5 - Lever 4 - May 3 - Fritsch 2 - McDonald 1 - Petracca

[censored] thread. We drew 16,000+ to a game where there were about 100 GWS supporters tops, on a day where it felt sub-zero. Essendon had the night slot last week against us and drew 19,000-odd. Meanwhile the 16,000-odd of us who were there were making as much noise as we could to gee them up. Really, [censored] thread.

It's time to bring in Ben Brown. Goodwin threw Hunt forward when he's been playing defence all year. Why? Because Pickett, Spargo and ANB were struggling to get their hands on it or to break lines forward of centre. Pickett is our x-factor and our pace, but he's also way off his best form right now. Meanwhile Sparrow is on the pine for nearly half the match each week. Right now, I'd be looking at one of Sparrow or Pickett to make way for Brown. Yes, it throws our height and pace out a bit, but the onus is on the other 21 who don't get dropped to lift their workrate to make up for it.