titan_uranus

Good start. At times excellent start. Gawn's late turnover was terrible. No game awareness and a bad option to boot. But he's creating so much through the middle. Mumford's a [censored]. Let's hope we can keep this up. 5 goal quarters and 3 goal leads early are nice things.

In his last two seasons at Adelaide they finished 5th (16-6) and then made the GF. It's a bit chicken and egg, but I'm sure Lever's stats were easier to accumulate in a winning side than in this year's 2020 side. Plus those stats don't take into account the 20% reduction in game time. And the last bit about "taking hold and springing from the backline and setting up our mids" - since when was that Lever's role? But more importantly, he's actually been good for us most of the year. There is a large anti-Lever bias on here: people disappointed he isn't reaching some sort of god-like level of football or want a draft pick back or something, without actually appreciating the reality that Lever's played well.

Don't agree with the Geelong point. Good clubs make poor drafting/trading decisions all the time. I think this is what is being missed in the current discussion. Right now, the only suggestion is that Viney's considering his options. Not that the club is shopping him around or not offering him a contract. Yet many on here are arguing the club is making a bad decision.

Petracca did it a fortnight ago. But yes, our big list problem is a KPF to play alongside Weideman.

Love your work @Demonland but we had a Jones thread kicking around last week - maybe could consolidated this article into that thread to continue the debate? FWIW, I don't think I agree with the article. I don't think Jones has shown enough this year to suggest he could be a meaningful best 22 contributor in 2021. Which is sad, as it would be a fitting reward for Jones' hard work and determination if he was able to get to 300.

Doesn't it fit in entirely with one of your other major criticisms of Goodwin: he's a poor and inflexible tactician? Built a list and game plan to do one thing, rule changes prevented it and he's not been able to adjust.

IMO, play like we did pre-Cairns, we win. Play like we did in Cairns, we will get belted. No one should be checked out. A win tonight puts us in the 8 (if only for a night).

I have to agree. Sometimes the changes in isolation, week-on-week, make sense (and this week they somewhat do). But as a broader picture, our selection has been all over the shop, indicating as many on here have said that Goodwin and the FD don't know what our best 22 is, don't know how we should be setting up or structuring our side, and play favourites with some players to the detriment/expense of others.

I don't agree on Weideman, other than that he needs to do better when the ball hits the deck. He has no key forward support. Whether it's an unfit/out of form TMac, Brown or Preuss, he's not just the number 1 forward but the only key forward our opponent has to care about. He therefore cops it unless we're moving the ball quickly and getting him in space, which against Sydney and Fremantle we never did. He's being sat on in packs and double-teamed, he can't get space, and he can't get into the game. He continues to present, he continues to make marking contests where he can, and he's averaging nearly 2 goals a game. IMO, if we had someone at or near 2018 TMac, Weid would improve considerably (but as I said, I agree that he needs to show a bit more by way of defensive pressure). Again, all roads leading back to missing a second tall forward of any competence.

Presumably Jetta does. Smith might get a job on one of their three tall forwards: Finlayson, Cameron and Himmelberg. Although Tomlinson might get the third tall instead.

So is this another Tom Browne special?

Dropping Preuss and Bedford is the right call. Replacing Preuss with Brown rather than TMac is justifiable but questionable. Have to query where TMac is at. Replacing Bedford with Spargo is fair enough, it's not like Hannan was in any better form when he was in the side. I love Neville and am glad to see him back but there is no reasonable way he should be in front of Lockhart based on 2020 output. It doesn't make sense for us to be naming Lockhart as an emergency if he's injured or unfit. I do not understand the Lockhart omission and continue to disagree with it.

PS: did anyone else notice this comment in the (yuck) Damien Barrett sliding doors column today: https://www.afl.com.au/news/498678/if-essendon-needs-another-quick-half-time-laugh-then IF ... Viney is considering options and Brayshaw, too, gets another offer he needs to deeply consider .. THEN ... the Dees will have even more massive problems added to those which have already ruined another season of football.

First and foremost, there's no evidence or suggestion that this is club-led. This appears to be Viney-led: he's a free agent and he appears to be considering his options. Having said that, the fact he's even considering leaving means that the relationship between him and the club could be better. Emotionally, I want him to say, without question. He's Melbourne and the thought of him playing somewhere else is difficult to accept. Putting that to one side, I think this is a tough debate to have. I think there are arguments on both sides. In Viney's favour, his effort is unquestionable and the same, regrettably, cannot be said for all our players. He has shown previously that he is capable of lifting the side on his back and taking us with him, and he has real talent both in stoppages and the forward line. However, one of our biggest flaws is the way in which we move the ball forward, and Viney has consistently struggled to change the way he moves the ball. He is a repeat offender at kicking without looking and making poor choices by foot. He has also struggled to curtail some of his natural instincts to take the tackler on when he should instead be releasing the ball. That's not all his fault of course, as some of it comes down to coaching, but IMO the reality is Viney is not the complete package and has flaws. Ultimately as an RFA Viney gets more power than we do here. If he has a good deal somewhere else and he wants a change of scenery, and if another club is fronting up a big contract, the risk we have is that in matching that contract we keep someone who isn't 100% committed and we have to spend a lot of salary cap on him. If, instead, letting him go nets us a first round draft pick, there is a reasonable argument that it's the best result for everyone.

Thanks. As I suspected it's complete garbage. FWIW, if we know TMac's issues are fitness/injury, I'm all for re-starting him at FF in 2021. Getting him back to his 2018 level will change us more than any other single player could IMO.

It's now in the three dots in the top right of your post.

I have absolutely no doubt at all that if that was us, not St Kilda, you would be saying the opposite. They just got beaten by a West Coast side missing Shuey, Yeo, Sheed, Redden, Cripps, Hutchings and Jetta. And with McGovern, one of their best 5 players, off by HT. And that was West Coast's fifth game in 18 days (St Kilda's third game in that block). You would be scathing of us if that was us who had lost that game. Yes this is a factor. St Kilda have lost their last three by only 2, 3 and 15, so they haven't shed much percentage. We do have two games to make up the 50-odd point differential, and in this scenario they have to lose again. So it's not out of the realms of possibility. But if we miss out on percentage, we'll all have great fun reflecting on not just losing to Sydney and Fremantle, but losing by 21 and 14 points respectively (maybe even that final-second goal to Patrick vs Fremantle will haunt us?)

And elite players. When they fell behind, it was Kennedy, Naitanui and Kelly who dragged them back in. We saw vs St Kilda the difference Petracca and May made. But neither was at the same level in either Cairns game and it showed.

The first result goes our way. Next up is us. If we lose, it's all over. But, if we win, we then turn our attention to 3.35pm Sunday when Hawthorn plays the Dogs in Adelaide. The Dogs' first game outside of Queensland since Round 10. And indeed their second of only two games at all played outside of Queensland since leaving Victoria. How ridiculous. And then Monday night closes out with Collingwood vs Gold Coast.

Could anyone other than West Coast? That was an incredible win. It was in part driven by the fact that St Kilda are barely any better than us. But they looked cooked early in the fourth and with McGovern off for the entire second half, they still someone kicked the last three goals of the game. A warning sign to the other four teams in the top 5 IMO.

Not necessarily. I haven't done the maths but percentage is only relevant here if we are passing St Kilda. We're already 6% in front of the Dogs and to take their spot we have two win twice and they have to lose at least once. I'm sure it's mathematically possible for that to happen and we still concede 6% to them, but it's not likely. Agree with this. Big focus on the touch, no focus at all on the pass that was blatantly sub-15m. Err, surely our losses to Sydney and Fremantle were the major set backs? As @sue said above, if we finish 8th and the Dogs miss out, we'll have deserved the spot more than them. I mean, if it happens, it will require the Dogs to lose to Hawthorn or Fremantle. Which will be at least one loss to a bad side, the very thing we're upset about us doing.

I'm not sure that fatigue is a factor in any of our losses except, maybe, the Port loss. I'm someone who has raised the fixture issue though. I think there is more likely than not to be an impact to our overall performance from the constant moving from venue to venue on a weekly basis. One of our problems is consistency. There is none. Another is cohesion. Again, there is none. We don't adjust to different conditions well, we don't adjust to wider grounds well. Maybe our season could have panned out differently if we'd had 8 games at Metricon like some other clubs did, or we had fewer grounds to learn to play on? Maybe the focus on rehab, travel, adjusting, flying, bussing, etc. could, in different circumstances have been time spent on game plans, tactics, etc? I have no idea. It's all maybes, as we'll never know. Although we do know that Geelong had a similarly difficult fixture and had seemingly no issues with any of this. But I think the fixture we've had this year provides more issues to consider than simply fatigue.

I've seen this 10kg thing a lot. Is there any evidence at all to support it? Is there anyone on Demonland who claims to have a source who has said this? Or is it just a rumour with no real base to it?

Would have said the same about Adelaide beating GWS, surely? Jeepers, I reckon this is a bit harsh. They're 5-1-9 with a percentage of 96.7% with a number of close losses in which they were either the equal of their opponent or the better side (e.g. the Dogs, St Kilda and Essendon games). They're not the only club to have been well beaten by Brisbane, either. Had even one of those close games gone in GC's favour they'd be just a draw behind us and Carlton. They're a mid-table side, not that much worse than us, and on their day are completely capable of beating Collinwood.

Not what I meant. I was responding to someone who said his problem was "half-hearted efforts". It's not a question of talent. It's a question of his ability to produce AFL-level football right now. Whether that's a prolonged form slump or injury/fitness, and it could well be the latter, the reality is he's not currently able to produce good enough football. But that's not for want of trying.