titan_uranus

Looking forward to you quoting this in the post-game thread. (i.e. I agree with you). My biggest hopes for tonight are that we see significantly better forward pressure (in that regard, I hope the additions of Garlett and possibly Lockhart to the forward line help) and two-way running (ANB and Stretch, if nothing else, should at least be able to run and chase all night). I wouldn't mind seeing a relaxing of the forward press, too, but baby steps.

More classic Demonland. People complain about the performance of the side, so we make changes and then people complain about uninspiring changes. For mine, I'm happy to see some fresh and faster legs in Garlett, Lockhart and Stretch. T Smith for Preuss is a downgrade, unfortunately, and I'm not a fan of bringing ANB back this soon, but it's not like we're loaded with other options. I think that game with Tim Smith's injury was the year prior, not last year? I'm also not sure whether the Lynch/Riewoldt thing is as bad as it has looked but fingers crossed it messes up this weekend! Frost will surely play on Lynch? Still, leaves Hibberd to play on Riewoldt. No one else in the side to do it I don't think...except TMac.

This is fair, and there is a significant degree of stubbornness attached to Goodwin and his public comments about our form. But I think it's hard to expect too much strategic discussion to be exposed publicly. Like, I'm not sure how many coaches come out and say things like "opposition sides are doing X to us and it's working". What I'm trying to say is that whilst all we seem to hear from Goodwin is a focus on our poor form, that doesn't necessarily mean we don't consider what our opponents are doing to us to cause that poor form. We just might not talk about it publicly. Of course, if we are looking at what our opponents are doing to us and we're still not improving, that's in some respects worse.

I can't believe you'd consider dropping Hore, he was one of our best against St Kilda. Good comments otherwise. As poorly as Hibberd and Fritsch are playing, I think we're better off at the moment in seeing if we can get form out of them in the AFL rather than subbing in more VFL-level players for them. That might not remain the case if they don't pick up form soon, though. Agree with this. The Sydney game is a good example. We were much better at defending the ground at the SCG and that put significantly higher amounts of pressure on Sydney. They weren't getting easy out the back marks and goals. Franklin only kicked 1 and whilst he had a few more shots, they were from 50 or on an angle (i.e. weren't all simple shots like most of St Kilda's were). Pretty much every one of your comments on Weideman for the entirety of his career to date has been that he's not good enough and/or won't ever be good enough, but suddenly now he might actually be OK and it's the club's fault?

The Roos quotes about more players than just May coming back unfit are concerning IMO. I might be wrong about this, but I would assume Roos still has connections within the club. He may well know more than is public knowledge.

That last sentence is a neat summary of everything that is wrong with Demonland. A trade is the "worst trade ever" unless it turns out to not be.

I'm extremely interested in two things: Selection. Do we persist with all of Jones, Lewis, TMac and Hibberd (being the four leaders/senior players who are struggling) or do we rest/drop one or more of them to change things up? And will we finally see Garlett? Our set up on the night. Will we see Jones/Lewis, if they play, on the wings? And will we see the aggressive forward half press, or a refined version of that?

You're doing it again, dazzle. You were completely in favour of bringing May to the club. You also posted a link to an article about May's character and what a great person he is. You can express disappointment/frustration at the way May showed up at the club, or the way the club dealt with his fitness since then, but don't make it sound like the deal was a shocker from the get go because it wasn't, and you certainly didn't think so at the time.

I love Jetta as I think/hope most of us on here do. But he's been so poor in the games he's played this year that the loss to us of him going out is negligible. So I agree with you that this is at least a chance to see who else on the list can play on mid/small forwards and aspire to play the role Jetta's been struggling to achieve in 2019. Fingers crossed Jetta comes back post-bye in good health and can make an impact in the second half of the season.

I don't think the truth matters anymore. I think the concept that Goodwin never reviewed the prelim is just going to become Demonland folklore, no matter what happens from here.

Jetta comes out which means maybe J Wagner stays in or Lewis takes Jetta's spot in the back six.

https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2019-04-22/jetta-set-for-surgery Article says it's a separate injury to the one he was originally out with. Cue anti-Misson posts.

Trying to get a sense of how Hawthorn and Geelong set up defensively from kick ins. Looks to me like Hawthorn are playing something closer to man-on-man? It certainly seems like their last line of defence isn't pushed up as far as ours usually is (but it's admittedly very hard to tell from TV).

Agreed. May and Lever would (hopefully) help strengthen the back six but if they're being told to press up and zone off the same way OMac, Frost and Hibberd are, then we're going to have the same problems.

Interesting stats posted on the AFL website in an article having a significant crack at us. https://www.afl.com.au/news/2019-04-22/stats-files-whos-become-the-poster-boy-for-dees-plight Most interesting to me is the CP differential statistic. We were +17.7 in 2018 for CPs (i.e. we averaged 17.7 more CPs then our opposition). This year we are -1.6. Our "one wood" is to dominate CPs, get first touch on the ball and bully our opposition's midfield. When we do that, we get confidence, our opposition's midfield has less impact, and I reckon we find ourselves converting more inside 50s (last year we scored from 46.4% of our inside 50s, that figure is down to 33.7% this year). We've built our list, and moulded our gameplan, around a starting fundamental of dominating CPs. We're not doing that this year and IMO many of the rest of our problems stem from this.

It's certainly true that our gameplan took us to those two resounding finals wins on the G, plus the Round 23 demolition of GWS too. But when we struggled last year there were "regular" kick ins and we were able to run one off the back of the square. Taking those away from us is not, I don't think, the reason why we're struggling with the plan this year. My view is that the style we play has always been high risk high reward, and requires a high level of intensity from all 18 on the field (but particularly the forwards and mids). When our intensity is even slightly off, we concede strings of goals, waste inside 50s, and get beaten soundly by whoever we're playing (whether Richmond/Hawthorn/Collingwood/Sydney, like last year, or St Kilda, like both last year and this year). What I'm not sure about is whether we need to: Change the plan altogether (i.e. stop using the aggressive high forward press); Make small tweaks to it; or Persist with it and back the players in to improve. The messaging from Goodwin post-match was that option 3 is the way we are going, and that is in line with the general way I believe he approaches coaching (which can appear overly stubborn at times). I'm not against this. I'd like to see the zone set up be less aggressive, for starters. I also want to see 2-3 forwards staying deep when there are stoppages at centre wing or half-back (too regularly we see our deepest forward at a high half-forward, too close to the stoppage to offer a lead at the ball carrier).

I think it's both, tbh. Our high forward press means that we're asking our mids/half forwards to work magic when there's 36 players in the forward half. It also requires our backs to be able to cover the entire back half of the ground when the opposition does eventually break through.

He's not going to add anything to the side playing on a wing. It's the backline, and with a rocket up him to put his body on the line, or it's VFL. Does he actually do this?

Not sure I agree with this. Our losses this year look to be strongly reminiscent of our MCG losses last year - plenty of CPs and inside 50s but an inability to defend the ground on defensive transition. Meanwhile each of Port, Essendon and St Kilda have played us the same way we were beaten by sides like Port, Hawthorn and St Kilda did last year - conceding time in forward half to us, conceding inside 50s to us, but scoring easily on transition because we don't run back and we leave our opponent's forward half empty for them to work with. In my view, this isn't 2019's rule changes having a negative effect, this is the same problems as our 2018 game plan which are being exposed repeatedly because we're unfit and out of form. As to the ladder, there are currently 10 teams on 3 wins (with the possibility that by the end of the round that figure is 12). It's not like there's much separating the three teams you've mentioned from the teams in the 9-12 bracket. Fremantle's win over GWS is a stellar win that deserves to be praised but other than that, those sides have hardly played the stronger sides whereas Geelong, Collingwood and West Coast have all played each other by the end of next week.

Yes, mate, I was there. Gawn wasn't that good yesterday and I didn't suggest otherwise. But I can't stand the way people like you have just piled into him when he was one of about 20 players yesterday who didn't play well. At the very least, Gawn butters up and goes again all day for the stoppages. He's coming off an elite year and even this year has already put in more strong performances than most of our other supposed A-graders. And as for being "run off his feet", he was one of the few players I saw who was running defensively to try to get back after one of our many forward half turnovers. He's not slow for a ruckman but speed is not his asset so I don't know why you have to have a go at him for that either.

6 - Brayshaw 5 - Salem 4 - Hore 3 - Oliver 2 - Viney 1 - Frost (really struggled to think of anyone to put here).

Spargo has some of the talent that we need in our best 22 moving forward - he runs, he lowers his eyes when he kicks, and he has a bit of goal nous about him. Hopefully he can find some form at Casey because we certainly cannot allow him to stay in the seniors in his current form. I was calling for Lewis to come back into the side. I wasn't calling for him to be played on a wing though. If that's the role the club thinks is his role in 2019, then he shouldn't be playing at all. I'd like to at least see him in a role which he might feasibly be capable of playing before calling time.

I've seen people in here having a crack at Gawn. He might be down on form, but I reckon having a go at Gawn is pissweak and as embarrassing as our current performances are. Got me thinking about our leadership again though. Our 100+ game players are Lewis, Jones, Garlett, Melksham, TMac, Jetta, Hibberd, May, Gawn and Viney. Two of them aren't playing. Of the other 8, none of them are playing as well as they can and only Gawn is playing at a reasonable level consistently (Viney has been OK). Jones can't stop himself from the up-and-under long kicks and is making more skill errors by the week. TMac and Melksham are a big part of our current problem - they're not taking marks inside 50, they're not bringing the ball to ground in a way which helps us, and they're not providing enough defensive pressure. Hibberd is playing so poorly he should be dropped, while Lewis and Jetta have had no impact on our season so far due to injury. We can't stop opposition sides from getting a run on and there's only so much Goodwin can do without a runner to get messages out there (not saying there's nothing wrong with our coaching). It doesn't help that we have no senior players to turn to when we need some leadership.

I’d drop Spargo who has no idea what he’s doing out there defensively. I’d also pretend to “rest” at least one of Hibberd, Jones and TMac.

Hore was excellent. Frost was fine. Hunt is trying. The rest are woeful. Hibberd is destroying us atm.