titan_uranus

I’m sad we’re delisting him, not because I disagree (I think it’s the right call), but because I wish he was still part of our best 22. I loved it when he joined and when he was playing well he was a reason to go watch us play.

Demonland proves some guarantees. One of them is that the same posters who are currently complaining about us making decisions before this “review” is complete, would be complaining if we had not made those decisions and waited instead (“Nero fiddled while Rome burns” would surely have got a run).

He didn’t want to leave Fremantle last year, whether to go to Melbourne or any other club. You’re currently upset that we didn’t trade for him last year when there is no evidence he had any interest in moving, so you’ve just made something up in your head. There is some supreme hypocrisy/irony in the bolded line.

Ridiculous. If anything, he’s a rich man’s Spargo. I’d kill for Spargo to play like Elliott. But I’m not sure I’d take Elliott, I think his best is probably behind him and I’m not sure about his back.

The pre-game and gameday (before the game started) threads are full of people saying we’d lose by 10+ goals. Yet I can’t see a single post in here where someone admits to being surprised by the result. I haven’t seen the game so I would actually have liked to read a post or two touching on what we did to match/best them for long parts of the game. Did we seek to play the more controlled game we’ve tried playing in the second half of the year?

Agree. This pre-season I hope/pray that players train in their best positions and that is where we see them in 2020 - so Fritsch spends the summer in the forward line next to TMac and Weideman, Hunt forward, Petracca more in the middle, etc. I wonder how much of the 18/19 pre-season Fritsch spent in the backline/midfield or Hunt spent in the backline?

You really need to stop taking your anger and sadness out on people who see things differently to you. Whether you like it or not, nothing BBP said was wrong. We absolutely “looked like winning” the Brisbane and WC matches, and neither the Fremantle nor Carlton games looked as bad as you are suggesting (if we hadn’t had three injuries including TMac vs Carlton it’s completely reasonable to suggest we’d have won by 7+ goals). I would suggest the “sad” one is you, and anyone else like you who isn’t capable of seeing anything positive.

Sensible changes (although there won’t be too much care). Would love to see us surprise everyone and win this game, but I’m not holding my breath.

No we won’t. Pretty sure we will get Anzac Eve but remain away on Queen’s Birthday so that from 2021 onwards we’re home in one and away in one each year. Agreed. A complete non-story.

Maybe because he didn’t want to leave last year? FFS. Ridiculous post. Par for the course, but ridiculous nonetheless.

How do you know that: 1. We’re only focusing on Langdon? 2. We’re not focusing on those other three? 3. They’re all going to St Kilda or Carlton? Or is this just pure MFCSS?

It’s one way of measuring performance, but just one way, and as with all stats needs to be viewed in context. Critics of our 2018 season say that we built our 14-8 record and big percentage by belting crap sides. Did Fremantle in 2015 have a similarly “easy” draw? Maybe they played more games against top 8 sides? Maybe in 2015 they had great record against top 8 sides and that could be a different way to measure their performance. Anyway, not sure what the point of this thread is really. Who cares if Fremantle 2015-16 was a “worse” drop than us 2018-19?

Goodwin might not be our coach in 2021 but he absolutely should be for the start of 2020. People like beelzebub and stranga want to pull triggers left right and centre. That’s not smart business or football, even if the temptation is strong. There always has to be a degree of reflection. We’re not 12 months removed from a PF. We need the context of the 19/20 pre-season and the 2020 season (at least the first third of it) to truly know where Goodwin stands.

I’m overseas and so haven’t seen a second of the game. Waking up to see a 9-goal loss to a side that was on the road for the second week in a row, playing kids, on a 5 (or more?) game losing streak, in our “member appreciation round”, was amazingly disappointing. I’m rapidly losing confidence in the club, which is sad. I’d kept that for much of the season and I still think our 5-16 record is worse than our actual performance, but this sort of loss shouldn’t happen, no matter who is on the park.

The changes look odd on their face but look a bit deeper. May, OMac and Petty are all forced outs. Preuss and Keilty have stunk in the seniors this year. We don't have an obvious second ruck, but Sydney barely have an obvious first ruck (they're playing a rookie, Hayden McLean, who's played four games). I'm not sure I agree with ANB/Stretch/Spargo over Baker/Hunt, but it's not like Baker or Hunt played well last week. Indeed, both were pretty poor. Looks to me to be a bit horses for courses when it comes to the talls, and maybe a last chance saloon sort of thing for ANB and Stretch.

I like it when you actually talk about football.

Well played.

Carlton haven't magically risen up the ladder. Their list should have been performing like this ages ago. Bolton was, for whatever reason, holding them back. They're long overdue to play consistently good football and from what they've shown under Teague, they have the ability. But let's see them show it consistently when the Teague novelty factor has worn off and the games aren't all dead rubbers (FWIW I think they'll push for the 8 next year).

From what I've seen of Carey in the media, he's pretty quick to distance himself from "new school" football and training methods, so I'm actually a bit surprised that he puts as much stock in the pre-season as he does.

I think it's probably a bit of all of those things. I think teams looked at us in 2018 and when planning for us in 2019, they've focused on how they set up at stoppages. I think the way we approach stoppages also means that if we're off (in that we don't convert our first touch into a clean chain away and a decent inside 50) we're set up to be exploited by our opponent. And I think that the mistakes we were making, leading to repeat wasted inside 50s, sapped us of confidence and that affects our mids' ongoing work rate. I reckon we've been trying to change this in the back half of 2019 but it's nowhere near fixed yet.

Because if we stand to gain anything from these last few games, it's trying to get some cohesion as a unit between Lever, May and Frost. And because the player who went forward needed to ruck as well (and OMac was easier to sacrifice into the ruck than May). And because OMac's career is floundering so why not see if he could do something different as a forward. I wanted Hore to play but they made a call with the height of our backline, including Hibberd. Just because we lost and Hibberd struggled doesn't mean we're tanking. Not great analysis, Rusty. Brayshaw didn't show "eagnerness" to leave Pendlebury. That's one example, highlighted in slow motion, and not even that bad of a decision from Brayshaw. Jones wasn't just leaving Sidebottom for the sake of it. Goodwin was trying to bring run off the back of the square. This has been done to death now. Varcoe did kick two goals but had no real influence on the game otherwise. At any rate, which speedy player should we have played on him anyway, if you're that concerned by his pace? We're slow whether we're "tanking" or not. The Oscar v Hore thing is explicable. I'd have played Hore anyway, but they weren't going to ruck Hore, or May, so someone had to play that second ruck role (and I do not agree that May is a good option for that role).

Now that's an interesting debate. Champion Data defines a clearance as "Credited to the player who has the first effective disposal in a chain that clears the stoppage area, or an ineffective kick or clanger kick that clears the stoppage area". So I don't think either of your examples would be a clearance as neither of them "clear the stoppage area". Having said that, an ineffective kick or a clanger kick that clears the stoppage area counts. I suspect there are quite a number of these in any given game from our mids. I would agree with you that the quality of our clearances is not as high as other sides. I think we still get our hands on the ball a lot in the middle, and Gawn helps with that, but I think we then struggle to convert that first touch into a clearance which translates into retaining the ball. A lot of the time it feels like a rushed/hacked kick forward and/or a turnover. But the strength of our mids in getting the ball and being the ones to at least control it out of the stoppage is still there, as it was in 2018.

I don't usually like cherry picking an individual play because there's often a loss of context, and it's so easy to freeze the frame and make comments when the reality of a footy game is that things happen in split seconds. In saying this, the general problem of us having too many players commit to a contest is a genuine issue we've had for years. It happens at stoppages and it happens in marking contests. Too many of our players go to the ball. Some of that is, I think, because we drafted players with that ball-hunting instinct and trying to coach instinct out of players can be very difficult. With the stoppages, some of it will also be because of how we have developed the list and game plan to start with contested ball. I'm not sure I agree with all of the criticism of Brayshaw - one of our problems is a lack of spread and I'm confident he's listening to the coaches and trying to get some outside run from contests so that, when we win a contested ball, we have someone to be on the end of the next kick. We had plenty of players at that contest and should have at least nullified it, if not won it.

Not really. We're 4th in clearance differential this year (i.e. more clearances than our opponents).

I'll take that as a no.