titan_uranus

You spent all of 2017, and probably more, talking about "turning a corner". If we had made finals for three years but failed to win one, you'd have gone on and on about how we'd "failed to turn a corner". But when another club does it, it's a significant achievement. They traded out one player of note (Deledio) and brought in three key players from other clubs (Caddy, Prestia, Nankervis). Then they went to the draft. That is not a rebuild. That is making strategic changes to improve a list. Saying "they completely changed their approach to their list" is ridiculous. They did what any club which had made finals for three years but then flopped for one year would do. They made strategic changes to their list, designed to improve them in the areas that 2016 had exposed as weaknesses. That is (amongst other things) exactly what we need to do, but it is not a rebuild.

I accept that. If we had had a perfect pre-season, we'd be doing far better than we are right now, but we'd still have problems. And I want the club to look at more than just having a better 2019/20 pre-season.

If you mean delisting/trading 10-12 current players, no I don't agree. I think we can improve the team for 2020 by delisting/trading half that (e.g. Maynard, Stretch, J Wagner, Lewis, JKH). Maybe part of this is down to the semantics over the meaning of the word "rebuild". IMO there is no such thing as a "total rebuild" or a "partial rebuild". We're either starting again (which is a rebuild) or we're making changes to a list (which is what Richmond did in 2016, also what Geelong did last year, and what most sides who are thereabouts but not in premiership contention do). But maybe that's just me and for others the word "rebuild" has different meaning(s).

Yes, I poorly worded that part of my post. What I care about most of all is seeing us continue to implement the tweaks to our game plan and structure that we saw vs Fremantle but notably didn't see vs Brisbane. What I saw vs Fremantle was the sort of football that is going to make us a better side in 2020.

"Wins are irrelevant. They played in finals". What does that even mean? You argued that we need to rebuild because we're six years into the current rebuild and three years into Goodwin's tenure. I countered by noting that Richmond finished bottom 6 with an 8-14 record seven years into Hardwick's tenure. Richmond had qualified for three finals series but failed to win any. They had achieved no more than we did in winning two finals last year. As to their list turnover, they traded out Deledio and moved on a bunch of NQRs. They then brought in Prestia, Nankervis and Caddy, then went to the draft (but took no first round pick). I wouldn't call that a major list rebuild. But there should be a lesson there for us. Target the right players who either want out (Prestia), don't fit (Caddy) or can't get a game (Nankervis) at their club and can fill a void at our club (e.g. for us, find some outside run, and a small forward). So no, I don't agree a rebuild is necessary.

The OP is neither right nor wrong. Our pre-season was awful and it has had an immensely negative impact on our season. But it is not the sole reason we've had a disastrous year. It can certainly be argued that it is the dominant reason for our bad year. The OP and others have made some good arguments to that effect. But there are other issues that have manifested this year that are separate. IMO at the top of the list is the game plan - too aggressive of a forward press, not enough outside run, too much reliance on winning CPs and clearances, playing on from marks too much, no structure for kick outs from defence. I have seen tweaks to the game plan as the season has gone on which give me confidence that the coaches have seen the issues and have started trying to fix them. I've seen our last defender hold back far deeper in defence than previously. I've seen us keep key forwards deeper towards goal, rather than having everyone sucked up onto the wing. Against Fremantle we saw more kicking/marking and switching. I think there are some other issues at play too - there's something of an attitude problem amongst some of our key mids. There seems to be a growing belief that Oliver, Harmes and Brayshaw struggle to commit to two-way running (particularly, and it disappoints me to say it, Oliver). Our horrendous leadership is another problem that won't go away. I'm with @stevethemanjordan in that I don't like saying this is the year we had to have, but it may well be the case. If 2020 and beyond are going to be successful, then the club has to learn from the mistakes of the 18/19 pre-season and the 2019 season.

Melksham is sorely missed at the moment, but last year we had Spargo, ANB and Hannan all playing better football than they have this year (along with TMac of course). The combined loss of form of TMac, Spargo and ANB, plus Hannan's injuries/form struggles, plus Melksham's injuries, and even the loss of vandenBerg, have turned our forward line into a mess. But I don't think we're as far off as others might.

This is what I mean. A win adds nothing to our season so why do people care so much if we lose? So on the one hand, you won' be concerned if we lose to Carlton because their record is around ours. On the other hand, we should have "taken action" after losing to St Kilda, who have double the wins of Carlton this year. Do you mean we should have sacked Goodwin after the St Kilda game?

You bring this out frequently, Macca. Just because you hold a minority view does not mean the majority view is "group think", nor that you are right. Just on the topic of Frost being a whipping boy, whilst traditionally that has been the case on Demonland I reckon the past few months have seen the most positive commentary on here around Frost I've ever seen. And I think that's deserved, as I think this year has been his best for us and he has improved his game in a few key ways.

Agreed. I'm certainly not advocating for tanking and want us to win every game from here if we can. But hyperbolic posting about how the club is going to fall apart if we lose to Carlton is just that, hyperbole.

Does it really matter that much? It's not like a win is going to change people's thoughts about us. The people who think we need to rebuild aren't going to stop calling for a rebuild. Let's focus on playing a more sustainable brand of football.

If Gawn is anything less than 100% he should be rested for Preuss. If Gawn is 100% then Preuss can be considered as a replacement for one of TMac, T Smith and Weideman. One game of 3.3 from T Smith is not enough for a very limited 28-year old player. Lever for Petty is an improvement. Replacing ANB and Hannan is a possibility too; personally I'd only do one, particularly if we're already bringing in Preuss and Lever.

It's par for the course on Demonland, and particularly for people like olisik, who have very little positive to say but a tonne of negativity. Draft pick hindsight analysis is wonderful but even if we did completely stuff the Sparrow pick up that's about 50th on the list of things that have gone wrong this year. Richmond 2016 anyone? That was Hardwick's 7th season as coach. Three straight finals appearances without a win, then a bottom 6 finish with an 8-14 record. Your final sentence is a classic Demonland analysis - it's not just one thing. It's both of the two you mentioned, and more.

We fixed this last week vs Fremantle and it looked good. Was it the players failing to implement those changes this week? Was it the way Brisbane played which encouraged us to play fast and aggressive? Or was it coaching? I suspect it was the players failing to suppress the instinct we've drilled into them over the last 18 months to play on repeatedly.

I can think of three more important things than a list rebuild that we need to do going into 2020: Change/tweak the gameplan - less playing on, fewer handpasses, more kick-mark, feeding into better connection between the midfielders and forwards Fitness - full overhaul needed here. Too many players stuck in rehab too long, too many injuries, not enough two-way running, too many players failing to develop physically Leadership - Viney/Jones need to be removed from captaincy and it needs to be given to Gawn. We need to make some list changes too of course, but we don't need the drastic changes that some on here suggest. I don't agree that we stand to benefit by trading out someone like Brayshaw or Petracca. We'll get a top 5 pick and a second rounder in the 20-25 range. Do our homework, take those to the draft, and bring in two quality top-25 draft picks.

None of us know for sure what May was talking about with Frost. It could well have been a specific thing discussed before or during the game which Frost messed up and May found disappointing. I rarely agree with anything Leigh Matthews says but I agreed with his comment that, if anything, May might have gone on about it too long, but it's impossible to know given we couldn't hear what was being said. I'll say one thing though: at three quarter time, neither Viney nor Jones looked like they wanted anything to do with it. Whether you agree with May or not, I find it unforgivably poor that neither captain got involved even in the slightest.

From what I saw (second half only), we lost this game through two areas: our midfield got badly beaten, and we gave up goals at critical times through turnovers. Brisbane are a high scoring side and don't bring defensive pressure that much. They feed off centre clearances and turnovers and we gave both to them with far too much ease. The number of times we would have a chain of possession going but would either kick directly to a Lion, or miss a target and turn a 100% mark into a 50/50% contest, or we'd fumble on a chain of handpasses, or we'd drop a mark - we just kept doing it over and over again. And we couldn't get on top in the middle so we couldn't stop their momentum from the contest either. We can't keep playing Hunt, ANB, Hannan and Weideman in the same forward half, when most weeks they are all passengers. Something needs to change in that area.

If Lever and Hibberd are fit, they come in. Petty and Wagner are the ones to make way. But if there is any doubt on either of them, we shouldn't be risking it. ANB and Hannan struggled yesterday. Hannan has more upside and there's no obviously better player ready to come back until Melksham is fit, so they probably both stay. No idea why anyone would suggest bringing Preuss in when we've just seen TMac and T Smith kick 3 goals each, given Weideman is the most mobile of the three (i.e. the least like-for-like replacement for Preuss).

The only thing we should be doing that we mightn't be doing if we were pushing for finals is to err on the side of caution with injuries. Otherwise, there is no good argument for tanking, no good argument for trying to get a "better" draft pick. We should be aiming to finish 13-9 or as close to it as we can get.

6 - Viney 5 - Gawn 4 - Lockhart 3 - Oliver 2 - Petracca 1 - TMac

No. But right now he's behind May, Lever, Frost and Petty IMO. So we might not see much more of him. Challenge has been laid down to him to improve his strength, bodywork, positioning and ability to get involved in offence, with all of the above being better at most, if not all, of those things than him.

Yes they were two down on the bench for much of the second half, but Fremantle are a better side than most are giving them credit for. They've beaten Collingwood at the G and GWS in Sydney. Our score of 85 was the second highest score they've conceded all year. At times we made awful mistakes but as has been mentioned we had a noticeable change in tactics with a lower amount of immediate playing on, less run and carry and more kicking and uncontested marking. When we looked good, we actually looked great. Lockhart is a beauty IMO. He just wants the ball, he wants to get involved, he's great in close but he can kick too. Viney was a lot better as well, but he still kicks the ball far too high. Fritsch is a much better player across the wing/half-forward, he nailed two inside 50s early but still had a couple of howler turnovers. May is a gun. His bodywork is as good as any key defender in the league but he's actually a lot quicker than you'd expect for someone of his build, and importantly he can actually kick the ball. Really, really impressed with these two games from him. Would love to get Lever back out there ASAP so we can get May, Lever, Frost and Hore playing with each other and continuing to build chemistry. TMac had a terrible first half, he looked completely bereft of confidence and pretty much everything he did was a mistake. But he kept working at it and his second half was a return to 2018 TMac. Jones' mistake was careless but Walters dropped his knees to milk it. It was a two-goal turnaround, so if it hadn't happened we'd have won by nearly 5 goals. IMO, this win was more than just them being two down. Very undermanned - they had two best 22 players missing (Lobb and Pearce). So wrong there. Walking wounded - sure, they were two down. So-so - nope, see above. This is just completely unnecessarily OTT pessimism. The umpiring was poor, but I don't know if it was all that one-sided against us. The free to TMac in the fourth quarter where he kicked the goal from 50 was a shocking free.

His bets included spots, though. He bet on himself to kick 3+ goals. That required him to influence the outcome of the match to engineer 3 goals for himself, even if that was a bad outcome for the team. We've seen the footage showing him go for a 65m torp with 2 minutes left. Collingwood at that time were 40+ points up, but imagine if the Saints had been leading when he took that mark. Imagine if he'd gone for the low-percentage barrel with the game on the line, just because he wanted to get his own personal goal-count up to 3. There's a fair debate to be had around the AFL's taking of gambling money with one hand and doling out harsh punishments for gambling with the other, but that doesn't make what Stephenson did OK. It was not, and his penalty is probably too lenient given he is back for finals.

No, we are not a chance. We'd need to win 9 out of 10 games and build our awful percentage up by 30% or so. Our fixture still contains Fremantle (6th), Brisbane (7th, and on the road), West Coast (5th), Richmond (8th, and by then likely to have more of its better players back in the side) and Collingwood (2nd). We'd therefore need to win all bar one of these games, and win the rest (Carlton, Bulldogs, St Kilda, Sydney, North Melbourne in Tasmania). It's not happening, even if we turn our form around rapidly. Having said all that, IMO the only thing we should "relax" our position on for the last 10 games (as compared to if we were 5-7 and borderline in the top eight) is player fitness. Don't rush injured players back, and when in doubt we should rest rather than persist. If TMac's sore, get him out of the side and rest him up. Ditto Viney, and anyone else. Otherwise aim to win all 10 games in terms of selection and gameplan.

Agree that Hogan shouldn't be our biggest concern. It's Walters that scares me most. He's a genuine superstar and we don't really have anyone who is fast enough or smart enough to deal with him.