titan_uranus

The longer the season goes on, particularly one where we’ve had a great run with injuries, the more our list problems come to the fore. Why isn’t Viney playing forward? Because we got so badly beaten at stoppage in the first quarter, Goodwin felt he had no choice but to put him back in the middle. It was a disheartening moment IMO. We didn’t stay the course. We planned for Viney to play forward but couldn’t actually do it. I hope we don’t abandon that plan and try it again this week.

Joel Freijah went at 45. Every club missed him, but still, wouldn’t he be a great addition to our side. As for the OP, I agree with those who defend our kids given they are just that. Our biggest issue is the ongoing reliance on senior players who aren’t performing. 19 and 20 year olds who aren’t getting consistent runs at it are not the focal point right now. However, I’m not quite sure of Kolt’s AFL-quality talents. You mention his clean hands - that might be fair, but he has to get more of the ball, and in contest, for us to be able to judge that.

What are you talking about? Fiorini was trying to pick the ball up, and Petty went in head first. Pickett chose to bump. Yes, he got unlucky that Moore went to ground, and I didn’t like the suspension, but the two are nothing at all alike.

What do you mean “accepted”? We don’t get a choice. We also get what we deserve when we had sub-20,000 crowds in the last 2 months of last year. If our crowds drop off further in the last 2 months of this year, expect more of the same for our 2026 fixture.

Petty and Howes miss with concussion. JVR comes back because there's no one else. Lever's the better fit but whilst TMac's struggling at Casey, he at least was doing well in the AFL before he was dropped. Ironically, despite our injury list and run with fitness/injuries this year being as good as it's ever been, other than Windsor and JVR who just got dropped, possibly the only players on our list I really want to see get back into the side are AWM, McAdam and Sestan, who are the only actually injured players we have. Instead, what do we do - make Laurie the sub again? Give Woewodin, Brown or Culley a game off middling (at best) VFL form? Billings?

One part of what happened today really resonates with me as the crux of our list problem. We make the call pre-game to play Viney forward, acknowledging that we can't keep playing Viney with Oliver, Trac and Gawn as our majority midfielders who cannot deliver the ball inside 50 in a way which wins us games. What happens? We get annihilated at contest in the first quarter, so badly that we have no choice but to put Viney back into the middle to fix it. Therein lies our problem - our list has no midfield depth on it, which means we can't do what we desperately need to do and replace Viney and Oliver with players who can kick. The ones who can kick can't compete, whether because they're too young (Langford) or, mainly, they're just not good enough as midfielders (Sparrow, Salem, Rivers, Laurie, Woewodin, Billings, Brown).

Third game out of our the last four on the road. A player down for three quarters (we had 13 fewer interchange rotations as a result). Opponent is a top 8 contender who’s lost something like 2 games at home in 2 years. Is that enough to offset a disgraceful first quarter? Laying just 7 tackles in the first quarter (to their 18) despite them having 23 more touches is nothing but unacceptable. And if that wasn’t enough, we then had 8 more inside 50s (all in the fourth) and 7 more scoring shots than them across the last three quarters but only outscored them by a combined 17 points, because we kicked 12.12 to their 10.7. Yet another game where we have one awful quarter, and yet another game of inaccuracy (is it any wonder that the inaccuracy got worse as the game got closer? No, is the answer).

I’m ok with making a selection statement. I’m ok with dropping Lever. I’m even ok with dropping Windsor, even though I’d have preferred that we just move him to a wing - hopefully going back to Casey sparks him a bit. But dropping JVR frustrates me, and bringing Sharp and Tholstrup back after not much at all at Casey frustrates me more. I’m no Laurie fan but how can the FD justify recalling Sharp when Laurie busts his [censored] at Casey every week? Even Billings would be justified in shrugging his shoulders. As for JVR, apparently we’re not playing TMac because he’s not the future. Well, Melksham, as good as he was 6 weeks ago, is out of form and is just as much not our future as TMac. I’m also fundamentally sick of us playing JVR for 67% game time, some of which is in the ruck, then dropping him when he doesn’t dominate. I presume we’re going to put Petty in the ruck when Gawn rests? Shapes as disastrous - he stunk in the ruck last year, and when he does go there our forward target is going to be Jefferson against Collins and Andrew.

Julian DeStoop on SEN said JVR was also dropped (along with Windsor and Lever). Anyone else heard that?

Gold Coast is going to be the side to miss the 8, right? A post-bye slump as per usual? What an absolute fail it will be if they do miss from 8-2 with the list they have. (Meanwhile I expect them to comfortably account for us on Saturday. They should be fired up knowing their finals spot is on the line).

Meanwhile North will be a draw behind us. No matter what you think of our year of change, to be a draw out of the bottom 3 at the bye is not even close to good enough.

Don’t agree with this. There’s no aspect of Trac or Clarry’s performance which suggests they’ve “checked out”. Far from it - Clarry’s defensive efforts are to me the opposite sign. Just because they’re playing poorly doesn’t mean they’re not playing for Goodwin.

You could argue the true turning point was the off the ball free paid against May, to Franklin, when we were 17-odd points up and all over them. Never recovered from there.

What an utterly bonkers post. Our 2016 list included Dawes, Lumumba, Stretch, Kent, Ben Newton, Garland, Pederson, Michie, JKH, Weideman, Hulett, Bugg, Mitch King, Ben Kennedy, Mitch White, Josh Wagner, Dean Jones, Terlich and Max King. Plus poor old Grimes and Trengove whose careers and bodies were shot. In what world was that a “strong list”? But then I love “flag aside”. He’s underachieved so long as you just ignore the [censored] premiership we won. [censored] me.

Unfortunately, this is correct (although right now I’d love to see if AMW could make a bit of a difference to our ball movement). We’ve had a comparatively smooth run with injuries this year. Yet we’re bottom 4 at the bye.

He did! Carryst! He acknowledged that it’s on both players and coaches to ensure that what we practice actually shows up on game day. He also acknowledged that our forwards were rubbish and we kicked the ball to them with no composure. Nothing “fantasy land” about anything he said.

It’s really not. That says more about Clarry, though. This board has become incredibly anti-Trac, after what happened last year. I can understand it to an extent, but I also think Trac gets raked over the coals by many on here when he is actually doing pretty well (today he was poor but he’s is a focal point after almost every loss). Poor old Clarry found some form as a defensive mid but can’t seem to pick up the offence side of his game. And now has to compete with Viney for centre bounce attendances.

No, he’s not right. I get you’re angry, we all are (at least we all should be), but even allowing for Gawn’s poor kicking he’s not an “anchor” on us as the OP said. He’s a star and without him we’d be closer to 18th on the ladder. Edit: and the subsequent post that he lets us down as much, if not more, than Lever, Viney, Trac or Clarry is offensively wrong.

Goodwin made multiple mentions of our inability to compete aerially in the forward line today. We must, as a result, drop at least one of Petty, JVR and Melksham. We can’t drop JVR unless we’re prepared to have Petty do the relief ruckwork, which was disastrous last year, or we bring Johnson back. I don’t mind Turner forward but we’re doing him no favours by moving him around so much. Of all the “big moves” we could make, I doubt we’ll drop May or Lever so unless we soft drop one of them, I suppose TMac in and then Turner forward to replace Petty could work. Jeffo for Melksham I suppose. I’m all for identifying better ball users but Billings isn’t up to AFL level and I don’t think Laurie is either (albeit how could we know for sure as he rarely gets full games). We’ll probably just drop some kids and bring back Sharp and Tholstrup though, won’t we.

Goodwin in his presser made a few telling (IMO) comments: He said 3-4 times that one of our key problems was our inability to compete aerially in the forward line, and that our third quarter spark came from competing better in that space. I’d be staggered if at least one of Petty, JVR and Melksham aren’t dropped for our next game as a result He said that under pressure we “reverted”, and when pressed ok what that meant he mentioned our inability to lower our eyes or to be composed when kicking. Again, I’d be staggered if we didn’t see some sort of midfield change in our next game (whether that’s dropping someone or shifting magnets to lower the likelihood of Viney, Oliver, Trac and Rivers doing all the kicking inside 50). IMO our biggest and most fundamental problem is that under pressure we cannot reliably execute our plans, and revert to habitual type, which is to rush or dump kick the ball in the hope we’ll subsequently lock it in or reset and go again. One major contributor to the pressure we are constantly under is our goalkicking - continually missing easy shots, particularly early in games and quarters, heaps the pressure on when our opponent inevitably kicks their own (which is happening far more now than in 2021-23 because our defence is nowhere near the level it was then, and is structured differently as well).

For all the reasonable points you’ve made here, lumping Max in that “anchor” comment undoes them all. Yes his goalkicking is terrible but he gives unconditional effort and consistently high quality football, whilst also being physically targeted weekly by opponents who play the man, not the ball, because they know they can’t compete otherwise. I’ll cop criticism of his kicking, which is wholly justified, but not anything else. Max deserves praise.

FFS let this conspiracy theory [censored] go. We lose games because of ourselves. Let’s get our own rubbish under control before looking anywhere else.

We’re back in the bottom 4, which after the last three weeks is where we belong. For all the gains we made during the 5-1 streak, we’ve cooked our season by losing two games to (at the time) bottom 4 sides in the most maddeningly classic Melbourne fashion. Better analysis will come but for now, the overwhelming feeling is that we’ve taken a promising run of form and absolutely [censored] it up against the wall right when we needed to buckle down and focus before the bye. As disappointed as I’ve probably been since 2020.

That tweet was posted yesterday. He surely travelled with the team as the travelling emergency, doesn’t mean there’s definitely a late change.

Final team In: Viney Out: Tholstrup (omitted)