titan_uranus

6 - Gawn 5 - Salem 4 - Viney 3 - TMac 2 - Petracca 1 - May

Yes the late three goals was disappointing. But we had Gawn, Viney, Langdon and Salem benched for that entire time. Cue was somewhat in the rack. On performance we were 10-15 goals better than them. That’s a reminder of what we can do if we are brutal in the middle and at contest. When we are on there, it frees up so much of our ball movement. JVR makes us better and I really like his development. Also really like seeing ANB and Pickett spending heaps of time in the middle and at centre bounces, and Langdon at half forward in a more defensive role. Have to bear in mind that they are awful, and we do still have issues. We struggled defending turnover, when we go slow (which is too often) we are incapable of finding avenues to goal, and we are still generating and taking too many low percentage shots on goal. I thought McAdam was poor. Not sure if it’s fitness or not but his lack of willingness or ability to chase is concerning. I was hoping Petty would be “on” after his early mark but sadly not. Should probably be rested given he was carrying a sore shoulder all day before the foot issue (hopefully not serious?).

Amongst a bucket load of rubbish in this post is a kernel I agree with: our list is not as good as many think it is. I’m more fortified in that view as every week goes by. Despite the legions of “Goodwin can’t coach” posters on here, I actually think the truth is that Goodwin’s an excellent coach (tactically and motivationally) who has done wonders with a list that, yes, is star studded at the top, but patchy through the middle and too weak at the bottom, and just doesn’t stack up to most of this year’s flag contenders.

Thankfully the ladder isn’t determined by where teams sit in the middle of a round. A win tomorrow will have us 5th, could have us 4th subject to percentage.

Classic Demonland. There’s a thread right now in which heaps of posters are bemoaning how much Goodwin has changed us this year and begging us to go back to what we were doing in 2022-23.

Yes, Dogs by 5 on xScore

Surprised Hunter is in based on the feedback from those who watched the last Casey game. I like Howes and I think he’ll be back soon enough but he wasn’t in form so it isn’t wholly a surprise Really want to see Woewodin get a full game but I’m expecting he’ll be sub again.

Does this apply to us too?

I’ll keep calling this out every time I see it. It’s simply not true. We were the best side throughout 2021. We beat 16 of the other 17 sides, including all finalists. We were top 4 all year. Project your grumpiness elsewhere.

@binman might argue that the Narrm rounds happen at the same time each year (late-May), when the club is putting certain efforts into fitness…

This is a parallel discussion to the one in another thread ft. @binman, @Fat Tony and others, including me. I think it's a touch disingenuous to now say "why did we change the game plan" when multiple times last year, including after the finals losses, Demonland was awash with "we can't keep playing like this". I also think, as @MurDoc516 has said, the way we played in 2022-23 contributed to the inaccuracy we had in finals. Changes needed to be made to how we play. I'm just not sure now whether we've over-reacted, or our list isn't capable of playing in this modified way, or (as I think Binman would argue) we are just using this game plan to preserve bodies/fitness until later in the year.

That's right - he looks at xScore to argue that we should have beaten Brisbane in 22 and both Collingwood and Carlton in 23, but botched our goal-kicking relative to our opponent. He therefore says that what we were doing in those years was good enough, and is better than what we're doing right now. The difference between him and @binman is that he proceeded on the basis that we have changed how we play because we want to play differently in 2024. Binman, I believe, argues that we've changed how we play in early 2024, but not necessarily all of it, as a fitness/key player protection measure, and that we have planned or will plan to return to the 22-23 method later in the year. And I fully agree with you that our midfielders are down on previous years, which is something I don't think Binman agrees with.

The context to this quote is that he was arguing that we’ve tried playing a different way to 2022-23, it isn’t working well enough to win the flag, but it’s not too late for us to adjust back to something which more closely resembles 202-23, which he expects we will do.

You're going to be super conflicted if he makes an additional change, which you'd seemingly support, but that change involves Tomlinson coming in.

Again, I don't think it was "in no way a reflection on the mids". On CPs, we were +14 in the third quarter. Meaning we were -14 for the other three quarters, including most importantly -12 in the first quarter. Having focused on starting well (Salem mentioned it in his post-match interview), to start -12 in CPs was, to put it mildly, not good. The third quarter helped even out the numbers (albeit we then didn't make the most of it, kicking 3.8 but conceding 5.0), but it doesn't necessarily tell the whole story. And maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not sure you can explain the drop off in these areas on there being fewer stoppages each game. Our average CP and clearance differentials across the season have us at 10th and 11th respectively. So whilst there may be fewer stoppages and therefore fewer opportunities for CPs/clearances, we're still being outdone by our opponents in those areas to, IMO, too great an extent.

Yet in the presser Goodwin's biggest focus was on how poor we were in the contest (which I think it's fair to say reflects more strongly on the mids than anyone else). And the Tweet that's just been posted shows that our four A-grade midfield players (Gawn, Viney, Oliver, Trac) are having their worst seasons in terms of ground ball gets in years. I also think it's a bit disingenuous to say that when opposition mids do well "it's not on the mids". Perhaps a better phrase would be "it's not entirely on the mids". In relation to the weekend, @WheeloRatings are you able to break down the scores from stoppages stat per quarter?

Does this mean worst game since then, or worst season to date since then?

Well that sucks. Misses Fremantle and Collingwood as well as St Kilda. Time for Tommo?

If he’d played well enough to demand that he hold his spot then we’d have had to work out how to keep him in. Doesn’t matter how unlikely you think that would have been, that’s what Brown’s mindset surely would have been going in.

Do you really think the coaches said that to him? Or do you think it perhaps is more likely they said something like "you get your chance here, go and seize this spot in the side"? And that he didn't, not because he doesn't care or wasn't motivated, but because he just wasn't capable?

Interesting, this. Apparently that’s the first time he’s laid more than 6 tackles in a game since 2014. Is that on us? Like did we give him the opportunity? Or is it a case of him playing out of his skin? (Or both?)

Surely the inside 50 differential, time in forward half differential, CP, post-clearance CP and pressure stats also reflect on the midfield?

Last year Collingwood lost to Hawthorn the week after Hawthorn had lost to St Kilda. Earlier this year Sydney lost to Richmond, who have just lost by 100 in back to back weeks.

Probably only two things for sure. Lever misses due to concussion. At least one of Brown and Petty is dropped/moved out of the forward line (they combined for 1.2 from 8 disposals and 3 marks. That's not good enough for one of them on their own, let alone both of them). Presumably JVR replaces the dropped/moved key forward. Tomlinson or Petty for Lever you'd think.

Of all the issues being discussed on this thread (selection, fitness, key forwards), this is the one that deserves the most attention.