titan_uranus

I agree that @Binmans PA got it wrong by saying we’re a contender but have huge problems. That’s an oxymoron. On our current form we are closer to the bottom 4 than the top 4. On our current form our problems appear fatal to our season.

We now have a bottom 6 percentage. As @layzie said earlier, for the last 4 seasons I’ve had confidence that we can stay in any game, if not by winning then by fighting hard to keep the deficit down. Our record through 2020-23 speaks to that. The WC loss and now today really shattered that confidence. Our percentage being as low as it is shakes me more than I thought it might.

Blissfully overseas and loving SE Asia. That is, until I opened my AFL app. No idea how the game played out other than by reading stats but one thing stands out from the numbers - yet another smashing in the midfield. Tell me again how good our midfield is. And so our run in the top 8 comes to an end. 82 consecutive weeks by my count. I like stats and records so it saddens me that it’s over (would love to know if it’s any sort of record - @WheeloRatings?) but maybe it’s a blessing - time to get real about our midfield, our list and our fitness.

You might be right about midfield depth but were we realistically going to find a midfielder in the MSD who would make a significant difference to our 2024 fortunes?

Gee can’t help but feel Spargo’s ages off, sadly. But good news on Turner and Melksham might be back not far after the bye!

By all means, don’t switch on St Kilda vs Fremantle if you think it won’t be entertaining. But I’d argue that for us, this attitude shouldn’t apply.

They led Fremantle by 26 points midway through the fourth quarter, in Perth, with most of those players missing. I'll believe their demise if/when I see it. Until then, I fully expect them to keep winning.

Both are an issue. There were probably 30,000 of us and 7,500 of them yesterday. But that’s not enough of us. 3.20pm timeslot, beautiful weather, we just need to get more people to these sorts of games. At a time when three Marvel clubs are lobbying the AFL to transfer home games to the G, if we can’t draw big enough crowds I worry we are exposing ourselves to losing home games to Marvel.

Love seeing JVR get a vote. Would love to know which coach that was.

How we defend from turnover is something we need to focus on a bit more. It’s a corollary of how we’re changing how we move the ball and how we set up, but St Kilda are a poor side and still had too much ease in moving the ball from D50 or the back half and score.

That was my view of yesterday. Not necessarily a systemic issue (didn’t take any low percentage shots in the first quarter against Carlton…!). Perhaps it’s our fitness which sees us do better later in games, but I do think we are not starting games well enough.

You’ve mentioned the goalkicking as a negative. Whilst we had a couple of bad misses (Sparrow in the third the worst), this wasn’t IMO an issue of bad goalkicking, but rather us taking low percentage shots - too many from 40m+ out and/or wide on the boundary. We actually outscored our xScore.

I disagreed with almost all of the rest of it. Game plans aren’t aspirational and this conversation isn’t academic. Coaches talk about how they set up to play every week FFS. Nebulous comments about “principles of their culture” are just that, nebulous. Clubs set about instilling whatever principles they want, of course, but that doesn’t happen devoid of also instilling what they want to do on the field. List-wise, Judd McVee’s a star addition to our side, JVR is hugely exciting for a 20 year old and Howes has showed plenty. So whilst our list has holes and isn’t as good as others, it hasn’t been the disaster you suggest it is. The culture and standards haven’t “fallen away” to any relevant extent. You just infer that from our comparatively worse seasons in 2022-23, I think. You named four “very good” players who left. Of those, only Jackson fits that description. Bedford’s the most overrated player in the AFL whilst Harmes and Jordon were in the “regressed” camp. Put some names to the “quality in the market” who we needed but couldn’t afford? And having identified that we need talent in key positions, is it then a problem that we have salary cap tied up in long term deals for our A-graders that perhaps has prevented us from splashing more cash in 2022-23? So yeah. Don’t agree with much of it.

Not sure about the fixture point. We still have Collingwood twice, Fremantle twice, GWS, Port, Essendon, Brisbane in Brisbane, GC on the GC and the Dogs at Marvel. Still four more interstate trips (Essendon by contrast have just two). We’ve done well enough given the early travel but there are plenty of challenges on our fixture still to come.

I was disappointed in McAdam, but not sure there are better options for his spot. Petty probably shouldn’t play - sore shoulder and then the foot issue. But the cupboard is bare for key forwards. Jefferson? No other changes.

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…