titan_uranus

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.

What are you on about? What "runs on the board" does Simpson have over Goodwin? Both have the same number of flags. A quick Google and calculation (which therefore may be wrong) tells me that Goodwin has a 59% win rate to Simpson's 50% in their coaching careers, too. Simpson also oversaw two of the most disastrous years of football any side has produced in living memory, up there with our years in the Neeld era. Why the [censored] didn't you expect any better? For the last four years we haven't lost games to bad sides, nor have we lost games by 30+ points. This shouldn't be happening, and you're posting like it should?

Tonight is: The first time we've lost by more than 30 points since Round 11, 2022 vs Fremantle (i.e. a week short of two years ago) The highest score we've conceded since Round 19, 2022 vs the Dogs Our 8th straight week scoring under 100 points - our longest stretch since, funnily enough, Rounds 8-19 in 2021. Likely to be our first loss to a side who will finish the season in the bottom 4 since Round 9, 2021 vs Adelaide

I think I said most/all of this in my post. The point I am making in addition to this is that West Coast aren't as bad as many on here seem to think. If you think they are the 2022-23 West Coast you aren't watching 2024 football. As I said in my post, they are still a bottom 4 side, mid-table at best, but bottom 4 sides beat good sides most years (Hawthorn beat Collingwood and Brisbane last year). But as you say, it's how we lost - 25 scoring shots and 105 points conceded, beaten in the middle again, and key forwards who can't impact the game.

I don't know how much longer we need to lose games with the bottom 6-8 players being ineffectual for this to sink in on Demonland. Our list isn't good enough to withstand our A-graders being down.

Well, the good news is I wasn't able to watch and so had planned to set aside 2 hours tonight to watch it on delay - but having followed along online, I've been able to save myself 2 hours. Having seen none of it it's hard for me to comment but I only need to see that we conceded 105 points and 25 scoring shots to know it was bad. I see we were again beaten in CPs and clearances, and again our key forwards barely troubled the statisticians, let alone the scorers. There are some classic Demonland reactions though. Yes, West Coast barely won a game in 2022-23. But if you think that has any reflection what they're doing in 2024, you're not following football. They are miles better this year, and already had been prior to this game. They are a difficult proposition at home. But if we can't stop West Coast, a mid-table side at best (and still probably a bottom 4 side) from scoring 105 points whilst holding us to only 70, something isn't right.

It’s always been both. Luck has a say in most, if not all, close games, whether it’s the bounce of our unpredictable ball or whether the umpire pays/doesn’t pay a free that is/isn’t there. Not everything is in Collingwood’s control and therefore they must rely on luck. Their system for closing down games when they hold the lead late is perfection though, as is their ability to feed off the almost-always pro-Collingwood crowd to claw back deficits.