titan_uranus

I really dislike this sort of reasoning. The Dogs struggled - why is it that we get no credit for that? The Swans are "up and down" isn't even the best argument in your favour - they're largely just down. But regardless, they've only played 3 games this year with their full backline and that was Rounds 1-3. They were also full strength in Round 3 other than Hickey. Sure, the Brisbane game could have ended very differently if the lights didn't go out, but of course we won't know for sure. And as for Richmond, given you have said a number of times in this thread that you back your eyes over the stats, go back and re-watch their pressure on ANZAC Eve. I agree they're not like they were in 2017-20 but they brought heat that night. But even if you don't agree with me, look at the rest of their season. They've only conceded more than our 96 once this year, vs Sydney. In fact, they've only conceded one other score over 80 (89 vs the Dogs). They're averaging 78 points against from a string of opponents including Adelaide, Collingwood, GC, Geelong, Essendon and Port Adelaide. In response to you citing our game vs Hawthorn, what about last week, when Collingwood kicked 9 goals after half time against North who kicked 8? Is that OK?

The Laird one is worse than the Cerra one. Cerra didn't pin Hickey's arms. It's not as bad as the other ones we've seen this year. How Laird got off is beyond me. Just ridiculous.

The Hoyne data from Sportsday (the tweets were shared earlier) is really interesting. We have lost three games now due to conceding goals from D50 stoppages (the Essendon game might be the same but the three he discussed were Brisbane, Port and Fremantle). In those three games, the final margin has been less than our opponents' scores from stoppages in our D50. That's an extremely clear area that needs improvement. Our ground ball work in defensive 50 is terrible. However, I agree with Hoyne when he argues that it's more easily fixable than struggling to prevent scores from turnover. We are ranked 1st at conceding scores from turnover whilst also being 1st for scoring from turnover. Yes, again, we've played all three rubbish sides, but we've also played the two hardest road trips, Sydney at full strength, GC on the GC, an in-form Fremantle and an in-form Essendon, whilst travelling 50% of the time in our first 10 weeks. Yes, the bottom 3 sides help, but our fixture had enough challenges that to come through that period 1st in both for/against on turnover has significance.

Where did you pull those figures from? We scored 126 against West Coast, 139 against North and 103 against Hawthorn. That's 33% of our total of 1,110. So that's 33% of our score from 27% of our games. It's higher than 27%, but not by that much. I posted this elsewhere but we've scored 115 vs the Dogs (highest score they've conceded all year), 82 against Brisbane in Brisbane, 134 against Sydney with its full backline, 76 against Port, in Adelaide, in the rain, 96 against Richmond, and 90 against GC. Yes, we've scored well against the bottom 3 sides, but we've also scored well against the better sides we've played.

A good post but just highlighting this. I understand your argument but it’s not entirely correct. We scored 115 vs the Dogs. The only time they’ve conceded 100, and indeed they have only conceded more than 71 two other times. We scored 82 against Brisbane, albeit much of that was after the restart. But Collingwood’s 83 is the only higher score they’ve conceded at the Gabba. We scored 134 against Sydney with their full backline playing. The only other two games they’ve had their full backline they conceded less than that combined. We scored 76 against Port in the rain. The Dogs also played Port in the rain and scored 56. We scored 90 against GC on the GC who are playing pretty well at home. Anyway, I know we’ve had big scores against the bottom 3 sides but I don’t think we’ve been completely impotent against the better sides.

It's too early to be calling the results of games in July, let alone August. If we played Geelong this week we'd be a reasonable chance. By the time we get them in 4 weeks, they'll have some of their currently missing players back, which will make them a stronger team. Same deal with Sydney - if we played them this week we'd be a good chance but by Round 23, they may well be playing for a finals spot or a home final even, if they get back to their 2022 form (big if but a possibility). I think St Kilda are trending in the wrong direction, whilst Adelaide is a vastly different side away from the AO than at home (even Brisbane too).

I’m somewhere between your view and the counter. Our list is good. But it is not amazing. You are underselling our opponents’ lists, significantly. I rate some key players higher than @DeeSpencer does but by and large I think he’s fairly shown where sides like Collingwood have an edge with their lists. I don’t agree that our top end talent accounts for those other lists. In fact, I believe that is our problem - we rely too much on our elite players but we fall away too quickly, particularly in the midfield. Our opponents have deeper midfields and that makes them just as good if not better. The media saying we need to win another flag or else waste this list is sensationalism and I think too many Demonlanders buy it. Flags are very hard to win and the competition is more equalised every year. But ultimately if we don’t win another flag then the talent just isn’t at that level.

I can redefine your categories as this: one who snaps to pessimism immediately, the other who don’t. You are the president of the former. It would not surprise me if you called for Goodwin to be sacked in 2017, let alone in 2019, without having the patience (or simply just the ability to be anything other than wholly negative) to wait for him to take us to the 2021 flag.

Adelaide are 5-2 at home and 1-3 on the road, the sole win vs Hawthorn. Fortune in their draw to get both Brisbane and Collingwood at home, and obviously don’t have the away factor vs Port. We get both Brisbane and Port away. Just a bit of bad luck on that front. Also note they have had fewer road trips this year than we have.

We lost to Sydney twice last year which many said “confirmed” we couldn’t go with them. I hope the club hasn’t written our chances off like you have. This question shouldn’t need to be asked. They are 100% a flag chance. Right now they have claims to being the best side in the comp. They have already shown that, no matter what happens today.

But it’s easy. I think structure and team balance have been our biggest problems for the last 6 weeks.

We won CPs in every quarter except the third when we lost by 3. Clearances though we lost in each quarter except the last. That’s interesting in itself though - it wasn’t a comprehensive failure at contest but it was another game where we had enough contested ball but conceded too many exits from stoppages (and then couldn’t stop them scoring from those exits).

We get it. You’ve posted it about 6 times today across multiple threads. It’s 2 wins in 14 games, but I guess going back one more game doesn’t assist? And of those 14, 6 were against sides not currently in the top 8. Agree that’s a poor record but I’m not sure how relevant it is other than against the obviously good sides (ie Brisbane, Port, last year’s finals - less so sides like Essendon and Freo where the jury remains out). At any rate, by the end of the season, if say Sydney or GC make finals (both are just one game out right now) and we get another win vs say St Kilda, Geelong or Brisbane, this sort of stat is going to look very different to what it does now. An errant Fritsch snap last week goes through and we beat Port and this stat would be 3-5 including the two finals. But that win wouldn’t necessarily change the broader issues which deserve more focus than this stat.

I agree with a number of these (indeed, I think the title of the thread is misguided - there is no one issue, there almost never is, it’s usually a combination of things). I didn’t like the Petty forward move to begin with. He’s probably a better forward than I had expected but the team net loses because it’s thrown our backline structure out. I cannot accept that the FD haven’t seen Lever go from AA form to, well, not. If they have been persisting, hoping that Hibberd could fill the void, I think that it’s time to end the persistence. I also agree re Rivers. I see him as being ready to move into the midfield. It would help solve two problems - insufficient midfield depth and too many small defenders.

This is still something I think is a massive problem with our supporter base. Too many on here have their expectations so high - it seems you expect us to not just beat, but dominate, all sides except, what, Collingwood, Brisbane and Port? It doesn’t work like that. It never has. It’s a separate issue altogether to discuss the parts of our game that aren’t working but defining failure as small wins over mid-table sides sets you up for a season of disappointment.

Way, way, way longer than you’re suggesting here. We are 23-12 since the flag (ie we win twice as often as we lose). We’ve been in the top 4 for all bar, what, one round in that time? As upset as you are, this isn’t where we are heading for a long time yet.

From Round 11, we have 6 games against the current top 11 (but only 3 against current top 8 sides), and 6 games against the current bottom 7. It’s possible that’s the hardest draw but that would surprise me. Certainly though, other sides must have worse travel fixtures than us.

Is this a dig at me? If so, you’ve completely missed my point. If not, carry on (FWIW, agree with you, we are on form a bottom half of the 8 side at best right now). Which line? The one where I said you use the 2021 flag as a crutch for your pessimism when instead you should celebrate it? The more we lose in 2023, the more I think I’m right about that. Enjoy what we did in 2021. It was unbelievable.

Goodwin in the presser suggested as much, focusing on our inefficiency across the ground (ie in transition, in connection and in terms of shots on goal). He also focused on their third quarter scores from stoppage. Against Brisbane and Port as well, we conceded too many goals from stoppage (particularly in the forward half). We can’t afford to be inefficient in transition from turnover if we are going to be sub-par at stoppage, which has been the case all year even with Clarry. When we get looks on turnover, we need to capitalise.

If true, why is this? Why do our opponents regularly bring their best pressure against us? Arguing that “they know pressure is our weakness” is silly because pressure is every side’s weakness. Sides would bring elite pressure all 23 weeks if they could. But for most, they can’t. But why us? Do we invite it somehow? Does the stat go up because we fumble and they get another point for a repeat tackle or something? Is it up because ours is down? (I don’t think it’s this because our pressure was high last week v Port). Do they just view us as a massive threat and gee themselves up for us - the whole “hunter vs hunted” mentality? Is it just plain bad luck?

I have no idea what you’re talking about in terms of me attacking you. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Let me know via DM perhaps. My point remains though. You’re entitled to be upset with the game and the season to date. But you posted a number of times in a way which denigrates those of us who chose during the week to look at the positives and what we could work with - which, at 7-3, is hardly an unreasonable thing to have done.

Look, I get you're upset with the game, I'm sure almost all of us are, but all of your posts are attacks at Demonlanders. Do we have to, after every loss, turn on each other? There's plenty to talk about, let's focus on the team. I'm sick of coming onto threads like this and seeing so many people going the "I told you so" route trying to put down anyone who dared during the week to try to see the good parts of what we've been doing and how we could win today.

I really only want to see three things selection-wise: Another tall defender alongside May and Lever. Our insistence of going with May and Lever on their own, stretching HIbberd, is not working. It's not a good strategy made even worse by seeing Lever's AA form in the first few weeks fall apart since we moved Petty. I don't care whether that's Tomlinson, Turner or someone else. A change to the two tall forwards. The JVR-TMac combo doesn't work. If JVR's tired, he should be rested. Either way, TMac isn't good enough. I don't know what the FD are waiting to see in Brown but he was averaging 4 goals a game at AFL level before his injury and perhaps we should try putting him back in. He can hardly do worse than what we're seeing. A rebalancing of our smalls. We have too many small defenders who are low possession getters. We have too many small forwards who are low possession getters. Too much is left to too few. We need to increase the number of midfielders in the side who can rotate through the middle at the expense of one of the smalls. I fear this will mean Chandler or McVee will be dropped, which saddens me because I like both of them and like the freshness they bring to the side, but something has to change.

Apparently expected scores were 80.3-63.5 in our favour. Our early season accuracy has faded. Not helping.

Have been out and was hoping to come home, see that we'd won, and put the replay on. Sigh. Amiss and Treacy 5 goals and 23 disposals. JVR and TMac 2 goals and 14 disposals. We can't keep doing this. Lever was in AA form at the start of the year when we had three tall defenders. Since moving Petty forward and not replacing him in defence, Lever's form has deteriorated. I doubt anyone on here thinks that's a coincidence. We don't need all of Salem, Bowey, McVee, Rivers and Brayshaw. We don't need all of Chandler, Spargo, ANB and Pickett, either. Our structure is out and it's time to see the FD step up and make the changes we need to revitalise our season. The season is not lost at 7-4 and 133.9%. That is a solid enough foundation to attack finals/the flag. But what we're doing right now isn't working and needs to change.