titan_uranus

1 hour ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

I think there's more fundamental things that could change the fabric of the game, to warrant more of an outcry than the wild card weekend:

1. Shorter quarters down to 16 minutes per COVID 2020.

2. Less games during the year.

3. Last touch out of bounds (although in fairness this change probably wouldn't be a disaster)

I just don't understand why people are getting upset over an additional 2 football game weekend in late August instead of just a slate of AFLW games, and the fact that finishing 7th or 8th would become a vulnerable position.

Would it really make much of a difference in the scheme of things?

And I also think that the fact that dead rubbers will be way more prominent in this year's run home, the AFL will be triggered into bringing this in next year.

Your inability to go a week without football shouldn’t mean the 10th best side (ie in the bottom half of the comp) gets to play a final just so you get another game to watch.

2 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

I reckon I'm on my own on this forum, in terms of wanting the wildcard weekend introduced on a weekend (last weekend of August) that's currently an absolute dead zone on the football calendar.

1) It's an absolute shambles that teams 10-18 are already out of the finals hunt meaning the amount of relevant remaining games will decrease dramatically. Didn't happen last year, might not happen next year, but this year is going to be a mediocre last 8 weeks.

2) The wildcard weekend places a premium on finishing 6th or higher. 7th or 8th turns into an 'also-ran' position, so we're rewarding excellence.

3) Imagine if we got on some sort of roll and won 6 of our last 8 games to finish 10th and faced the Dogs on our turf on a Saturday night at the MCG, on wild card weekend. Would the wild card naysayers give the game a miss?

4) As a heavy consumer of AFL games (not just MFC games) I think it would be an exciting addition to the football calendar, having 2 stand alone games with a heap at stake.

1. How much less of a “shambles” will it be if we bring this in and then at this stage of the year teams 12-18 are out of contention and unlikely to make it to 10th? A marginal reduction in “irrelevant” games.

2. The top 6 premium is a distraction from the truth, which is that we’re rewarding 10 teams with finals, not 8.

3. Imagine we played well all year but finished 7th, on percentage. Instead of getting to play 6th, we instead play some side which struggled all season and in mediocrity finished 10th, in the bottom half of the comp. How would you feel about risking one bad day after 23 rounds and being straight out? How is that “rewarding excellence”? We’re rewarding mediocrity in favour of letting 10th play one good game and all of a sudden skip straight past 7th.

4. As per my previous post - there is such a thing as too much footy. We are killing the goose that laid the golden egg

1 hour ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

If the wildcard round idea comes in (and I truly hope it does not), it won't take long for someone to suggest a pre-wild card round to allow teams in positions 10 through to 13 to play each other to see which one gets to be the 10th placed team to then play in the wildcard round.

Exactly (whether sarcastic or not).

What happens when a gap between 10th and 11th opens up at this stage of the season? We’ll get someone saying “why not have 11th play 10th for the right to play 7th”.

The BBL did this, had too many games and finals. Ratings capitulated. They realised that there is such a thing as too much cricket. They pared it back.

There is such a thing as too much footy.

21 minutes ago, Lil_red_fire_engine said:

This is not at all surprising. He plays safe footy in every meaning of the word safe. Its a real shame Sestan got injured when he did as I am very keen to see him trialled back half of the year in half back place of Salem and/or Rivers. He is a high quality kick at varied distances who takes chances that open the field.

Our injury list is not something we can complain about…but I’d really love to see Sestan, AMW and McAdam in our side right now.

Last night on SEN Hoyne commented on a few of our players, including Salem. Mentioned that Salem is rated 257th in the league on Champion Data’s rankings (take your grain of salt if you want) and is outside the top 300 over the last six weeks. Then added that he takes the 11th easiest kicks of anyone in the comp. No idea how that’s measured but it’s data which confirms a view I’ve had for a while. He’s just going and we need way more from our half backs than what he actually produces. We get seduced by the concept of him being a good kick but he doesn’t actually impact games with his kicking to the standard we should expect.

I think he should be seriously considered for a spell at Casey.

1 hour ago, bing181 said:

Just ridiculous, but keeps on coming up here.

Pies were in the finals for 3 out of the preceding 4 years to McRae's arrival, and had been in the top 4 for 2 of those, including grand finalists in 2018. McRae took over basically the same list with the addition of (checks notes) 2 x Daicos.

Though once again, this ignores all the occasions when teams have changed coaches and either continued to go backwards, or where improvement has been minimal. And that's by the far the majority of cases.

Not saying McRae isn't a good coach, but most clubs in the league have "good" coaches, and it's not helping. A solid list where you add a star or two on the other hand ...

If I’m reading the internet correctly, at the end of 2021 Collingwood brought in Lipinski and N Daicos, plus a bunch of others who haven’t achieved much.

Which would mean that 21 of the 23 players who took them to a 1-point prelim loss in 2022 were on their list in Buckley’s final season, in which they finished bottom 2.

So McRae largely got them bouncing back straight away without major list changes. Obviously N Daicos makes a huge difference but he didn’t, in 2022, change them from a bottom 2 side to a top 4 side.

I don’t understand your constant “but this ignores the countless times new coaches have failed to change a club’s fortunes”. Is anyone saying a change of coach is guaranteed to make us better? Aside from maybe some fringe posters, I doubt it. But you tend to come across as “a change in coach is guaranteed to do nothing without major list changes”, which is equally wrong. Collingwood in 2021-22 is an example.

The club’s photos from today’s training on Instagram show some in blue and some in white, with Chandler, Salem, Tholstrup and Pickett in blue and Windsor, TMac, Laurie, Woewodin and Spargo in white.

Not sure if that’s reflective of upcoming selection, or just last week’s teams. Or anything at all, really.

Of course Buckley and other media people want it.

Buckley’s even admitted on radio that the main benefit is more revenue, because 10th isn’t likely to win a flag.

Having 9 and 10 make finals is stupid. Having a side like us, 5-10 with sub-90%, able to snag a few late wins and finish 10th and have the same standing as a side like Adelaide, Hawthorn or Brisbane, who could all easily finish 7th, is stupid.

We’re not one year removed from one of the most even seasons we’ve ever seen. Yes, this year is shaping to be less exciting for the run home, but allowing sides to make finals from 10th doesn’t fix that problem. It just renders even more of the H&A season less relevant.

24 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

All fair comments.

Having the two CEOs at the conference is sub-optimal to say the least, given Chippendall ran for the job and didn’t get it.

11 hours ago, Deespicable said:

The push to play kids grows as we now know finals won't be happening this year, but against that is the fact that all clubs and coaches go into games wanting to win - the Kruzer Cup excepted.

With Petty and Howes out, I am hoping the Dees make a couple of tactical adjustments in order to have a chance of winning.

Firstly one of the Crows strengths (and they have many at the moment) is that they have three strong tall forwards - Thilthorpe (who is a very decent back-up second ruck as well), Walker and Fogarty. To again go into a game with only two tall defenders and no back up talls is lunacy. So Lever (assuming he moved better) has to come back but T.Mac may well be a better option for Tex because of his extra height. Turner has to play on Fogarty, who is the more mobile, while May gets Thilthorpe and switches to Fogarty when Thilthorp's rucking.

Secondly our own tall forward set-up has to change a bit because without Petty we lose our lead-up forward to contest the down the line work. JVR has been tried, but is still not dominating VFL games, so it would be nice if he was played down back in the VFL to get form and confidence back. We seem committed to trying Jeffo and I must admit the access to higher-level games has seen him improve marginally - so it's worth giving him another game or two before the season is out, even if he's well below AFL standard. But Jeffo body-shape means he is more a lead-up player, he's not a realistic down-the-liner option, so someone has to play that role with Melky.

We could throw Turner forward but it's a little unfair to expect him to battle all the Crows big bods, so it would be nice if we thought laterally and brought in Tom Campbell to share the down the line man work with Gawny - to be honest Gawny is the only player on our team that has looked like taking a pack mark up forward all season, but Campbell is also big enough to not be pushed off an aerial contest so easily. And the advantage off having TC is that when we rest Gawny, there's no mismatch with Thilthorpe.

And the following week we need TC again to take on the best push-and-shove tap man in the game in Xerri (Grundy is close), allowing Gawny a bit more rest time so that he can expose him around the ground.

I don't really see any other changes this week although Billings and Laurie both deserve games (and not one's as subs). Culley is getting close but it would be nice if he had a 30-plus possession VFL game.

Generally agree with this.

One of Lever or TMac has to come back, but can Lever really go one-on-one with Walker (or Fogarty, or Thilthorpe)? I'm not sure. Might have to be TMac who gets that spot. Wouldn't bother me - whilst TMac doesn't appear to be the future, Lever didn't do much at Casey and whilst Lever finds himself down there due to form, TMac's down there due to a very tough selection call. At least TMac's recent AFL form was good.

Up forward, we are really in dire straits. I expect JVR to return, and I subsequently expect Adelaide's tall defenders to set some records for intercept marking. We really need someone else who can take a mark down the line. Your argument for Campbell to come in is a good one but I just don't see it happening.

We can make room for Billings, Laurie or Culley if we want. Is Salem playing well enough to hold his spot? Does Sparrow live off his 5 tackles and 17 pressure acts, given he otherwise struggles to get involved (10 touches, 135 metres gained, and no CBAs)? Is Sharp that much better than those three you mentioned?

47 minutes ago, Maxie said:

Obviously kicking efficiency is not a priority when you sign contracts, multi million or otherwise, at the Dees. Kozz is excused but that is damning for a few others.

I know this was sarcasm but this is actually our entire problem.

Almost everyone on our list is either good at winning their own ball, or good at kicking, but not both.

Trac, Oliver, Viney and Gawn get spoken of enough. Rivers is in the same basket. At their best in 2021-23 the first three tore games apart to the point where we could cover for their kicking. Now that they’ve slid back, and with the other 17 clubs all learning how to win by scoring from the back half, their strengths are no longer proportionate to their contracts (at least for Clarry and Viney, anyway).

Then there’s players like Spargo, Laurie and Billings. Sure, they can kick, but what use is it to us if they can’t find it more than 10 times a game? (And, for the first two, they also have to deal with below average foot speed).

Which is why Koz, Langford, Lindsay, Bowey and Windsor (maybe Kolt) need to be invested in.

9 hours ago, bluey said:

I believe we sold the Alice game, so it’s our problem, the club is a disgrace, a complete shambles.

The Alice game has nothing to do with us being given the Port, GC and Adelaide games in a row.

32 minutes ago, demoncat said:

I definitely agree about the state of the list

I think at the start of the year I thought we were just a few tweaks and a good run of form away from making finals again, but now it seems a new list hole is popping up every other week

However I don’t think this should be a reason to retain Goody because to me it doesn’t look like he’s willing to make hard calls on players and their positions to at least address some of these holes in the short term, or at the very least get development into our younger players for the long term

Why isn’t Trac spending 50/50 mid/fwd? Why isn’t Jack spending more time forward (reckon he spent about 5 mins up there at the start of the game on Saturday)? Why isn’t Rivers getting a go in the midfield? Why are players like Windsor and Petty being played out of their best positions?

I could go on - but the point is that while a new coach won’t immediately fix the holes on our list, they can cast a fresh pair of eyes over our players and make decisions about our list and gameplan accordingly

I don’t think after all this time Goody has the willingness or capacity to do this, particular in regards to senior players

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.

1 hour ago, Lil_red_fire_engine said:

Kolt is super clean with his hands and feet but doesn’t get enough of it yet and makes howlers when he overthinks the game.

I believe he will look a lot different with a full preseason and continuity of play.

As far as those who were drafted after him, I suggest go and have a look. Of the next 15 drafted, only two of them played seniors on the weekend and they were Darcy Wilson and Riley Hardeman neither who have been killing it this year. Logan Morris is the one at pick 31 that most clubs missed.

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.

36 minutes ago, monoccular said:

Fiorini KOs Petty in a contest, very similar or even more culpable than Kozzie v Moore last year, except that Moore was not concussed.

Kozzie gets 3 weeks, Fiorini nothing to see.

And some ask if the MRO is corrupt, inept, or both.

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.

9 hours ago, At the break of Gawn said:

Think it's first time since 2020 due to covid. It's ridiculous that the club accepted this.

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.

4 hours ago, VoiceOfReason said:

The players say they want to play for Goodwin, but actions suggest otherwise. The effort might be there, but that is about it. Wasteful football in 2/3's of the ground. Oliver and Petracca looked to have checked out.

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.

3 hours ago, Supermercado said:

"A dozen matches in the past three years have turned a dynasty team into a rubble."

Somebody's spell check refused to accept 'rabble'.

Spoiler alert - the whole article is based on expected score which is a lame way of judging something like this.

Whatever we were meant to score the 2022 QF against Sydney was the big miss. We were in front, May thrashed Franklin, and a win there off the back of thumping Brisbane the previous week would've sent us to a prelim on a high. Bah.

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.