titan_uranus

6 - Petracca 5 - May 4 - Lever 3 - McVee 2 - Gawn 1 - Fritsch

As usual @Axis of Bob is right. The scoreline was ugly given our inaccuracy but we dominated general play all night. The stats showed it. +50 disposals but also +11 tackles. +29 CPs, +9 clearances, +20 inside 50s (they only had 39) and +7 scoring shots. On expected scores we should have won by 7-odd goals I believe. May kept Curnow silent. Tomlinson got beaten but allowed Lever to play well enough that Voss felt compelled to send Lewis Young forward to tag him. Gawn got his mojo back. McVee was superb. JVR was threatening all night. Yes they had mids out but we had Oliver, Petty and Hibberd out and lost Bowey mid-game. If you said during the week we’d lose, or if you said you couldn’t see anything good in our season, or that you thought we were cooked for the year, you should be celebrating this win (whether you do so openly or not).

These largely don't respond to what I was saying, but happy to talk further about them. The Swans right now are a shadow of the side they were in 2022. That's largely due to their injury list. They went from 2-0 to 3-6, but as I've argued before, in only one of those games did they play with a full backline, and that was the first of those games, against us. The Dogs went from 0-2 to 7-3, which included wins over Brisbane, Fremantle in Perth and just last week an 8-goal win over everyone's favourite side right now, Adelaide. As for 2022, we went 16-6 and finished 2nd and led in all bar one of our losses by at least 20 points. We played well for much of the season but we peaked too early, we had injuries at the wrong time, our back half of our fixture was very difficult (both as to opponents and as to travel), and other sides continually brought close enough to their best against us, which we couldn't keep doing week after week. Despite all of that, we still led both Sydney and Brisbane by 20+ points in the finals. We just couldn't sustain our game for long enough. I don't think we've improved on 2021 yet. I don't think we have to though. Our 2021 season was stellar. We can't expect us to be as dominant each year as we were in 2021. I'm concerned about a few aspects of our 2023 season so far - mostly around backline structure and D50 stoppage work - but as with last year I don't think we're as far off being a genuine flag contender as most of Demonland appears to. I don't want or need us to be the clear front-runner all year like we were for large parts of 2021 and 2022.

Why is it that Collingwood gets the free pass but we don't? Brisbane beat North by 75. Port beat them by 79. We beat them by 90. Collingwood "only" beat them by 35. If they and us were swapped you'd be arguing we were pathetic against a pathetic side. You didn't address my previous post in relation to the Dogs or Swans, at all. Saying the Dogs "took several rounds to get going" is the same thing as saying "they sucked in Rounds 1 and 2", which are the two losses they had before beating Brisbane in Round 3. What I argued was that we (and St Kilda in Round 2) deserved some credit for making them look bad. Do you agree with that? As to Sydney, again, since Round 4 when the McCartin brothers both got injured in-game, they have not had a full backline to choose from. In Round 3, when we played them, they were full strength other than Hickey. The side we played in Round 3 was far stronger than the side they've fielded since. Do you accept that might mean our win over them was stronger than a win over them in the last month? Will you revisit this if Sydney, who are only 11th and one game out of the 8, make the finals by year's end?

I don't mind the changes. I will need to see a significant body of work from Smith as a forward before I think that's the right move - he finally looked like he was making it as a defender last year and I hate it when we flip flop players back/forward so much that they never settle anywhere. Fingers crossed he can make an impact. I don't know what more Brown needs to do but let's hope he keeps plugging away at Casey and keeps the pressure on Smith and JVR. Losing Hibberd hurts but we're finally doing what I think we need to do for the rest of the season by playing three tall defenders. Hunter for Harmes makes sense, but IMO we're still too thin in the middle.

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?