titan_uranus

Out of interest, what other sorts of losses are there?

I don’t doubt this stuff is true. But how does he know that Gawn was blindsided, but doesn’t know how he reacted? Anyway, tomorrow will be insightful, given we’re due to hear from Gawn at the least. And also - I [censored] hate that we’re doing this whole off field drama thing again, just two weeks into the season.

Agree with a lot of this. Missing McVee and Windsor is killing us. It is compounded by AMW being injured, as you'd imagine he'd be replacing one of them. So with them all unavailable, Rivers has to go back to half back. He's not dominating in the middle, and we need his run and line breaking off half back. I suspect we will persist with the Fritsch experiment a bit longer but I have no faith at all that it will work. I do not see a future in Spargo (nor Laurie, nor Woewodin, nor Billings). When Gawn is that badly beaten, we almost always struggle - think Darcy dominating him in our recent Fremantle losses. However I don't agree on Petty - he was excellent last week. I doubt May is right to go this week so the decision can be deferred one more week but if it's line ball between Petty and TMac, I'd prefer we play Petty as TMac's much closer to the end.

We don’t have “a couple of our better players out”. Our depth is being tested because we have May, Pickett, McVee and Windsor unavailable (four of our best, or most important, 10), as well as Tholstrup, Melksham, McAdam, AMW, AJ and Culley. It’s because we can’t pick any of these (and it’s completely arguable that 7-8 would be playing if available) that we’re seeing players like Spargo, Sharp, Woewodin, Jeffo and Turner, and are now discussing Laurie and Billings. Don’t get me wrong though - I agree that our list is nowhere near as strong as some want to believe, and agree that other clubs cover missing players better than we do (eg Brisbane won the flag last year without McInerney, Coleman, Doedee and McCarthy).

He said earlier in the presser that we went “straight line and bomby” in the third, hence the 2 goals from 19 entries debacle. He said that’s not how we’ve trained. But he contextualised it by then saying we were belted in the middle, and played in the wet last week, as explanations for why we haven’t seen it work yet. He at least sees the issue. But as Zita (or whoever the journo was who raised it) asked, can we be confident he, and this list, can fix it? There comes a point where that question necessarily, through repeated failure and the passage of time, becomes “no”.

As is always the case on Demonland in the hours after a bad loss, there are some pretty rubbish takes on here. Spare me the “we fluked a flag” guff. Don’t tell me Gawn’s cooked. Neither are remotely true, so let’s just focus on what’s going wrong and whether we can fix them any time soon. How can we reconcile that level of effort with the “healing” messaging coming out of the club? An underdone Spargo, yet again. No adequate second ruck leaving Gawn to be annihilated, yet again. 19 inside 50s in a quarter for 2 goals, yet again. Uncompetitive if we don’t win CPs and clearances, yet again. 20-odd points below our expected score, yet again. I said pre-match that two games is too small a sample size for sweeping judgments. St Kilda looked like this last week, then beat Geelong. West Coast this week looked like an entirely different side than last week. So it can turn around quickly. But until Pickett, May, McVee, Windsor, Tholstrup and Melksham come back, we’re going to have to keep fielding the likes of Howes, Sharp, Woewodin and Spargo, which right now feels very troubling. And of course, the outs say nothing about the lack of effort. I’m worried. Really, really worried.

This happens every year. Someone wins big Round 1, gets declared premiership material, almost immediately loses (Geelong). Someone gets flogged Round 1, gets declared bottom 4 material, almost immediately wins (St Kilda/maybe West Coast). Making sweeping judgment on any side after 1 game is stupid. Even after 4 games it’s still dangerous. Now more than ever, it’s about your form in July and August, not in March and April.

Out of interest for those watching, are we missing easy shots or are these tough shots from the flanks/pockets?

For those who are [censored] off at the fixture, I hope you go to our home games when you can. Our fixture this year is not at all surprising given our 2024.

Would surely be on the back of St Kilda’s win. If we bring the same pressure and contest focus as last week, we should find it easier to score against North’s defence than GWS’.

Here’s hoping Spargo is somewhat back to his 2021-22 form, because the Spargo of 2023-24 shouldn’t be getting a game. Bit harsh to give Langford the sub vest and just one quarter, then drop him. The other two changes make sense, position-wise.

We lose a lot of run if Sharp goes alongside Windsor, and we get little of it back with Spargo. Would have to have Woey playing a full game with plenty of run off half back but even then, might not be enough.

This surprised me too. In the “one’s” all summer, then emergency and now nowhere to be seen. I expect Turner and Woey, as the closest positional replacements for AJ and Windsor. But we could go Spargo or Laurie instead of Disco if we’re going to try a smaller forward line, Fritsch going deeper to be the third tall.

This topic is always triggering, to everyone no matter what your views are. IMO the crowd on Sunday was completely within what ought to have been expected. Scheduling a game against the lowest or second-lowest supported interstate side against the Grand Prix was always going to result in a low crowd, and then add to that the rain, and it's not just unsurprising, but honestly pleasing, that the crowd was 23,000+. If you watch on TV, you don't get it, because the MCC is consistently 10x more packed than anywhere else in the ground and you can't see the MCC from the broadcast wing. In 2022-23, our home crowds as a percentage of our membership were, I believe, the 2nd highest in the league, behind only Fremantle. Our raw home crowd numbers are of course lower than Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon etc., but they have 1.5-2 times as many members as we do. By and large, criticism of our crowds is misguided. However... I have been, and remain, of the view that our club has too great a proportion of supporters who choose to withhold their attendance as some form of "protest" against the club. My view was ratified last year when this debate came up after our game against North. Posters readily admitted on here that they chose not to go simply because they were "sick of Goodwin" or "sick of our low scores" or that they'd "go when the team starts playing the way I like". IMO, if you choose to withhold your attendance as a form of protest, you are killing the club from the inside. When I say this, I always say the next bit too - I do not, for one second, begrudge a single person who cannot go to a game because of cost, family, health, distance, work, or all the other sorts of things which make us unable to go. Almost no one can go every week. My comments above are directed solely to the portion of our supporters who can go (financially, health-wise, time-wise, family-wise), but simply choose not to. @Bring-Back-Powell asked earlier what will happen with our West Coast crowd if we keep losing close games. I would suggest that something that might help us win a close game is a loud crowd in our favour. So instead of asking what happens to the crowd after the losses, perhaps we should ask whether showing up in greater numbers earlier might help us win those games instead? @Dr. Gonzo earlier posted that everyone gets to make their own choices, and I agree - ultimately, you decide if you want to go or not (assuming you can). But if you choose not to go, when you otherwise could, IMO you don't then get to complain about, for example, our home games being shifted away from the G and to Marvel, or our games being in the worst timeslots, or our club not getting the same level of funding as other clubs. Whether we like it or not, this sport cares about crowds, and they are important.

This was always going to be a suspension whether we like it or not. Arms pinned, driven down. He maybe gets off if he can show he didn’t pin Brown’s right hand but the way the Tribunal works with dangerous tackles, I doubt it.

The first one may not be so bad, he might have expected someone to cover Greene (or maybe not), but the second one will surely be something Goodwin has to focus on in review. That’s the sort of stuff that leads to losing close games. Collingwood’s leaders don’t make that sort of mistake. Granted, they get super lucky with the way the ball bounces to Callaghan but still.

AJ given a week. http://mfcde.es/4ib1ROq

I agree, as silly as it might sound given it was 2 minutes into the game, but I reckon the psychological boost of two goals in 2 minutes would have been significant.

As with everything, we need to do it week on week, but what I saw yesterday was promising enough structurally. The Sparrow and Sharp set shot misses really hurt though. We just will not make the required progress if we keep missing easier set shots.

Yep. Absurd. Lynch is as much of a recidivist as Koz, if not worse. That’s IMO a textbook suspension for a high bump. The Archer one is way more complicated though.

A few on radio have said that Trac went to the midfield huddle prior to that bounce but looked to call an audible and put himself in the forward line. I didn't notice it at the ground but did anyone else? i.e. it might not have been Goodwin/the coaches' decision.

Yep, this is an issue. Interestingly enough, prior to that Carlton game we had gone 4-2 in games decided by 6 points or less in 2023, two of which involved us holding on at the death (vs Collingwood on KB and then vs Adelaide at the G).

I've mentioned in my last two posts in this exchange with you what I considered to be the biggest issues yesterday: our fitness, our inability to defend transition, and letting two goals through in stoppage/congestion in our D50. I'm genuinely interested to hear your views as to why these issues were not as important to the result as the forward line - and indeed, I'm interested in what it was about the forward line yesterday that was the issue over and above the correct, but generic, statement that our forward line continually lets us down.

Whoa, knives out hey @Macca? What’s my (now ancient) history of criticising supporters who withhold attendance from games as a protest got to do with the forward line? I asked you why you think the forward line was the (sole) reason we lost. I gave you three other factors, the biggest IMO being how we slowed to a walk in time on in all four quarters (but most notably the third and fourth). Our forward line has been an issue for 4 years, no one’s disputing that, but I walked away from yesterday thinking a few other issues were more significant than forward half inefficiency.

You’ve posted it about 100 times now but why do you say our dysfunctional forward line was the reason we lost? As opposed to what struck me as much bigger issues - not running out quarters, struggling to defend transition, and conceding two goals from situations we usually kill (both to Coniglio).