FlashInThePan

I hesitate to put this out there because I'm advocating pushing out players that perhaps don't deserve it but here goes. I think our forward problems are mostly execution based and not structural. I think we have survived for too long with very decent role players. Further I get the feeling that Goody, on occasion, overvalues these people. So here is how I'd change it up:

1. ANB comes out and Chandler moves to play that role. He is not on ANB's level as a runner but he is pretty damn good and he has x-factor. He will have to work hard to cover the holes that ANB does but I think he can do it.

2. Bowie comes forward and takes Chandler's position. I think his defensive mindset and incredible field kicking would make a significant difference to our forward entries and F50 tackles

3. This one is very speculative: I would look at Smith as potentially taking a more pressure forward role, he has great speed and can defend well. He plays instead of Spargo and we bring in another tall such as BBB if/when ready

I just want to acknowledge that both ANB and Spargo have been great role players, if not always consistent. I just think we need to look at significant personel changes to get a different outcome.

Does anyone remember an injury report saying that Clarry’s hamstring was 426?

26 minutes ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

LOL if this actually was an accepted excuse. Unless of course Geelong players are the human equivalent of seahorses. Short of that, the dog ate my homework would be a better excuse. 

Well… maybe if they are an AFLW player we could give them a pass

5 hours ago, binman said:

I haven't heard King say that. When did he bang on about that?

I can't find a link to it. It was on either first crack or AFL 360. He was making the point that TMac's injury coincided with demons drop in form.

29 minutes ago, Ollie fan said:

Would be crazy. Until the moment Petty was injured we had the best attack in the league - and since then, real problems. He creates a contest, marks well and opens space with his movement. Back to CHF imv.

Dare I say ‘correlation does not equal causation’? I’m sure everyone has heard all the banging on by King about how TMac’s injury in 2022 triggered the end of our winning streak and, seemingly, all our form problems thereafter.

3 hours ago, jnrmac said:

So last year we were comprehensively outcoached by Scott.  Geelong had Stanley take the ruck and move back to help the defence. Blix tagged Tracc effectively and every time May kicked to Gawn the left side three Cat players would jump into his back. In addition around the ground they smashed Gawn whenever they could - a bit like Port Adelaide tried to do.

So my question to all you strategists out there is what will we do to deal with that or counter that?

We need to make the ground bigger to defend. They only had to clog up the left wing last year and we just kicked the ball high into their defensive press from the kick in. We need to use a combination of short kicks and then be unpredictable, take the 45 into the corridor or switch to the right hand wing to exit. This will force them to spread their zone and defend the whole ground.

We know how to enter our forward 50 against these guys, just lower our eyes and look for the short kick or go long but ensure we halve the contest. The latter approach can work fine as long as our defensive press comes in right behind the kick.

Someone has already mentioned a solution to the Max problem if we are going to go down the left wing but no amount of blocking is going to give us a mark or possession if 3/4 of their team is positioned between the middle of the ground and that left boundary line. They know exactly how that play is going to look, we have to force them to defend the whole ground.

8 hours ago, rjay said:

It was pretty obvious that something was up with Danger.

Was absent from centre bounces in the 2nd half & didn't appear to be on the ground for large periods of play.

Little or no mention from the channel 7 experts.

Watching with a mate we figured by deduction that he must have been injured...

I saw him cop one in ribs in a marking contest on half back. He could barely get up to take the kick. He played on but obviously in some distress.

9 hours ago, binman said:

For years I've sat on the top of the Ponsford. It's only this year that I've been sitting on the wing/hf

The wing level one is great when the ball is being played on that wing. And the players are so much closer

Can't see jack on the other side. Or Max.

And the dees quarter time huddles are right below, which i like. 

That is roughly where I sit in m14. I find the same thing, certain parts of the game are super clear but I can only tell how our press is working by the way the other team moves the ball. I have to watch the replay afterwards to get some of the details.

i never comment during a game and rarely straight after since it can look so different when you see more of the structure. I have been meaning to try and get a level 2 seat for a while, I’m feeling motivated to pull my finger out and try at the end of this season now.

53 minutes ago, Redleg said:

Have watched him play a fair bit this year and while he has kicked a few goals, he drops a lot of marks, has no recovery now, applies no forward pressure, sulks a lot and admonishes team mates.

That doesn’t fit our culture, so I can’t see us considering him. 

I agree, I’ve watched a couple of GWS games and his body language is still that off a sulky teenager. He also has virtually no second efforts. Such a shame, he absolutely has the build and talent, just seems like he can’t get out of that unproductive headspace.

36 minutes ago, Roost it far said:

I have no idea what that is saying. What does a threat rating of 18 and an expected threat of 0.31 mean? 

Haha, you have no hope of understanding it from a tweet and an only slightly better one of understanding it if you read the entire article very carefully. I'm not completely sure I have got it, but I'll have a shot. The threat seems to be referring to the likelihood of the kick generating a successful scoring chain. And the threat rating is how much more likely the person or team is to generate more scores than that type of kick would normally generate. Kicking down the line generates very few scores (I think in his example it was 1 in 10) so low threat but some kickers are able to generate successful scoring chains kicking down the line at twice or three times that amount so their threat rating is significantly higher.

I've probably just confused you even more, sorry.

3 hours ago, deelusions from afar said:

 

1. Playing a shorter defence - since shifting Petty forward, it seems the match committee's preference to go smaller in defence (May, Lever, Hibbo).  I suspect this is because they know we need to be more agile / mobile back there (as much as many supporters don't like it).  Thomlinson was back last week to play the difficult role on McKay (which I think he did ok).  However, with Hibbo back, I suspect Thomlinson will be out

I think the experiment with the shorter defence was in response to the perception that other teams had worked out how to get through our defence last year by going low and flat or forcing May and Lever to be accountable to their direct opponent and reduce their ability to peel off and intercept. We have never been as good at defending ground ball as we are defending in the air. I think they were trying to tidy that up but unfortunately, in doing so we seem to have damaged our intercept game without getting an equal payback on the ground ball.

This experiment is asking our defence a slightly different version of the question we asked of our midfield 2 years earlier. If you are -1 one in the air, can you still intercept effectively? If the answer was yes then we can experiment freely with ground ball players to tidy up the stoppage goals and chaos balls. Unfortunately, it looks like the answer is ‘no’. What we could really use is someone around 192cm who is super clean below their knees and a great user of the ball. I don’t follow Casey as much as I should, is this maybe what they are grooming Howes for?

1 hour ago, A F said:

That was me I think.

I noticed it on the MCC side, where I sit. When we were defending in the 2nd or 3rd. It's not something we kept up all game, it's a bit like the Richmond 2nd or 3rd quarter where I noticed it.

I'd be intrigued to know whether anyone else is spotting this too. And as I said in that post, we didn't stick to it on transition. We played a zone when Carlton switched the ball to the other side of the ground.

Thanks AF, I couldn't see it in the replay but then the shots are often so tight that you can't see the big picture. I'll keep an eye out live.

In the Carlton postgame thread someone mentioned that they thought the team had moved to a combination of man on man and zone defence (depending on distance from d50 I think). I hadn't noticed this, I went back and watched the replay and it still looks like a straight zone to me with a strong emphasis on keeping the ball out of the corridor. Are others seeing a change? 

2 hours ago, picket fence said:

Growth Mindset is not new, but  because it accepts that the brain can change its profile through learning experiences  Did it happen to Richmond, Brisbane in the early Millenium ??  

I’m not 100% certain what you are asking here but Richmond credit a significant part of the 2017 turn around to their mindfulness coach Emma Murray. She talks strongly about working with the players about changing their mindset.

34 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

A happy clapper thread would be perfect for you

Dude, you are clearly one of the mindless whiners that spend their time clogging up this forum with your complaints and criticisms. Obviously you don’t like being called on your pointless complaining so now you want to go on the offensive to insult people and try to make yourself feel okay about constantly whining and criticising. Go ahead, Jump on that keyboard and be a warrior

55 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

The poor form of Langdon this season has hurt us more than I think we've realised.

47 minutes ago, demon3165 said:

Spot on, all he does now is play boundary side he has become lazy, plenty of running but just around the boundary, you watch Sidebottom he's the link man, Landon did that in 21 but has stopped doing that as I have said before not impressed with Yze as a midfield coach he is not reactive when things are not working.

There are so many threads for indulging in opinion based (generally inaccurate) bagging of players. This is the one place I can come to just talk about strategy and observations on trends people have noticed and things we might try. I know I'm not a mod, I don't have any authority but, couldn't you please just take this to gameday or postgame? I promise there are tons of people who will join in a pile on with you there

I really don't think the problem is that complicated. Historically our DNA is stoppage and contest, we have played predictably up the left wing for a number of years, counting on Gawn to mark or bring the ball to ground. We let the opposition make the ground small and congest it and count on our contest and defensive structure to either win it at the source or win it back on exit. Last year and now this year teams setup well to counter that, bringing extra numbers to the contest (they know exactly where it is going to be) and chaining the ball out via handball until they can get a controlled pass.

At the beginning of the year it looked like we had solved for that, mixing in less predictable exit strategies from the D50 and using lateral and 45 kicks to spread the ground and force teams to defend more of it. This opened up fast play opportunities and that is what gave us the scoring dominance. My gut feeling is that this play style is not yet fully embedded and under pressure we are reverting to what we know.

I suspect that our stoppage numbers are not actually the real problem. The problem is that we are making the ground too small and that means that teams can more easily bring extra numbers to the stoppage because even if they lose, they know where the ball is going.

Clearly there is a lot of supposition and opinion in the above, make of it what you will.

I actually don’t think our problem is as unfixable as some seem to think. We were on the right track early in the year and in the games we have lost we have totally reverted to type. We need to get back to making the ground bigger to stretch team’s defences. Predictably coming down the left wing with a big bomb allows teams to setup for the spill and crumb. Everyone knows we will do it, so they only need to defend half the ground.

 We have gone back to a down the line, handball heavy game which increases pressure on the ball carrier, which reduces disposal efficiency. Earlier in the year and preseason we were taking the 45 kick and opening up the ground. This created faster, more accurate ball movement which increases the likelihood of getting an effective entry to your forward 50.

 Yesterday, we had maybe 2 exits to the right hand wing, both resulted in deep forward 50 entries. Jesus, we have 2 200+cm guys on the ground and could have 3 if we added BBB, we can make our exit from D50 much less predictable and force teams to defend the whole ground. We also need to go back to taking the corridor or 45 degree kick to spread their defence more. The way we are playing right now only works if we are dominating clearance and for more than one reason, we are not.

Just now, BDA said:

Very sparse crowd. Where is everyone?

I’m nearly there, plenty of dees fans on my train too 

It is a really sad day for all people with an IQ over 60 when someone can post a thread with the title 'Robbo is right on the money'. The guy is an absolute numbskull, mumbling and bumbling through AFL360 with Gerard holding his hand and leading out of the minefields he creates for himself with his random, and mostly completely idiotic, utterances.

This whole contender / pretender thing is just a media construct to garner clicks and is such a facile way to look at the game. You're a contender if you are half decent and have a big and active enough following to sell clicks/papers. Hence whenever Collingwood or Richmond are even half a chance, they are contenders. For the rest of us, you have to force your way into that conversation and if you drop anything, you become a pretender so that the big club supporters can feel better about themselves.

We are a great team, even though it sometimes seems like half our own supporters would rather tear us down than build us up. We are trying a bunch of new stuff to try and get better and we have down games and injuries sometimes. The sum of us won't be known until near the end of the season, or hopefully the last game of the year. If you want to fall back to the contender/pretender paradigm then think about this. If we aren't a contender, I don't know who is. That doesn't mean we are going to have perfect season or win the flag, but if we aren't counted with those in the running then there is something seriously wrong.

5 minutes ago, dl4e said:

I bet he would not have quite if they beat the druggos by 5 points. Oh essenscum the 1 point heroes !!. He realized they were not going to make the 8 and walked.

I think this is probably right but I just wouldn’t couch it negatively. He was there to drive this group to success, he knew he wasn’t the guy to see through a rebuild. When it was clear that this was what was going to have to happen, he handed over the reigns. No point in him starting a rebuild that he won’t see through.

 I’m guessing a big part of him thought they could have one last big dance but the writing is now clearly on the wall.

16 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

Take away the 3 easy beats and we’re 4-2 with a couple of nice wins and a couple of less impressive ones. 

2 ordinary losses where we looked slow in the midfield, shaky down back and iffy going forward (and as importantly keeping it there).

The next month will show a lot more if we are contenders or pretenders. 

Drawing conclusions about our ‘explosive’ style of play from smashing the Hawks or any other battling side isn’t wise.

I think we have probably revised down the meaning of the win against Swans (even though they had far fewer injuries back then) in the light of their recent performances. They have still historically been a bugbear team for us so I was happy to see our change in strategy being effective against them.

i suspect over the coming weeks we will likely revise up the meaning of the gold coast win, that contest was red hot and I suspect they are going to take some decent scalps this year.

 I’m happy to discount the games against the clubs competing for Harley Reid. I did really rate our pressure game in the first quarter against the hawks though. Mostly because I suspect that is going to be the key to dealing with Collingwood when the time comes.

4 minutes ago, Dee Zephyr said:

@dees189227 had his toe jammed between the ground and another player, it caused a sprain in one of the foot ligaments.

I’m guessing that is a polite way of saying someone stepped on his toe?

2 minutes ago, Jumping Jack Clennett said:

LDVC…..you must be a lawyer! I looked up “fungible”, and I still can’t understand how it would apply to the tiles. What would the tiles be replaced by?  Or does it just mean that once the money has been paid, there’s no responsibility to honour the commitment?

I think LDVC meant non-fungible token. NFTs are a new hipster way to make money out of block chain Technology whilst providing no value whatsoever. You can own a guaranteed unique token for, theoretically anything. What is it? Just a digital certificate of ownership, not of an actual thing, but of the idea of the thing… cool, eh?

1 hour ago, YearOfTheDees said:

May had a very good game on the weekend, just don't understand the negativity on here. And 17 other clubs would start Fritsch in their forward line this weekend if they could. 

I think I can explain it to you. There are a few posters on DL who love to latch on to a player and tear them down. They do it relentlessly, week after week. For them, anything that goes wrong can be sheeted back to their pet hate project.

I have only been in DL for 4 or 5 years but I first noticed it with Jack Watts, Omac, Milkshake was the target for a while. They don’t have to actually be bad players, Spargo and Gussy have been in the sights for example and now May and Hunter who are both really solid, talented players.

 How it works is that the usual suspects will get to work white anting, they can be relentless. They criticise everything that player does. If we have a loss or a bad game they can usually convince a broader group of people to jump on board for a big pile on.

 In my experience you can’t stop it. The best you can do is occasionally point them to some stats or  ‘actual facts’ about that player’s role and output. If you engage in any other level it just feeds it.