FlashInThePan

I think we are well placed to have a solid tilt next season. The biggest piece in my opinion was getting a second winger in place with good decision making and sharp foot skills. Lachie Hunter is certainly that. Improving our ball movement and delivery is significantly more important that getting a contested marking beast into the forward line.

Last season there were a couple of serial offenders for killing ball movement and momentum, what makes it super hard is that they are not bad players, they have other great skills. When you can't get enough speed on the ball  though, you are always going to face into a cluttered forward 50. In those instances we have a simple, high percentage strategy that everyone constantly complains about but is absolutely effective if you want to play a forward half game... bomb it in to the left forward pocket and bring it to ground. This strategy will be even more effective when it is always either Gawn or Grundy at the tap, so grit your teeth DLers because even if you don't like it, it is a solid strategy.

If we have some ball users like Hunter, Bowey and Salem in the possession chain we may not need to resort to this strategy. We can risk the corridor and play with some more dare. It is not just foot skills though, which is why I mention those 3 in particular, it is speed of decision making.

I think JVR will see some game time next season and I am really interested to see Howes on the big stage. He has some great traits but I have no idea about his ball use and decision making skills. The VFL final gave us a sneaky look at Wowoedin (sp?) and he looks to be made of the right stuff so anyone trying to lock down that half forward,  occasional midfield rotation spot best look out.

I'm excited for next season, it will come down to fitness and injury as always but we should be in it up to our eyeballs.

2 hours ago, Kent said:

He isn't anywhere near the hand

My main point isn't about Bruce its about the club  ending up with poor options hoping BB and Tmac recover

We have had a need for a KPF for 3 years and have done nothing about developing trading or drafting one

This is just not true. At the end of 2020 we traded in Ben brown. At the end of 2021 we drafted JVR. BB worked brilliantly for us and was a key contributor to the flag, unfortunately it looks like his knee was getting the better of him this year, I have no insight as to whether they can get it right for next year, neither does anyone who has posted on this forum that I have seen. JVR is developing nicely, let’s see how he goes next year.

 I would bet any amount of money that we are working hard on this problem through this trade and draft period. Just because the media circus hasn’t led with a story on it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Whether we succeed, that’s another thing altogether.

2 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

I heard on the radio that Freo currently have pick 13 and pick 88...

I am really lost now on how they're able to satisfy us with what we're after.

Freo have royally [censored] themselves over.

No, that is what they started with. they now have future 2nd and 3rd round picks tied to Nth Melbourne’s ladder position as well as their own future 1st round. Talk seems to be centered around Current 13th plus F1, F2(nth) plus probably some pick swaps

7 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

B+ mid who doesn’t fit with our best mids
B- wing
B+ half back who isn’t tall enough to be an elite interceptor, isn’t quick or disciplined enough to defend and can’t hit targets, can’t play in the same side as Lever

Could’ve kept Harmes and Hunt to provide the same output mid/wing and half back who compliment in some ways our best players. Then used the currency of Gus to find a long term midfield answer. Instead it could be Lachie Hunter and Joel Smith, yay 

I think it is time to slip you onto ignore. You must just be trolling. The only alternative I can imagine is that  you have absolutely no idea and feel a desperate need to share your ridiculous opinions. 

32 minutes ago, Graeme Yeats' Mullet said:

2018... Where was all the outrage from Caro then?

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/mitch-in-the-works-20180803-p4zve4.html

I’m really struggling to understand your point. How can you possibly be critical of a journalist publishing a background piece with similar accusations to a current major story? Possibly the only major story running right now on the AFL?

You obviously have a barrow to push. Are you trying to make the point that it is wrong of her to write an article surfacing additional information on the currently biggest story in football? I think you’ll find that she is employed to do exactly this.

We can only speculate on ‘why’ but he had done great moments playing for us. I’m just going to remember him blasting out of defence with Langers using the old give and get. I’ll also always remember that 70 meter torp for a goal against Adelaide.

 Hee always seemed like a pretty relaxed, good guy. I wish him so the best at WC with the usual caveat - not against us

6 hours ago, poita said:

Playing 40 of 49 games across the past two years, including missing games through injury in late 2021, suggests Jayden is clearly a best 22 player. Our VFL depth is so poor, we can't afford to be losing best 22 players for nothing, as there are no replacements coming through. I really hope we make him a decent offer and he chooses to stay. I would hate to be relying on a 33 year old Hibberd or a brittle Smith to be playing many games next year, and I'm not sure we can afford to have Bowey in that role long term.

This is just factually incorrect. We have THE strongest VFL team in the competition by a significant margin, they only lost one game for the year. I'm certainly not in a hurry to lose Hunt, he has a significant point of difference for us but we have depth in most areas bar key position forward, we are pretty well stoked for small to medium defenders. You can't always pay everyone what they want and sometimes other clubs value your players more highly than you either do or can afford to match. this won't be the last one like this if we stay in the premiership window for a while.

26 minutes ago, deelusions from afar said:

Don't disagree... though it does say it's only focusing on 2021.  Not 2022.

That's the spirit!

That is really encouraging and bodes well for our continuing growth and being a destination club. Unfortunately it does not support the dominant doom and gloom Demonland narrative that our culture took a hit this year due to - select your choice of negative reason du jour: dinking own bathwater, terrible coaching, not giving players in the 2's reward for effort, etc. So, can I ask you to edit your opening post to be more appropriate for this site by finding a negative cultural angle to apply. Feel free to misquote the article, most people don't have access anyway 😉

1 hour ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Just to clarify, are you calling Russell Jackson a keyboard warrior, a "personality" rather than a journo?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/russell-jackson/12422852

Not at all I was responding more generally to a point raised earlier and quoted in my post where a poster was hoping that journalism would learn some type of lesson and become more responsible. Maybe you should get in the habit of actually reading posts before you start facepalming and getting on your high horse…just a suggestion

15 hours ago, Canplay said:

I’d be happy for James Hird to take Yze’s position 

🤣 😂🤣

 Pity we don’t have a troll emoji in the reactions 🧌

13 minutes ago, SFebes said:

Where did the Melksham and Hibberd contract extension rumour start? Cant see anything official.

There is nothing official. All the media sites just report each other’s rumours so take everything with a grain of salt. Both afl site and SEN have reported that we will extend hibbo and Melksham by 1 year. No source given in either case.

1 hour ago, Jibroni said:

Im hoping the outcome from all this is the issue of one sided disclosure needs to stop, not just in football.

Too many innocent lives across numerous areas of society have been destroyed by accusations which were later disproved. The strictest of confidentiality should be legally enforceable until all parties have been given their rights of due process before any public disclosure is made. The alleged 'victims' are protected by anonymity whilst the accused are publicly named, im not sure how that is fair process?

I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this but we are moving strongly and unwaveringly toward the exact opposite of what you hope. The media are less accountable now than they have ever been. They use ‘clever’ wording to ensure that they are just relating other’s reports or opinions.

 Most so called journos are little more than keyboard warriors with a following. On radio and television they are rarely actually journos, they are ‘personalities’. 

13 minutes ago, A F said:

We've offered Melksham and Hibberd deals though. You don't renege on those now.

I’m not sure we have yet. It has been reported repeatedly that we WILL offer them one year deals but there has been no official announcement that it has happened. TBH there has been very little in the way of actual announcements. My sense is that there are a lot of possibilities in the wind and we are keeping our power dry until we can see hire this might play out.

14 hours ago, Ethan Tremblay said:

Keeping Lobb would be another feather in Peter Bell‘s cap.

Or another nail in his coffin?

I can think of a ton of set plays that would be available to us with 2 very mobile 200+cm marking targets on the ground. Plays that no other team could do.

 People seem to limit their thinking on a resting ruck to deep forward or deep back. To me having Max there for the kick out target or the next kick is his real value in attack. In defence, his ability to intercept transition kicks is where he shines.

As an example, if you added Grundy on the ground with he and Max on the defensive side of either wing at a kick out, not only would they not know who to defend, the non receiving ruckman could transition forward and toward the corridor for a comparatively safe inboard 45 kick that would absolutely open up the ground and provide new leading lanes for our forwards.

 Since they are both excellent tap ruckman dropping an interceptor behind play to quell a run of goals would not cost us at the stoppage.

 If you have 2 dominant marking targets in the middle of the ground, you don’t necessarily need a pack marking forward, you can much more easily open up the ground and start attacks from the fat side rather than having to stay down the line on one wing.

i have no idea how serious we are about Grundy but I can see many ways this could work for us if we get him.

On 9/12/2022 at 1:35 PM, willmoy said:

Hard nut essential..

On 9/12/2022 at 1:35 PM, Demons11 said:

I think the soft cap will increase and they will be able to get in a new assistant coach as well as someone in strength and conditioning 

So, putting it all together we need a soft cap on a hard nut?

Never mind, I'll see myself out...

If someone has told me that we’d go 10-0 to start a season and be in every game we played right to the end 5 years ago and then told me that fans would be disappointed because it didn’t live up to their expectations, I would have laughed in that persons face. The first half of this year was a joy I haven’t experienced for too long. Going to games regularly expecting to win.

 We didn’t finish the year as well as we started but I am confident that we know and are planning the steps to get better next year. I have a level of confidence in the FD that I’m not sure I’ve ever had before.

 I’m shattered that we don’t get to be there at the end of September at the G but I’m feeling pretty happy to be a Dees supporter these days. 

There is not a lot of upside in going back and forth on this kind of subject. We all see what we want to see, myself included. For mine, BBB was pretty okay early in the season with Tmac in the team. He had a bag of 4 against hawthorn and a couple of bags of 3 goals.

i do just want to say that if you are using the fact that we continue to use the safety kick to the pocket as your evidence that we didn’t change our forward 50 entries then you should go back and watch round 23 and the finals games. If nothing else is in the offing then the pocket kick is our go to and that of any forward half team. It represents the highest percentage play for obvious reasons.

I get that people are frustrated and disappointed right now, but if you think we didn’t try new tactics and structures through the second half of the year you weren’t watching very closely.

 Changing a method as drilled and dependent on positioning as ours mid season is very difficult. When we Implemented changes to put some speed on the ball, our defensive structures broke down behind the ball and we leaked goals.

 When we changed from 2 talls and a resting ruck to one tall and a defensive forward Brown became ineffective due to the blanketing he got from defenders. We should have been able to leverage the extra pressure forward to lock the ball in, and often we did, but our kicking inefficiency made that look like a fail also.

 We rotated a number of options through the second wing through the second half of the year but none of them really worked.

We tried plenty of things, mostly they fixed some things while breaking others. We will need to make a few changes to the team in the off season and rework our method thinking about all 3 phases of the game rather than just trying to fix the attacking  phase. I think Goody was saying loud and clear that he and the FD are on it.

It was interesting watching the game unfold last night (and not in a good way). Our stars still dominate and our structure is still sound. A couple of things really stood out though. Last season all of our second tier players were hitting form at the right time. Nibbler, Spargo, Harmes, TMac and BBB, Sparrow, Bowey and Riv were all playing out of their skin. Salem was on fire as was Gus (I’m not sure if these 2 are second tier or tier 1.5).

This year, not so much. Nibbler still fills holes and runs to the right places but he is fumbly and often makes the wrong decisions, much like a few years ago. I’m not even going to talk about Melk, he defends better than he has historically but he pretty much crucified us around the goals last night. Sparrow still looks like he belongs but he just hasn’t progressed this year in any meaningful way. TMac is out obviously and BBB is one that I actually think is playing a lot better than people give him credit for but as the sole tall most of the time he gets a ton of attention. Riv has been in and out of the team and looks okay but not playing at the level he was last finals series.

We still don’t have a solid answer for the non-Langdon wing now that Gus is in the guts, Spargo there doesn’t play to his strengths and JJ - I don’t want to diss him too hard because he can play some really good footy but sometimes his decision making is just too slow.

We would have won the game last night if our bottom 6 were firing. Trac’s injury and Gus being a bit down on form would get covered, Melk’s 2 and his slip at the critical moment alone would have put us right in the game. ANB’s 2 misses would have sealed it. But forget that, there will always be unfortunate misses and opportunities gone begging. It was won and lost on role players not being able to play their role to the required standard. We really need to do some work to improve the bottom third of our list and the biggest part of that is a wing and the forward line.

1 minute ago, leave it to deever said:

Yes please.

Then rinse and repeat.

Hehe, yes. When you think about it we only need 6 more finals wins for a three peat. Get it done boys, how hard can it be?!

6 minutes ago, bluey said:

Finding a volunteer to come off was the problem.

Someone in a post match interview mentioned that Harmes had volunteered to have a major cramp.

By default the streaming quality is set to 'Auto'. If you have a slow connection speed it will detect that and drop your quality from HD back to lower res. You can hard set it to HD to stop that happening. On my LG TV I click up and the picture quality selector comes up.

12 minutes ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Also puts the narrative to bed that Collingwood are a young rebuilding side.

That is what stands out to me as well. The media narrative that Collingwood are early in their rebuild and punching above their weight is clearly complete rubbish. Pendlebury and Sidebottom obviously push up the average, still to be 6th oldest squad is hardly an emerging rebuild.