Engorged Onion

Holy [censored] moly are my thoughts.... serious thread??

Round 8 = 885 Clearances - 132 Matches Played P Cripps = 1000 Clearances - 144 Matches Played =115 / 12 = 9.58 per match to equal.

heard it yesterday with charlie cameron (take me home country road).... mmmm dubious.

I've got the latent Herpes inside me (see previous posts to make sense).... but in today's match I seriously felt - as per all the others this season- we seriously toy, if not, put the cue in the rack, against teams in the latter half of the match, 9. St Kilda's second half against Melbourne was the real deal Despite losing by 38 points, the Saints should be heartened by their effort against the reigning premiers. After trailing by nine goals to one, the Saints restricted the Dees to just five more goals for the game, while adding seven of their own. Against Melbourne’s much-vaunted midfield, St Kilda had more hitouts (31-25), clearances (30-29) and stoppage clearances (19-14). Melbourne was able to kick eight goals from stoppage, whereas St Kilda managed just two. And, the Saints will rue their efficiency inside 50, which was 36.4 percent, down on their season average of 50.7. This is from the AFL website...I had a big big chuckle.... Now I am not up in arms about how they choose to massage narratives for a larger agenda, but jeez, we're [censored] toying with teams. Personally I think it's to do with management of load, even within matches, rather than us not putting the foot on the throat, or not being ruthless...or whatever superficial cliche you can throw at us , when we want our team to overtly dominate our direct competitors in the top 4/8

Really enjoying this @RedLegs23 😍

Do you remember (not so long ago) when teams would kick 5.7 against us in the first quarter? Mmmmm.

I'm vaguely Celtic, I guess the link with Henrik.L when I first went O/S 20 years ago... more about parochial australiana. 👌

Hmmm, very few games look enticing....perhaps it's a generational thing? Looking forward to watching Big Ange snare another 3 points and take home the SPL later on this evening.

so that's less than 2 a quarter... or 8 pressure acts over 2 hours. Hmmmmmm

I'll politely disagree with you, mostly around the reasons as to why pressure is down... the 'sense making 'if you will. The language that was used might be-- 'Finding a gear when we need to' - which implies a laziness or lack of accountability from the players. I'll strongly disagree with the fact that we are choosing to turn it on and off like a tap... it's just not how sport works. It's such shallow analysis and doesn't look at the multitude of factors that drive performance.

Oh! That's an easy one @sisso - the reason is, is that we haven't played anyone of note. Just half the comp effectively. 🤷‍♂️

Holy moly, those stats are unreal @WheeloRatings

The 'veil' is back 😏

Here is my hot take @Deedubs It's helpful to remember that our preseason started 6 weeks after most other clubs, fatigue management and our 'pre-season' is still occurring. It's occurring IN game, that we are 7-0 -> currently we're a bit more about absorbing pressure rather than having ours ramped up. Management and loading will change post mid season bye - in which case, barring injuries, we will have caught up so to speak with loading. Montagna would know this, King would know this, but it aint sexy for a narrative. It'd be great if they addressed it though... but then that feeds into the 'no excuses' mentality that perpetutated. It's not about bad habits... its about context. Further, the team had 5 athletes out from the premiership team against Hawthorn, this is also not spoken about in the media (see media this week in how 6 out will affect Fremantle). Pickett etc, as individuals bring a particular type of energy, in closing down space, it is their specific forte....again context is useful to make sense of numbers. David King might call it a 'mentality thing'... I'd call it deliberate, and systemic, and given the context of certain players being out last week in particular, and our defensive 6 in the first few rounds, again speaks volumes of our system and it's flexibility and how it allows certain features to be 'off' (at least from the outside looking in) yet the team can still perform at a high level and find ways to win, when these ratings are down. (how is the the other grand final team performing, with a delayed pre-season etc?),

can we make this the thread title @ElDiablo14 🤷‍♂️

🤷‍♂️ Still not a reportable act... 🙅‍♂️🙅‍♀️

Maybe they could talk to that one forward, and ask for his 'Secrets to knock-off Stephen May' and then write a 500 word article?

It's a great point. Jayden has always being willing to put his body on the line, as evidenced by a range of examples where he has been smashed in a contest, concussed etc. He know has technical/tactical acumen to act more defensively 'first' then use his assets offensively.

I'm conservative. Choose your own adventure @ElDiablo14 🤙

A lot of love for Patrick Cripps. I'm glad he is back to his best, after carrying injuries for a few years. Anyway, a little stat showed up last night via SirSwamp. and I thought I would compare Clayton and how he is tracking comparably. Well, with 13 games before he matches Cripps's 144 matches. Clayton sits on 877 clearances as of last night. He is averaging 8.6 clearances a match this season. 123 clearances / 8 as an average = should take him to 15 matches, and just short of the record. I am now on clearance watch. 🙂

Best place for a beer pre match with a partisan crowd… ?

Thanks mate. I was being a little sardonic… but what I hadn’t heard was Goodwins presser and being clear about attributes/behaviours we value being made so public - that’s fantasic

Hmmmmm......just on that, how many goals is the minimum for him to retain his spot? ....5? 😇

This was the other scenario I had thought of, and you put it really well Rod. And if this happened, personally I think it's brilliant for Simon. Just like it was for Ash Barty (of recent sports people we know in the public sphere) and for anyone living life and then going...actually this doesn't interest me anymore...time to exit stage left. After all, it is just a game... (it wasn't in 2021!)

If we were watching a press conference after a loss, and a question was asked to opposition coach - "You looked as though you prepared really well, and you were able to really nullify their strengths" What strengths would most likely be nullified, and what strategy(ies) would be used to do so? TIA...