Watson11

Still can’t believe brisbane beat us. Would love some discussion on why the G is such a bogey ground for us against good teams. Since Goody has been coach we have had 4 wins and 21 losses against sides that finished top 6 that year. Is it psychological, or is our game plan fundamentally flawed and too easy to pick apart by the best teams on the wider ground? PS Please don’t roll out the myth that we play Optus well and it’s the same width because it isn’t (it’s 130m wide versus the G’s 141m). https://optusstadium.com.au/the-stadium/fact-sheets/afl-fact-sheet

Interesting that the assumption is that we won last year based on our strong culture! Where’s the evidence? One off success has nothing to do with culture. Collingwood in 2010 are a classic example. Youngest premiership team ever, and their supporters would have expected more success but it all went to [censored] (Our CEO hopefully learnt something from that). We now know they had a divided playing group and [censored] culture. West Coast 2006. Crows 2017 almost got there. All despite what we now know was a crap culture. Culture is what maintains success for a long period. Sydney have a strong culture. Hawthorn as well. Carlton and Essendon used to but their cheating destroyed it overnight. Hopefully they are a few decades from recovering. The jury is still well and truly out as to whether we are building a strong culture.

Interestingly, they are ranked #18 for kicking efficiency this year.

Our record at the G is just diabolical. Against top 6 teams this year it’s 1 win 6 losses. Even last year it was 1 win 2 losses so thanks to COVID we got our flag. Maybe Goodys famed system just doesn’t work at the G against good teams.

Maybe I’ve misunderstood what Burgo has gone on the record to say. I really enjoy his podcasts, and have listened to all of them, but I got the sense his resilience philosophy was about soft tissue injuries and minimising them. One interesting podcast was about Arsenal, where they reviewed several years of data (all those wellness surveys, gps data etc), and found no benefit in soft tissue injury rates for those that were managed versus those that trained through soreness etc. At the same time, the research was coming out that showed soft tissue injuries are more likely with variation in training loads (acute-chronic ratio), and that drove his philosophy to not let players have sessions off if sore or tired. If he was referring to knee injuries, ankle injuries, lisfranc injuries etc then I misunderstood his podcasts and that would seem to be stepping way outside his area of expertise. He seems to have a lot of respect for doctors, and I doubt he would be telling a doctor that TMac needs to train through that foot pain. If my interpretation is close, Selwyn has done a great job as we have had almost zero soft tissue injuries. But management of knees, feet etc is more questionable. Is Brukner still consulting now that Burgo has gone, as our head doctor is very recently graduated.

What about the doctor. They would surely have the biggest say on impact related injuries.

We both want Gus back on the wing but maybe we view how he played the role a bit differently (I view it as a wing with a defensive focus). I think fox footy have the numbers wrong. You can look up every players heat maps here https://dfsaustralia.com/afl-player-heat-maps/ Last year he spent more time in defensive half in 19/25 games. In games against top 8 it was 10/12, with 22% of game time in D50 and 60% in the defensive half. Some games he probably spent more time in D50 than Salem. For example our round 12 against Brisbane (38%) and prelim final (39%). He has a great feel for the game and knows when to push back and help out and I think we agree it’s hurting our defending now that we don’t have that.

I agree it would be good for him to go back to the wing. But in 2021 he kicked only 3 goals, had 35 defensive 50 rebounds, and 123 intercepts which suggests he spent some time in defensive 50.

Not sure I agree. Richmond invented it. They won in 2017 with it and took it to extremes in 2018 where they were happy to concede clearances (ranked 17) as long as they were pressured (they backed their intercept and rebound like Collingwood do). It’s risky as was shown up in the 2018 prelim when a 7ft beanpole fluked 5 marks and it was game over. It’s similarly risky now. Worked well on Friday night but I don’t think it works as well in dry warmer conditions. Think about our scores from centre clearance in the prelim and GF last year. I’ll back us to beat Sydney or Collingwood comfortably in the GF if they get there :-).

It’s been bugging me since round 7 that we suddenly became a lot easier to score against. We have had all sorts of semi logical reasons thrown up such as loading, lack of forward pressure, injuries etc etc. All have some merit. But last Friday none of these were a factor, May was unbelievable with 16 intercepts, and yet we still conceded scores from 42% of Sydney inside 50s versus our average of 31% in finals last year. Any ideas why? Are we missing Brayshaw as that defensive winger getting back into D50? Max has had 33% fewer spoils this year than last. Do we need him back doing 80% ruck work in the defensive role to help out in D50 and rest him on the bench instead of up forward? Do we need Bowey in for defensive ground balls that cost us against Sydney? Look forward to the podcast.

I’m not sure. Freo have the youngest team in the finals and could completely flop, but Switkowski, Schulz, Frederick, and Walters were like a pack of feral dogs last night, and if they pressure like last night Collingwoods one wood rebounding from defence might not work so well. We have also seen first hand what Freo can do at the G when they move the ball quickly like last night. I think they are a decent chance if they aren’t overawed.

I agree. Longmire is very astute. Parker had a ridiculous 15 ground ball gets, and you can bet most were after we lost possession trying to exit clearances.

Sorry. I’ve quoted ground balls which are different. I don’t think we will find post clearance contested possessions without champion data access. But looking at CP differential and ground ball differential is probably close. We were +25 CP and +7 GB so swans were probably well up in post contest CP (+18?). Geelong were +21 CP and +23 GB so probably pretty even in post contest CP.

I believe they are: Geelong 116 Melb 108 Syd 101 Pies 93 Sydney seemed to get a lot of post clearance CPs in their forward 50. Papley had 5. Kozzie had 0.

That’s true, but we played it pretty well last year. Maybe we have sacrificed a bit of our defensive edge for various reasons. Brayshaw on the wing was very defensive last year and ran extra hard to get beck inside d50 when we turned it over. He also reads the game much better than Jordan/Harmes who are there now. Max is almost like an extra defender when in the ruck and maybe we lose the extra protection with LJ playing so much time on ball. Max’s spoil numbers are down quite a lot (beside his 2 injury ravaged years 2015 was his next lowest output for spoils). Sydney played a lot better against us at the G last year than this year but lost. Purely because we were much harder to score against last year.

Plus Sparrow, ANB, Spargo, Melk had 16 score involvements to go with only 5 turnovers. When they were involved more often than not the end result was positive for us. Melksham negated Paddy McCartin as well who did not influence the game at all.

I’m a loading believer, but I also think Burgo, who is probably the premier high performance person in the AFL, would laugh at loading being used as an excuse at any time. If you listen to the Travis Boak podcast, Burgo explained why he made Port do 100x100’s in 40C heat a few hours after getting off a 16 hour flight to Dubai. It was simply to show the players that they are capable of pushing through a lot more than they thought and could draw on it later. I can’t imagine what he would think if the players used tiredness as an excuse for 4th qtr efforts now or in July. I don’t agree it was similar to rd 12 though. In that game we didn’t score a single goal from turnover. Last night we had 3 at qtr time. But our inability to stop sides scoring from inside 50 was identical and has been a problem since round 7.

Last night the clear difference was their forward 50 efficiency versus ours. Other than that it was a really even game. Fundamentally, we are no longer able to stop sides scoring. If you compare last night (and rd 12) to our win against Sydney last year, the only difference was their scoring efficiency. Last year 31%, round 12 46% and last night 42%. Tactically, I wonder if we are paying the price for Gus not playing wing. Last year, it felt like we had an extra defender and could absorb periods of dominance by other sides a lot more than this year. The other thing, is Sydney struggle to defend as well, especially marks on the lead. The way to exploit that is to move the ball quickly after turnover. Other than the 1st quarter we just did not challenge them or try and exploit their weakness.

The good news is no-one wins 3 straight flags or 3 flags in 4 years the easy way. Brisbane, Hawks, and Richmond all won a premiership after losing a QF. Maybe this season will mirror the 2003 season. Brisbane sat top after 10 rounds with 1 loss. Then went 4w-6l and sat 6th before 2 late wins had them sneak into 3rd. Lost the QF to a hot Collingwood. Won the following week and then met Port who at that stage were the perennial finals chokers and had won 10 straight. Knocked them off. Then crushed Collingwood in the rematch.

I’d be testing Goodys food. He enjoys dodgy fish around finals time and needs to learn to fully cook his chicken. Did he have Hibbo over for a meal!

@binman you need to have a serious word to your mate. Anyone that supports Collingwood/Carlton/Essendon/Richmond etc over any team is NQR. I spent 8 years in Sydney back in the 90’s and became a member to get my live footy fix. The majority of members seemed to be from Vic, SA, and WA and adopted Sydney as a second team. Probably the most reasonable group of afl fans in history as we just went for fun and none of us were fully vested (unless our teams were playing). Maybe things have changed. For all AFL clubs it’s the 1% of bad supporters that give the other 99% a bad name. The exceptions of course are Collingwood/Carlton/Essendon/Richmond/West Coast where 99% give the other 1% a bad name.

I agree 100% with you. We could probably have a far more accurate correlation of metres gained to the weather than we could to fitness.

SEN must have invented the top 30 over 30 just for Geelong? Top 30 Over 30 Only 6 from Geelong made it. Stanley, Zach Tuohy, Ceglar, Rohan, Menegola, Cam Guthrie, and Dahlhaus would be gutted to miss out.

It was reported on afl.com.au he has returned to play with the metal plates and screws still in. Is this normal and how common would it be?

Looking at @WheeloRatings stats on another thread Sydney and Melb are pretty well matched. If Sydney have weaknesses they are relatively poor (not terrible) in defending marks on lead, causing opposition clangers (interested in the panels thoughts on why as they are ranked #2 on tackles and #3 on tackle difference - do they lack structure at stoppages?), stopping opposition shots on goal, and bottom 6 for centre clearances. Considering where they rank poorly, what tactics do you think we will use this week? I’m guessing we will try and play a typical forward 50 game and it will all be decided on our forward 50 pressure and scores we generate from forward half turnover but interested in your thoughts. If we generate reasonable score from turnover Sydney can’t win. Who will go to Isaac Heeney?