Gawndy the Great

THis for mine is the watch. Its the 2nd tier players behind our 3-4 stars that have really let us down this year. Rivers, Kozzy, Fritta, Petty, Sparrow et al are having really inconsistent years. When you add May, Oliver, Viney to the list as having their worst season ever recorded, things start to make sense. Will be good to see who stands up that have long hidden in the shadows of our leaders.

A bees Richard away from having Collingwood medically retire a second player in as many years

Heat is definitely on. Almost feels like an attempt to open a rift between club and player.

Sorry to say we ain’t in the ‘hell paying’ business.

Don’t forget good ol Doggies. JUH, Darcy

I doubt they’d go for this. It makes too much sense.

Off field wise who knows. The players couldn’t seem to care less on Monday. From a footy sense it was a loss but not a significant one IMO.

We are now firmly in the bucket of why would they want to come to us?

Laurie is not AFL material. Should not get another AFL game. He is Toumpos 2.0 and the quicker we get him off our list the better.

Pipe dream. Id encourage everyone to brace themselves for a turbulent 2nd half of the season. The players are 1-2 losses away from completely checking out. Once finals become mathematically improbable, watch the freefall. Our soft underbelly will be exposed.

I hear ya. I just wish i didn't care so much..its mentally draining.

So the key is does Simon persist with what we are all seeing as a failed adjustment to the game plan with the hope that we are about to come out the other side? Or revert back to the old game plan? The players have demonstrated their views by the way they present and play the game - its clear they are not believers of the new method, so will we see a new outfit after the bye or much of the same?

Best guess?

Fritta is dangerous deep but is also an excellent field kick and at times did a few good things in the portion of the match I watched. I think he needs to be reminded of team footy a bit and play at half forward at times to help solve of our f50 connection issues. I get he has no defensive accountability but the VFL may change his perspective.

Seriously what could it be that is known that won’t make it out to the media? Half the list is suffering from long covid? Players are revolting against coaches? Petty and Oliver have asked for a trade? Does it even matter any more?

What coach(s) would you want right now? Have the knowledge and experience to right the ship? Im suspect of Buckley - he seems to be in the same mould as Goodwin. Is there anyone else? Maybe someone young and fresh?

Unfortunately, I think Goodwin has initiated his own demise by electing to change the method on top of a failed experiment in Gawndy last year. You don’t get too many more chances in this industry and if we predictably don’t make a prelim this year, then i think we will part ways in the off season.

Why do people continue to think it’s a forward line issue? On paper, our forward line was better than the Pies. It’s our f50 connection and our ability to transition ball into f50 on turnover. It is that simple. Get it to f50 quickly and our forwards will beat most defences 1 on 1. JVR case and point. We are turnover merchants and panic with ball in hand bar 1 or 2 individuals.

100% agree. We banked on contest and defence and the were the best at it. However, we won the premiership that year as a statistical anomaly in that our ability to generate score was mainly from stoppage. I think it’s happened 1 other time in the last 2 decades. Defending from stoppage is easy to curtail and the league adapted to our game plan and that’s why we haven’t really reaped the benefits - it was unsustainable . The turnover game which was the hallmark of Tigers and Hawks dynasties is what you want and I think we were good in 2021 but not top 4. Trying to extend this game plan is high risk and we would need to bring in another 2-3 readymades to have another tilt using this method. Get it wrong and not only would we have wasted this list, it would take a decade or more to fully recover.

Agree it’s a mini rebuild, but I think it’s a 2-3 year mini rebuild not a 1 year reset. We have 3 years worth of this and if you look at the 2019 season it took us 2 years to have a tilt at the flag. It feels a little more significant now then it did in 2019 but that’s just my view.

It was the choice word of ‘surgery’ that SEN use that I would cast some doubt on. Was it minor, major, precautionary etc. The MFC article doesn’t go into details either but doesn’t sound great.

I wouldn’t take SENs reporting as gospel. They do tend to add some mayo to everything to fuel the clickbait industry. Nevertheless, you can’t rule it out as truth either, which is unfortunate for Trac and MFC.

No doubt it’s deliberate however, 1) it’s why you don’t back into packs. 2) Every defender and forward goes in with their knee up, it’s how you launch at the ball and protect yourself. If it was Maynard I’d think differently but Moore is not a dirty player.

Given Tracs prognosis, 2024 is firmly shaping up as a failure. I am at peace with this. Once all the Melbourne bashing is done this week - as it will be the focus of the media 100% - it will be easier to move on. There is no need to fight this year. I mean what’s the point? Tank and tank hard. Get those surgeries done now, play the youth to work out who has AFL potential. We should finish bottom 6-8 which will give us a top 10 pick. Trade Petty and/or Oliver to give us another 1-2 1st rounders. This will restock our team prior to the Tassie pooshow that will envelop the comp in a few years time. At the same time we need to work out how we want to play. Are we going to be a ball movement team or a forward half territory team. Both though need to focus on turnover efficiency, which means having 1-2 good kickers, speed and agility on all lines. This l, I think will determine the fate of players like Oliver, Sparrow, Petty et al. Where teams have gone wrong is cutting too deep too quickly but I think we have the leadership in Trac, Lever and Gawn to get us through the tough times. 2025 will not be much better and we’ll add in another 1-2 1st rounders. The other option is to try and extend the window by bringing FAs but run the risk of falling off a cliff during Tassie related compromised draft.

Yeah I think it’ll be close. I’m guessing 6-8 week minimum. I reckon we just tank from here and get a top 5 pick. I mean even with if we somehow make finals, we are not doing any damage this year. Reset the game plan and blood the youth. Everyone would understand.