Gawndy the Great

Bombers will get demolished in finals. It’s funny, I think Goody wanted our game plan to look more like this. I presume we will have gone back to our forward territory game. Still won’t hide the terrible form of our mids.

Sam Durham from the mid season draft. How in earth did 18 cubs pass on this bloke. An absolute jet.

Maysi looks like he’s holding his left hammy😧. Then again half our team looks to have an injury looking gait. Maybe it’s to confuse the opposition.

Should we all leave the thread, this is getting kinda weird? I like it better when you two biffo, its more entertaining.

It actually goes back from the time he did his hammy last year. So it wasn’t just the preseason that has gone by.

Will be known within a couple of weeks. But word has it they are now introducing principles to determine amount that can be excluded. Some of which are prior concussions, length of contract, age. Basically - if this goes ahead - we will be screwed … again. I’d be surprised if we even got 50%

If you think about these video clips to see Oliver being outmuscled like that, its easy to think that he hasnt done a good enough body of work and is lacking in conditioning. I see something else. I see that there is no desire, no want, no thirst for the contest. It is completely mental for mine. Now the root cause of that can be many things: has he lost the passion, does he want out of MFC, is his ADHD meds playing around with motivation and energy levels, could it still be his finger? we wont probably ever find out. But something needs to be done. Watching a player of his ilk go through what he is going through, makes me thing he is being thrown to the lions without any support. Got to take the decision out of his hands. Give him a secondary role, one that he is more likely to succeed at and build from there. Casey? forward line? i dont know. But we are doing atm is not working.

I dont think its really ever been about the forwards, ever. Even during the 22/23 campaigns. I'm not going to defend Petty's recent performances because there are ways you can get yourself into the game (same for McAdam). The issue has always been our f50 connection and method moving the ball into forward 50. Does Collingwood have a star studded forwardline? What about the Swans? The answer is no. Can we improve the forward line performance - absolutely but it wont change the root cause of our woes. In a hypothetical experiment, if we were to swap JVR/Petty with Curnow/Mckay and keep our midfield VS swapping Trac/Oliver/Viney(2024 version) with Heeney/Warner whilst keeping our forwards, which do you think would make a bigger difference? The answer is the later. Our midfield whilst strong at contest and defence (over the last 4 years) is a butcher by foot. Always has been and always will be. Our game plan has to recognise that this will not change without changing our personnel. So we should go back to our original plan and look to improve accuracy and f50 connection. Accept that its not perfect and it has its vulnerabilities and that our main scoring sources are stoppage based not turnover which puts us on the back foot for winning flags. We managed to win one and the buck the trend. Carlton are in a similar position to us.

Wasn't Brayshaw in an offield role? i haven't seen him of late around the group. What happened?

I watched some cameo's of Oliver last night on 360 and it was damning. The guy looks disinterested, uninvested. Its hard to make a connection to fitness because to me it seems all mental. Have the events over the preseason that has ultimately led to him requiring to pull his head in (rightly so) also unintentionally led to an evaporation of his edge? i dont know, but many on here point to his physical conditioning, but to me it seems to be something else. We all heard how he has fallen back in love with MFC and we have fallen back in love with Oliver about a month or so ago.

I listened to this and it’s damning. We are writing history in all the wrong ways. It’s pathetic and the whole club needs to pull their finger out. The new game plan is done, toss it out and only look at it when we have new cattle that can kick or has speed. we have to play to our strengths and I’m afraid this ain’t it. Petty just needs a spell. Give him some time off and get him to work on his fitness. When he’s ready, give him a few weeks at Casey then put him into the backline. We may just get him to okay 4-5 decent games which may get us a late 1st rounder.

Lucky for us. We don’t another plonker, down hill skier. He is mid range made to look good in a strong Sydney outfit.

The issue with the new game plan is that it has somehow been worked out by opposition after watching it for the first half and now employing some counter measures. but it all stems from effort and work rate. We are not losing CP diff and clearances due to the game plan. That is wholly work rate and effort. It was the same against WC. It’s the fact we have dropped away in that area that everything is falling apart. Now is that a result of fitness, depth, form, culture ? Who TF knows, but effort and work rate should be main discussion this week. If we get done let’s not let it be as a result of losing CPs and clearances it’s our 1 wood and engrained in every players DNA. Especially against a VFL side + Daicos.

It ls more the length of quarters, and 4 day breaks and hubs etc.

If anything, the Tigers premiership ‘20 is the mother of all asterisks. That season was completely compromised.

A side without Pendles, DeGoey, Elliot, Mitchell, Mihochek, Cox is significantly on the back foot. Any other week I would have penciled us in with an easy 6+goal victory. But alas, we are Melbourne, we seem to find incredibly innovative ways to screw things up. I really don’t know what to expect. I can firmly make a case that will see us finish bottom 4 and top 4 from here. Do we persist? I know the game plan change is making us look really bad. Is it the old adage of it’s the darkest hour just before dawn?

Yep it’s full of courage, heart, skills and football sense. Maybe I’ll head down to training on Thursday… *again, I’m joking but this time with a salt bae sprinkle of seriousness *

Asking for a mate, were any of the boys carrying backpacks full of bricks? *only joking* #with a sprinkle of seriousness

Can ANB or Langdon play a hard tag? Don’t need a brute to follow him around.

Daicos will leave him in his wake. Oliver needs to be dropped or played in the f50 to at least try to win a contest. He is ineffective as a midfielder atm. I’d go with Trac, Sparrow and Viney. Spaz and Viney playing a defensive role at stoppage. McCrae doesn’t tag so Trac will have a bit of freedom.

I dont think new coaching contracts are setup like they used to be. I could be way off here - but isnt the payout something like 6 months these days? i recall hearing this when other coaches have been discussed.

It appears that way as well. A lot on here put down some alarming decline in key performance areas (Clearance, CP, i50 differentials) as a result of change in game plan. I think its fair to say that this was likely not intentional and there are other sinister things at play. Could Goodwin have lost the players? Possible Is the game plan not right for the list? Likely - we just have to revert back to our old game style. Was our off-field program / preseason modified to heavily? Possible - The emphasis of having our players fit and firing in finals may have caused an overreaction. As Buckley has put it, are we carrying a lot of unfit players in the same style as 2019? Is our list problematic? Are our bottom 6 not up to AFL standard? Likely - Not just the bottom 6, but our reliable AA players too.

I’d go a bit more and set up for a longer stint of success. Mini rebuild for me. 2-3 top 20 draft picks, one of LDU, McCluggage (both would be awesome) and to reinforce our midfield. Id trade a few players too - Oliver and Petty would definitely get us at least 2 possibly 3 Round 1 picks. Sounds a bit over reactionary but this list cannot play the modern football style. It was built a decade ago by Roos and co in a style that has now changed and we didn’t.

I wouldn’t be surprised if something was going on in the club. Our midfield is so out of sorts not even bad form is enough to explain it. What ever it is, the leadership group need to take hold, bridge all gaps, reunite the group, find that mojo. I don’t think they’ll be able to hide it for too much longer if it’s something of substance - these things have a way of leaking and a belting will only make things move a little quicker.

We are no hope next week. Im not a betting man but I’ll be dropping $10 on the pies to win by 40+ points.