BW511

I'm not sure it's an overreaction, the midfield as a whole group has not fired in a long time. We've been carried by good performance from Max, Viney, Trac or Clayton individually or as a pair. I can't remember a game where the whole group was up and about. Even when we are winning, supporters, commentators and opposition fans are asking what's happened to Harmesy or Gus. You simply cannot afford to carry blokes who are out of form/position/favour anymore. One thing that infuriated me against Brisbane was how many touches Lachie Neale got from sweeping round the back of a stoppage. His fellow mids work to create so much space for him to gather and burst away from stoppages while there was a pile up of our guys lying on the ground or running in the wrong direction.

I'm sure everyone has seen the Nic Nat and Josh Kennedy set play from the weekend, wouldn't it be great if our midfield coaches and players could engineer that sort of play. We are not disciplined enough or team orientated enough to create those chances for another player. This isn't strictly midfield related, but with Gawny's dominance it should be a real power of ours

That is a ripping example of exactly what we lack. Richmond have a host of mids (As do West Coast/GWS/Port) that can all play multiple positions. Vast majority of our list is one-dimensional, we can't rotate the mids through HFF because our flankers can't play anywhere else, similar with our forward pocket players. West Coast have a great and complementary group also - Yeo, Shuey, Kelly, Cripps, Gaff, Sheed all have no issues running through the centre square and there would be a couple of younger guys i'm not familiar with also.

I think Oliver and Trac pick themselves, after that it's a raffle depending on form. None of the rest are very confidence inspiring and highlight our lack of depth and lack of A-grade talent. Edit: Even though there are differences in their respective game styles, our whole group is quite similar. At the moment we are very easy to defend because of the sameness through the midfield group. That becomes a lot more difficult if you had 3 very different players at Gawn's feet. We lack leg speed and breakaway running ability. What about a Langdon or a Bennell every now and again to mix it up, in much the same way that Hogan used to go in and create a very different dynamic. Guarantee an opposition mid wiould change their mentality enormously if they were stood next to Bennell at a centre bounce 2nd Edit: I think the stubborness is the real issue. We keep fronting up with the same thing and teams are ready for it.

Voss has a lot more C@&! in him, I’d take him. Don’t care how highly rated Yze is.

Beating Adelaide will be the clubs aim, but they’ll likely get comfortable after that and go down in the next couple

Why would we want to recruit another bloke who is dropped for attitude issues (Polec). We have a list full of them. We don’t have elite facilities, don’t have elite standards and wonder why we can’t produce consistent, elite effort. We can’t develop an elite culture, can’t develop kids and can’t develop a game plan to work with the cattle we have. I’d be keen to deal on some of the young swans players, they seem to have plenty that can come in and do well.

Anyone know what’s happening with Bedford? He looked good and then vanished

The Dees have definitely turned me away from football over the last 10 years and I think this could be it. Since I’ve been old enough to understand the game, this type of performance has always been lurking, often far too regularly. I can’t support this [censored] any longer, it’s not a once a season thing, it’s a once a month affair. As @Leoncelli_36 has alluded to on numerous occasions, there must be some big issues behind the scenes. Even without any knowledge of what goes on inside the club, there’s clearly been issues with T-Mac for the past 2 years. Viney has been bringing plenty of rage and aggression, but it was not doing anything to help until the last week or two. Jones has been playing for himself almost his whole career, just a little bit of effort gets him a pat on the back when everyone around him has been putrid, it has to be over. I saw the behind the scenes snippet of Goody in the rooms from last weeks game, I am beginning to think he might be trying to ramp up his directness and frustration and the players have gone to water. The supporter group can see plenty of things that need addressing, so are they being addressed honestly, or are they just being ignored - I think it’s the latter. The players don’t care if we win or lose, the club doesn’t care that the players don’t care and we continue going round in circles on this roller coaster from hell. Getting close to Brisbane seems to have been good enough. Someone needs to make a statement and it needs to be very big and very loud. I’m not sure anyone has the stones to do it right now.

No doubt the Power will come at us physically, so it will be a case of who can get settled first and revert to playing footy. Brisbane and the Power seem to have a similar arrogance around the ball, we need to just crush that from the get-go

There was multiple times where Brisbane players rolled across the top of our guys to get up. It was clearly a tactic they had decided on to get our guys minds off the job

That was a proper rugby style hit. I was gobsmacked that it was a free?

Imagine Scott Pendlebury working around our guys, someone smooth moving and skillful would take us to another level. His leadership wouldn't hurt either. Field kicking has to be a priority on whoever we chase Will be interesting to see how things shape up on the trade front at the end of this year, we need to get a look at Jordon soon, he is supposedly a good user?

The kick out strategy or lack of one is truly bizarre. It's like we have given up on trying and when we are getting smoked around the contest, plonking the ball amongst the largest group of players is not what I would be thinking.

Brayshaw and Harmes have really been hurt by the emergence of Trac as a genuine mid. Oliver and Viney are probably walk up starts, then Trac comes along and joins them. Brayshaw is not an impact player, he needs to be following the play all day to accumulate touches and grow in confidence.

Max used to do this a lot in 2018. Everyone knew we were getting mauled in the centre square, as Captain, he could take it upon himself to change it up and bring our HFF line into the contest

Had a bit of time to digest this and it’s not getting any better. We were belted around the stoppages by clean, slick ball use from their mids. That’s got a lot to do with the conditions and Brisbane being more at home with the greasy ball and surface. It would be interesting to see/hear what our plans and setups at the stoppages are hoping to achieve? Having opposition roving off Max should not ever happen. He is hitting the ball exactly where he wants it to go 80%+ of the time and there isn’t a Dees mid in sight. The Lions mids had so much space in the middle. They work really hard for each other. A lot of our forwards seem to play arrogant/showy early and they just need to do the basics right. Fritsch, Hannan, Melksham, Pickett all hope for 1/10 chances or even lower. It’s flashy looking stuff, but rarely comes off. Pickett could be a great player eventually, but if he keeps giving away free kicks for his best attribute (pressure) then he’s doing more damage than good. Jones had some typical blazing away at goal early and it showed why he had been out of the side. He’s always very rushed. The debate around Jetta is really hard to swallow, he’s been a great player for us for a long time. Just super reliable and dogged. He’s just too slow and lacking athleticism now. He does lead with his head and it is hurting him physically but also not helping our game by being a man down. A courageous act that causes an injury is one thing, sticking your head in the firing line continually is a sign of the end. You could tell this game was not going well from the first 2 minutes, we were off the pace from the gun. Admirable losses on the back of a huge surge are incredibly frustrating and have covered up a lot of sub par efforts for 3-4 years. We just need to get better at controlling games, not scrap our way back into them.

Brisbane got the rub of the green on many things tonight, the Fritta 50m penalty was no different to 3-4 in the minutes prior that we’re ignored. The stop of play on the Lever review was an absolute momentum killer. The commentators said we were lining up all the way past the wing ready to go. Faaark! So frustrating. Plenty of passengers tonight, just can’t afford that against the better sides

Brisbane are more desperate, so much hungrier to win the ball

We don’t have the leg speed to go with them, I fear a blowout in the final quarter

Big gap between Hawthorn and the top of the ladder. We are being led to the ball, out pressured and rushing. Brisbane have a bit too much class across the ground. The greasy conditions suit Brisbane and they are cranking it up

I don't watch many games other than ours, but he doesn't strike me as someone who using his size enough. He is a run and jump forward, not one that will run through brick walls to create opportunity

I think the novelty will wear off pretty quickly with him. He can have all the tricks in the world, but eventually he will have to tow the line for the team and he will be watching from the stands

This is a big week at selection. Not thrilled with any of the possible ins for VDB, probably lean toward Tomlinson. Our depth drops off quick

Rowell was on track for a special season!