Standard Deviation

The Hawks made some really poor decisions towards the end of their era as they tried to keep things going, decisions I wouldn't call expert at all. Ty Vickery? Jaeger O'Meara? Urgh...Tom Scully? They took a long time to hit the draft by trying to avoid bottoming out, and they failed. I know plenty of Hawthorn supporters who weren't happy about those decisions, admittedly from a position of having the privilege of a stack of premierships and an expectation of continued success. Funny bit is they're all envious of how Geelong handled things.

Want to pile on here to the sheer absurdity of the seating at the game. They actually were forced to expand the seating area on the top deck because the tape they'd put up fell down (accidentally, I'm sure) and the next bay on started to fill up as people went over it. Someone showed some initiative and moved the barriers back a bay, and the new bay filled up to close to capacity again. If they can move the barriers and take down the tape in that situation at Marvel, you'd think they could have adapted and opened up more than just the bay they were forced to open. Maybe I should just be happy they didn't do the stupid thing and herd everyone back over the original line into the already packed bays.

Quoting myself here, but in particular we're looking too much to Gawn. If they have three players there to nullify him (and there was at least one occasion where we did kick to Gawn with three on him on the wing), where are the two free that creates? Why not drill to punish teams for doing that?

So in terms of how close to a flag we were, I'll agree that 2023 was better than 2022. But I still see regression - 2022 we were heavily injury struck going into finals, and I still believe if we'd had a fit team we would've gone deeper than we did. We both agree last year was terrible, so if we want to find some middle ground we can say we plateaued slightly 2022/3 then started the decline - and let me be clear I don't think it's a decline of the quality of our players, I think it's a decline in the quality of our tactics. Last year our gameplan looked dated, and the first two games of this year have seen a lot of the old hammer it long to a contest. The GWS game was played in ugly weather which meant this was much more effective, but under the roof in clear conditions I think is more representative. I'd love to be proved wrong, but I reckon we're going to see some more hidings this year.

Absolutely, at times we were kicking to a 3 on 1. The third quarter was especially horrible, they'd make mistakes on the transition and have their whole defence out of kilter. So what do we do as we're streaming in? Kick it long and high to the goal square again, sometimes not even towards a Demons player.

I just don't see Goodwin taking us forward, we've slowly but steadily regressed year on year since the premiership. I don't see him adapting, and I think he's too close to the players to make the hard choices that need to be made. And there are definitely hard choices ahead based on this game. I'm officially moving to the Goodwin has to go camp as of this, admittedly helped along by how much I absolutely hate Norf.

Thanks, learnt something new there. I wasn't aware of Australian Bulldogs, they sound a touch closer to the Old English form which, from the photos I've seen was taller, leaner and with a longer snout. It's really good to see developments like this addressing health issues, ideally it'd be the norm for all breeds - while bulldogs and pugs tend to attract the most attention, there's plenty of other breeds with genetic issues (German Shepherds and hind leg issues....).

This is getting off topic a bit but have you got evidence for that claim of 1210, the word bulldog only shows up in the English language in the 17th century. The thing is though, that's all moot. The modern British Bulldog isn't even the same dog that was running round in the early 19th century, they were bred from the Old English Bulldog specifically as a companion dog (as opposed to a working dog). The famous bulldog ferocity which has led teams like Footscray to adopt them as a mascot is actually not a trait of the modern bulldog, it's a reputation from its predecessor. As with many non-working dogs the breeders have got over-obsessed with certain traits, which has led to a stack of health problems in the breed - you sound like you got one of the good ones. This is a stunt by PETA, and I don't think anyone seriously thinks Footscray should rebrand. But I like dogs and seeing them having to live with horrible health issues because they look "cute" on an instagram/tiktok/whatever annoys me.

Think that was the AFL website's preseason predictions : https://www.afl.com.au/news/560486/crystal-ball-our-predictions-for-the-2021-afl-season-are-in

I watched it on television, which might explain my different impressions, but I didn't think overuse of the hand ball was our fundamental problem here, kicking wasn't getting us anywhere either. The Footscray defence was very well drilled, which meant finding an uncontested mark or a good one on one was nigh on impossible in the 30 near goal, and they were playing a slignshot game - they clogged up our forward line to make it hard to find a target and then relied on moving it quickly and getting it out the back to score from pretty much point blank in broken play. It only came off for them about 25% of the time, but when it did it nearly always ended in a goal as we battered ourselves senseless against a brick wall. We had to fight the wind all day with medium range kicks whereas their goals tended to come from close in - I'm not sure their game plan would have held up on Etihad or in decent conditions, but on a windy day on a suburban ground it worked pretty well. The inside 50s count I doubt bothered their coaching box at all, they wanted as many of our players as they could get up the ground. Somebody with more tactical smarts than me (our coaches, perhaps?) would know how to combat this, but I suspect it's hard to adjust to on game day.

You're entitled to your opinion, but there's whole massive threads devoted to arguments on Goodwin's, the club's and in some instances individual player's capabilities. There's literally one on the pressure being on Goodwin active right now, so why derail a training thread into another argument on this stuff? Is there a goal here, other than to provoke a response from one of the board's optimists? If you had a particular reason you thought the social media or the training exhibited in this thread was a problem for the club then go for it, but making generalistic statements about how good/bad Goodwin/the club/etc are should be left to the threads about them, otherwise you'll come across as trolling.

I don't take this as a slight on Melbourne - he's chasing success by going with the club he thinks is closest to the pin. Hawks offer wasn't much different to Geelong's, plus the whole club loyalty aspect, and he turned his back on them too. Hawks supporters I know even seem to have think they were actually offering him more money than Geelong too (not sure how true that is). That said, I personally don't get his motivation. He's had success, he's got nothing to prove. Chase the paycheck or stay with your mates, but why move to Geelong just to look for a cheap flag to add to the collection?

The stats may suggest it isn't an issue, but the fact is he was used in half back after being recruited and it didn't work out. My memory is hazy but I seem to recollect he was given a long period of time to adapt to the role, and when it became clear it wasn't going to happen the coaches moved him forward where he thrived (at least for a while). It was a few years back now, but I don't get the impression there's been any particular change in his playing style or mindset that would make a second go as a defender work out any better than the first.

I suspect you realise that the players you're using for comparisom were all higher picks than we'd be dealing with here in a draft that was not compromised and in which there was a lot of exposed form to make decisions on - none of which applies to the situation for this draft. If you think we're guaranteed a player of the quality of the three you mentioned from this, or even the same chance they'll be that quality, you should stay away from games involving probability. As has been noted by others, there are plenty of reasons we could consider moving ANB on - salary cap space, part of a larger deal for a player who fills a need or to trade up. But simply to pick a random player in the 40s (or wherever it slips to after all the compensation/academy/etcs) doesn't fill me with hope.

At the end of 2018 the club felt it had plenty of good strong marking forwards and let Hogan go, in 2019 and 2020 form drop offs/injury/players not coming on as expected mean we currently have a Demonland thread devoted to needing a gun forward. Now at the end of 2020 we're seriously considering trading/surrendering a quality inside mid 'cause we have plenty of inside mids. I can't help but wonder if Viney goes we'll be discussing which big-bodied mid we need to chase at the end of 2021. There's some assumptions that losing Viney will make Brayshaw a more consistent performer and that Harmes's problems are all about being played out of position - neither of which I'm particularly sold on. Also, we had a great run with injury this year and, if this came to an end with a few key mids being out I'm not sure Sparrow or others can step up. Unless the club were to turn this into a deal to sort out a major gap in our team like they did with May, I'm hoping we hang onto Viney.