Standard Deviation

While the umpiring was definitely awful, and prob did cost us the game, blaming it is missing the point. That was a bad game of football, Carlton were awful going into their fifty and fumbly in the midfield. Their backline was the only part of their setup that played well. We should have beaten them with ease, but we managed to be even worse going inside fifty - we either missed targets on the lead or bombed it long in the hope of....I don't know what, in some situations they seemed to be hoping the Carlton backline would just drop it so we could crumb a goal. The bit I really want to highlight though was that first quarter. We were trying to play some sort of possession game and switch the ball of half back, and we made dumb decision after dumb decision. So many times we tried a kick which didn't work, and had us exposed in the other direction. Whatever the coaches are trying to train in either isn't taking, or the players just aren't up to it. We're sadly not going anywhere without significant player changes or finding a gameplan that will work with the players we have.

So, after round five I thought Goodwin was done, and was honestly surprised at how the team turned around in the games after that. We've slid back again over the last few weeks, but short of a trainwreck of a second half of the season I'd say Goodwin will have done enough to still be in place next year, especially as the club will be loathe to pay him out of his contract. That all said, I'm not sure I see the path from here. We've got a bunch of senior players on long term contracts who seem to be regressing or unable to adapt from the style we used in 2021, and a forward line that doesn't inspire confidence even on its best days, with noone at the tier below looking awfully convincing to me . Our lack of development of KPFs seems to go back a decade (can someone who has a better memory than me give an example of anyone we've drafted as a tall forward who's gone on to be good since the mid-2000s?). This naturally isn't all on Goodwin, but his watch has gone long enough now for it to be a problem he owns. Same goes for the tendency of too many players to just throw it on the boot in hope, it's not a new issue and it's frustrating we saw so much of it against Port again. I'm concerned we're going to end up stuck in no mans land where we have good enough players to paper over the cracks and win games, but not good enough to be a contender come finals time and just slowly fade down the ladder. It feels like the point where the club needs to try and do something bold at season's end to stop this, but experience says they won't.

Thought the coaching was good, Langdon on Daicos the media darling was a great move. Composure going inside fifty still a major problem. Also it's interesting how umpires in a number of sports wear the black and white, while in the AFL they just have them play for them.

We've been playing in Alice Springs for over a decade right? I could understand how we saw more Adelaide, Port and West Coast supporters at the games. I could even understand how we saw more Freo supporters. But how do the [censored] Saints get stronger support there than a team that's spent a decade hiking out of its way to play there? Aside from all the arguments around money, the effects on performance in games after and whether we'd have won the game if it was at the MCG, we should walk from this place simply because the locals don't get behind us. We're giving ourselves an extra away game at this point, even the seven broadcast seemed to treat it like it was the Saints home game.

When I saw people posting here positing how if we beat the Pies we'd be 7 and 6 I just knew the Saints would beat us.

Ah, it seems the umpires do know what holding the man is. Now perhaps they should try calling it occasionally round the contest.

Fantastic win, particularly special because half my family is from NSW and is the "Good game number eight" sort of Swans supporter. In the last five minutes Sydney looked like they had a spare man back? Seemed an odd choice when down by 50.

I'm not sure if I'm happier with the win, or happier that we actually overran someone in the last quarter! Eat that, BT.

Firstly to the Hawks supporter behind the cheersquad who thought yelling Free Kick Hawthorn was funny everytime they misunderstood the rules and thought they missed a free kick, tbere's a reason you should make sure the needle doesn't go too deep when getting a head tattoo. Secondly to the umpires, best argument I've ever seen to force professionalise them, I don't care if you get more money in your day job, if you're this bad at your other gig then get out of the profession. Atrocious, and seem to get worse every year. Ducking into a tackle is HTB, and Hawks players are trained to do it. Now I've done venting, part of the reason the first three quarters was so good was we were defending really well from a tactical viewpoint. The Hawks wanted to go up the middle quickly, and they often seemed to be getting a paddock there, but our backs didn't come up to meet them but hung back and stayed on their man. Our mids/wings then ran hard to pressure or attack the kicker causing either poor passes or even making them go sideways. Last quarter was diabolical again , and you could see it coming in third. I moved down to the bottom level in the fourth because I was losing my temper over umpiring and their were kids nearby, so not sure if they swung a tactical change or if we ran out of gas to spark the avalanche, but late in the third our dare had evaporated. We went sideways looking for gaps and couldn't find one, as noone was willing to try running it to open things up. Their defenders are too good to bomb and our fumbles just seemed to become the norm. On the way home I nearly got run over by some [censored] who was too busy watching a passing ambulance to note he was turning through a green light pedestrian crossing. Demonland'd censor, and possibly ban me if I post what I yelled at him here, but I don't think he'll make that mistake again.

Not sure if anyone has commented on this but we've been particularly bad at defending leads in the closing minutes, and one of the most frustrating parts is we've often succumbed to the long kick up the middle from the kick in, which is the obvious tactic when you're trailing and time is against you. This game showed a genuine "learning" from that, Gawn was planted roughly in the middle of the ground and Freo proceeded to put it to contests with him in them three times in a row when they were coming at us, each time it ate up clock (and if we'd been a little cleaner would have buried them). Their last goal came because they adjusted and went with shorter kicks again, but too little too late. Was great to see. Fantastic game, it's honestly hard to understand how we can play like we did against Essendon then play like this, it's like two different teams.

I'll be going along, if only because I feel the back row MCG seats don't get kicked often enough and am willing to step up and do my part. I'll honestly be relieved if it's less than a ten goal margin at this point.

I want Goodwin gone, have since that filthy North game, but I'd rather talk about how we dig ourselves out of the hole we're in than that take pot shots at Goodwin supporters. The idea that some Bombers supporting trash would be trawling this and laughing at Demons supporters turning on each other makes my skin crawl. We're better than them and we should act like it. As for Goodwin, he's in "full support of the board" territory at the moment, they're probably weighing up right now when they make their move, mid-season or end of the year. The CEO thing worries me more, that seat has been empty far too long and is a major spanner in finding a new coach.

So, starting with some positives. Apart from Petty, our backline was much improved today. Chandler was excellent for mine. Number of players lifted and were better. Our forwards unfortuntately were not great. Fritsch was better than the previous shockers, but still well below the standard and others have covered JVR. The forward line entry remains diabolically bad, we mess up goals so incredibly effectively it's almost like we train to do it.

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?