rpfc

We won a flag, it kind of began… Its like the flag window was open and we did get the jump out the window… (hey it’s not my metaphor is it?!) So yeah, ‘24 is done but yeah, we all have to look on the bright side yeah…

I agree. I am on record saying I don’t mind this move to change how inert we are off half back but obviously more structural flaws, form and depth are coming into play now. I really think 2022 was a terrible flirtation with our form the way the FD changed our gameplan and restricted it even further from ‘defence first’ to ‘defence only’… Players en masse develop habits especially when you are winning that are impossible to break - so when we needed to be daring and when needed to calm down and pick our spots and connect (2023) - we couldn’t do it.

While I think that ‘the vault’ is already open, I would prefer we use the rest of this year to prolong the careers of Gawn, May, and Viney. There is no point flogging these guys when we just don’t have it.

We are the ones playing him off no pre-season. We are the ones playing him forward as opposed to back. We are the ones chasing another tall back supposedly from St Kilda. At some point this may be a sunk cost we may have to move on from but his form is entirely predictable and are options are obviously barren. We persist, not because we want to but because it is our only option.

WOW, didn’t know Shane had such an impact on us losing by 15 goals. What a neat excuse for everyone else in the team and on the staff…

Are you ‘Jaded’ again?

Our midfield is not 15 goals worse than Freos… That was a whole team debacle. I don’t think we are that good this year. We lost depth, we are changing how we play in the defensive half when we have the ball, we still don’t have a reliable tall, our best midfielder was absent for preseason, some core players are out of form, and we spent the last two years trying to eke out another ‘prelim or better’ performance through dour dumping of the ball to protect the mids (2022) and focussing entirely on a front half game where we were dominated ‘territory’ except in crucial moments (2023). We are rectifying some past mistakes with our onfield style of play and I hope we can rebalance our list and plug some easily foreseeable gaps. For me, 2025 is a better show but we are running out of time.

“Good luck with that” What a sediment

Darcy should rock up to Maynard’s house

Or he can stay in defence and excel. And he holds the ball like he is cracking an emu egg… just sayin

And you think McVee is that?? Give me a break. Pickett is the skill set we need in there; excellent skills and speed. And our ‘midfield’ isn’t the problem right now - it is the team driving a predictable transition off half back. McVee can impact that where he is right now. No need to love him.

You know, being a midfielder isn’t like a milestone of maturity and achievement. You need players in other positions to be a rounded team. Pickett has been great in there because he provides something we have been missing. But it is not the only answer available to the open questions for this team.

The backline needs all the help it can get to transition positively. Taking out the soul of that change is not the decision I would advise. We’re fine through the middle anyway.

I expect it, it’s others that need to check their expectations. And we shouldn’t budge from being defence first. That is our identity until Lever and May cease to be what they are (and while we don’t have good enough tall forwards). I can see what they are trying to do and where we are coming from. I’m comfortable at the moment because I know it takes a while and at least we have taken our first step.

I have been bleating about how boring we have been since halfway through ‘22 when we were kicking to the pocket to save the mids legs. At least this year we are trying to play footy again off halfback. Work in progress but at least it’s getting back to what we think of when we rummage through the sepia toned memory banks of eras that live on through highlight packages and not the dour slog of a full game with amateurs and part timers and sporadic talents.

McAdam is in our best 7 forwards on exposed talent and historical performance. He is coming from an interrupted pre-season and season. We need him as we need to evolve toward our medium forwards which are far more effective than our taller forwards and also more impactful in our new gameplan of quick transitional movement off the backline to short options across half forward.

No one. Ball was down the other end.

Glad we have you around to say something then.

Who for? Drop the kids to play the kids? This was always going to happen - a completely inert performance from a bunch of blokes playing a new way off defensive transition. Progress isn’t linear.

Maybe he thought he was going to the effing bench? Either we have rules against the nonsense off the ball or we don’t, but just because you may play footy to snipe blokes when you might get away with it - doesn’t mean the rest of us should put up with it.

You say ‘play on’… Sometimes the dim require things to be personalised for things to make sense; your son/brother/friend is playing footy and someone 15m off the ball makes a beeline for someone you give a s$&@ about and lifts their shoulder into the jaw and breaks it. You’re umpiring, you see it clearly, and you say ‘play on.’ Hmmm. Ok, sure…

Mate, the ball is 15m away, he is trying to get to the contest and should safely assume that every other player is doing the same. This is what the advocates of this new world what to see changed - do players have a duty of care to each other or not?

Do they have a tribunal process in the VFL? 4 weeks is insufficient. lifted slightly to get him high. Shoulder breaking his jaw. This should end your season, doing this in late May.

The false economy, Jaded. The false economy