rpfc

Can we seperate out ‘forward line problems’ with ‘offensive problems’? Our ‘forward line’ can kick a winning score against anyone - my eyes showed me that. Form fluctuates but they are good enough; great role players, workrate etc The bigger problem is our movement of the footy; our transition from where we turn it over that culminates in (hopefully) a kick into the 50. We have lacked dare and urgency all year (save from a quarter a game in the first 10 rounds) and when you slightly lose your belief or trust in yourself or your teammate - you don’t quite want to take that kick, you don’t get to the right spot, you don’t run because you don’t think it will get to you, etc. I see a lot of that the last 6 weeks and it can only be disconcerting. The may recapture it but ‘fits and starts’ won’t win us enough games to get to a prelim and then win the final two games - we have to get consistently back to where we were last year in the last two months. Our forwards need to turn it over in our half, and that will make this much easier. So, ironically, our offensive problems start with the forwards’ defence…

Yeah, as I have said, I think the loading and intensity of training is a red herring. It happens and I am sure it has an impact but our issues are not so simply solved by more energy on game day. We have connection and pressure issues with our younger and role players and that lack of urgency has been there in fits and starts al season. Flicking the switch is not easy and it looked like it is back to fits and starts with the evidence of the last three weeks. Play with no dare and urgency and Port will beat us.

IF (and that is a big IF) you reject the notion that our inability to move the footy against Geelong was more about the Cats and their pressure and less a continuation of our mid-season form; we should handle Port and the Bulldogs and set up a month of footy where top 2 is within our control as one of the best sides in the comp. That was a long sentence and I am sorry.

I believe similarly. Being conflicted is to believe in something so that’s fine. I will always believe that he and the Crows woefully managed his apology however, no matter what colours he wear.

Coz he is a good player who can help us win this year? The problem with ‘scorched earth’? Nothing grows on it.

Those two sentences are antithetical.

All this judgement about going home and professional footballers feeling homesick - Jake Lever can go play where he wants!! (cough)

They just didn’t dump it on Gawn’s head moving it forward (and of course we did) they went around him and made that skinny ground big. We assume the opposition is going to play the dumbest footy, honestly. Either that zone stops the switch into the corridor or we can deal with a switch to other side of the ground that forces a dump kick or we are a stick of butter and the other team is a hot knife.

FCS. Go and draw and quarter him, it doesn’t solve our problem.

Yeah, it’s effing humming. There is a pressure problem on defence that exacerbates the lack of connection up forward where we allow 66 inside 50s. Smashed in clearances so we were always on the back foot with trying to move it forward. This is the way we miss out on a prelim - we can’t move the ball up the ground, keep it up there, and put way too much pressure on our backline.

Old Dee when we hit 65k members:

@Nudge

That’s my point.

It’s a bit on the nose to name the stand after the club owner…

This is a good little nugget. Brown helps us ‘move the chains’ (NFL term around moving up the ground instead of going for the game breaking pass) and that is one of the most valuable roles in footy these days. It requires so much unrewarded and unrewardable running from TMac and now Brown. He had a couple of lamentable contests and his marking can improve but let’s not dismiss value so easily.

Those $13 memberships… If only Clayton wore a higher number, amirite? These numbers are quickly becoming irrelevant. The better number to track might be revenue from memberships, with the floor of what is needed to run the club and thrive.

The football gods should reward this hubris and complacent lack of self-reflection with years of defeats to the Demons.

Our best players are locked in for the decade.

Agree, having a ‘needs’ discussion when talking about Jackson is tacitly saying you don’t rate him. He can be so much more expansive than the role he is currently developing in. Absolute jet.

He’s a third year player and development isn’t linear. I think he will be a good player but guys get dropped. Especially when you play for a club expecting to win every week.

Ok then.

Your creating a straw man argument there with the ‘bring the ball to ground’ being his only measure that you see some of us have on him. You are arguing that he will surely be dropped if he doesn’t perform while also agreeing that we just don’t have that many options even if he doesn’t. I don’t think he is playing especially well but I also don’t see him getting dropped IF he can continue to be a cog in us getting the ball down the field and getting enough scoring shots. And, as others have said, if he was not contributing, Sam W wouldn’t be playing Casey this weekend.

He doesn’t need to ‘fire’ - he needs to play his role. No one else can with TMac out. That is his starting expectation and pass mark.

Like this. Adapting the forward line to what can work in the absence of TMac. And a show of faith in Bedford.