rpfc

I’m not debating this - it is beneath me.

You really think Brayshaw and McStay are footballing equals? That’s quite revealing.

I enjoy the way we are competitive in every game we play and that I get to see really good footy every game. It’s just frustrating that it is interspersed with sub par performances and boring footy. Expectations rise and that is a part of it of course.

Brayshaw isn’t distracted. He is in good form. Don’t give the players the excuse - they know this is a business - they need to perform.

Works for the The Age at least.

‘Perfect’? We scored most of goals in about 25 mins of gameplay on Sat Night. We won 10 games in a row playing a qtr of great footy a game… Dont need anything near perfection, need consistent effort and pressure for 120 mins.

I would prefer us continue losing if we can recapture our selfless pressure game. We can win from anywhere if that is recaptured. Limp into 4th with how we are playing now and it will be straight sets. Where we finish is irrelevant; it’s how we finish.

Brayshaw just said on SEN that we are not doing the things we were last year.

Sen app is pretty good. SEN Breakfast on your podcast app might have it

Yes, he was very eager to ensure that he is fine playing a role in the backline and loves the group. But the subtext was text - his role will be a big part of his decision and this may lead to a midfield impasse; Oliver, Petracca, and Viney are frontliners and Sparrow and Harmes are part timers who are limited in other roles. I think someone is going to have to leave to make this work for people. And it may be Gus…

What is Bayley’s excuse exactly?

No it’s as good as 2 with a huge percentage boosting loss…

I will resist the urge to say I told you so to a few of you about our forward pressure being down most of the year. I’m good like that… Pressure is about attitude - that’s why NM and WCE can be above anyone in anything. The players have an option to lift and apply themselves for the last two months of the season or leave a golden chance to cement their legacy go begging; they are so good, that they can compete while ignoring a cornerstone of their game. But losers always talk about competing, don’t they?

Thanks to all those with their bloviating judgements and negative psychoanalysis. I now understand, with more clarity, why someone would want to leave…

In the bottom 4 for pressure, where we were first last year… Thats attitude. I’m sorry to burst your weird reality where we are the Schrödinger's Cat of form - neither in form nor out of form… But the players are so talented that they know they can get away with stuff and still win - well welcome to thunder dome because that won’t work against the best nor those with an axe to grind. Lift or get left behind.

You need to chill out. Of course we can get nothing through an unlikely scenario. But Craig Hutchison is banking on your neurosis firing up so he can get people watching and listening to his nonsense. He is a gangster, and not the ‘fun’ kind. He is Jabba the Hut of the footy world and the quicker you help Leia straighten that chain - the better…

Leave it to you to inject some humour about Essendon. Pretty dank.

Do you know the meaning of ‘official?’

We don’t have to find a win, we have to find form. I don’t care if we limp into 4th; it will be straight sets if we don’t actually find the form, and apply the effort without the footy, we showed at the end of last year. So lose as many as you like trying to get that discipline and defensive intensity back…

Lloyd was right on all of those plays. Angus was banking on us winning the footy, we didn’t and we got punished. His message is that we aren’t doing the things we were last year and I agree. It can tighten up quickly and we can alter our trajectory but he is right.

Max/LJ we’re disrespectful to English.

Our pressure game sets all other aspects of our game up, the backs can get higher up the ground and make the ground smaller, we get turnovers in our half which enables our forward line to kick goals - we don’t have a forward line built for slow build up and transition. They are designed for rapid movement from turnover that their pressure causes. The alchemy isn’t there this year. I think it is a lack of discipline to structure for enough of the game. And that is where the other teams are cutting through us and putting our defenders under pressure that they are not built for. All it takes is one or two in the wrong spot in that Demon web and they are in the corridor with runners beside them. We were the best without the footy last year, and we aren’t anymore. There are a number of reasons/excuses for that. Form and adherence to structure, and also health and consistency - back to backs are so hard in the modern game because this group has not played 26 week season and backed it up for another 26 week season. It’s tough. And those carrying knocks this year for long periods are at least Lever, Salem, Petracca, Rivers, Hibberd, Brown, and Petty; that’s a fair group of players.

Not much more has to said; other than some Dees fans have no idea how a good club should be run…

Tell your friend that either Dogs, Tigers, or Saints have to run the table from here or we have to get smashed a couple times and then the Dogs can drop one and get over us. Assure your friend that if we lose the next 4 (ala 2004), our embarrassment will be a first week of finals exit…

So you are quadrupling down on this Friday night being the releasing of the decisive ‘loading shackles?’ Like I thought we agreed last week - there are other factors to why we cannot seem to lift to near the same level of pressure in our forward half or why we are not winning the territory battle and playing a lot of the game on our back half. We may win next week, we may lose - but this curse that lasts 9 of the 22 rounds is either a red herring to one’s fortunes and a short revealer of form around the bye, or it is the arbiter of a season and one we have not been able to handle at all in 2021 or 2022. We won’t always go undefeated in the first two and a half months and we are destined to be also rans of this loading ‘curse’ continues into the future. I obviously think it’s the former, but the latter is the most concerning - and if you are right - then perhaps Griffith and the FD have their planning wrong if we are this troubled for 40% of the season.