Stu

It’s important to note that King compared our last 7 rounds this year to our last 7 games (including finals) last year, which is skewed because we all know how bonkers our clearance work was during the finals. I think the comparison between the same periods in both years is actually much closer. King just using selective statistics to back up his opinion.

Looking ahead to Friday’s game: If we get up by 4 goals mid way through the last quarter, does Goody keep up the intensity to take 2nd spot or do we revert to the norm and shut up shop happy with securing the top 4 spot?

For all the negative Dee's supports here, take a moment and ponder this question... take all of your negative feelings about our game plan, our weaknesses, our team selection, and analyse it through the lens of our ladder position. If, and I mean IF, everything you feel is true and we're still second despite all that, what does that mean for what we can accomplish if we address all that concerns you?

Honestly, it seems like Freo, Sydney, Bulldogs, Pies all played the games of their seasons against us... a nice easy one against Carlton would seem fair and reasonable.

Don't you mean "The Package"?

Yeah, no easy ones out the back that he seems to love.

Does anyone else want Cam Rayner to get flattened next week?

All the best for tonight boys. If I were in your shoes I don’t think I could show up for it, such is my disappointment from the game. A simple question… If we played that same game 10 times, how many times do you think we win? I feel it’s 8 or even 9. I know they played very well in the second half, but it feels like at least 30-40 events throughout the game went their way. So fortunate we’re they that if only a few of those events go our way instead, that we win.

I have been super jittery all day today. Can't wait for the game tonight. I want this win so badly! Dees 92 - Pies 54

It reflects what the punters think our chances are. The betting companies continually modify the odds to balance their books. Professional punters have clearly felt Melbourne offered great value earlier this week and put big money down. If the betting companies did nothing and Melbourne win, they will have lost a lot of money. So they are trying to lure punters to bet on Collingwood by pushing the Pies odds out to make them better value.

Just to add to the point about small margins at the elite level, consider Carlin Isles. He left sprinting because he knew he couldn’t make the olympics and joined a sport that might get him there: “Before taking up rugby in 2012, Isles ranked as the 36th fastest sprinter in the United States with a 100 metres outdoor personal best of 10.13 seconds” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlin_Isles

You’ll notice that the non ex-football commentators aren’t quite as rigid in their opinions, whereas the ex-players are. I think some part of it is their ego. They think that they swung the result of games with sheer desire and force of will, rather than training, natural ability, and emotional health in their outside life. No one is saying that it’s the only reason a team will lose but that it’s a key factor in performance (NOT result). But they see things more rigidly and think that the few % points lost in performance from loading won’t make a difference and to admit that it does dismisses how awesome the players are. But at the elite level (in any sport) it is only a few % points in performance between winning and losing.

Looking forward to another great show tonight gents! It was so enjoyable to watch how well we covered the switch, time after time! Freo are one of the best teams at making the ground wide, so to see us prevent it as often as we did was remarkable. We managed to intercept or slow up a number of their attempts to go quick through the corridor. In fact, a lot of their scores from rebound were from good fortune where we managed to partially intercept the rebound, but due to a bad bounce or a fumble they got lucky. Do you think that contributed to Freo playing more conservatively as the game wore on? Looking ahead to this week against Collingwood: Do you think the Pies will similarly revert into their shells under that level of pressure? Or will they be stronger in their resolve to be attacking? The fact that Collingwood couldn't close out the game against Port seemed to indicate their players are fatigued. Given they've had to run till the final whistle in pretty much most games in their 10 game streak, do you agree that they may be starting to fade? I can see there is a lot of questions and comments, so no pressure to include mine if time is short :-)

@binman

@binman I watched the segment you referenced and I had a obnoxious grin on my face while watching it, such was my confidence. All the talk of teams switching it so much against us just made me think of a rat in a maze. I don’t think Freo will know what hit them when they try to switch it against us tonight! I didn’t mention it because King contradicts himself day to day, so any take on it would be outdated pretty quickly 😂

I have to say that this line here really got me 😂 Who could turn down such an offer?

Dees 80 - Freo 38 ✊

What sort of draft picks would we need to give Fox Footy, to get the deal done?

Another thing to consider is how the dynamics of the mental side changes from here on out. Teams have clearly planned for games against us, either to prove their ability (freo, swans, pies) or get redemption (cats), with most of them playing their best game of the season against us. In each of the four upcoming games, our opponents will all have something to lose, such as a top 4 spot or even top 8. That changes how freely teams will play against us. Coaches can’t just take huge risks because the consequences may undo all their effort to this point in the season. It’s easy to throw caution to the wind in round 11 or 12 or even 17 because there’s time to undo a bad game, but not so much at this stage. Even the cats are coming up against the dogs and saints in what they will see as do or die games for their seasons. There will be a lot of surprises in the next four rounds. I’m sticking to my earlier prediction of 17-5. I believe the FD strategy and season planning has been building to these last 8 weeks. I anticipate a repeat of the intensity from our game against the Lions on Friday night. 💪

I think it balances out, plus the pre finals bye means there is less concern about player management given the two week recovery period available.

Couldn't agree more Von. Well said. It's the long term strategy "system" coaches vs the "tactical" coaches who like to move the magnets around and even try to rev up the players with us vs them pep talks.

I look forward to a great pod guys! An observation of mine over the past 3 weeks has been small changes in our gameday tactics to combat known issues: Efficiency when kicking inside forward 50 Scores generated from turnover / rebounds Teams have kicked a lot of scores from turnover between rounds 11 and 16, while also limiting how much we scored from turnover. I imagine our inefficiency going forward was probably the cause of teams being able to score more from turnover (many kicks to spare defenders who could then launch the rebound quickly). At the same time though we were still beating teams (or breaking even) in clearances and contested possession. Since Round 17 against the Cats, it seems we have tried a more rebound / counter attacking style where we sit back from the contest (very) slightly to win the post clearance possession or intercept, and launch attacks from defence. Against the Cats we had a few opportunities to get through their press, only for a fumble, a bad bounce, or the ball sticking in the heavy track, derailing it. This was more evident and successful against Port (which probably suited the much wider ground in Alice). Against the Dogs we probably reverted more to our close contested style in the first half, and went back to the rebound style in the second half - which proved costly. But in both the Port and Dogs games, our forward 50 kicking improved a lot, and from one game to the next. We managed to kick 100 points from 50 forward entries which would be our highest ratio for the year I imagine. We even kicked into the centre part of our forward 50 or a lot more than we have all year (which when it didn't work also resulted in a few successful rebounds from the Dogs straight through the guts). In those three games we've been beaten at clearances and in contested possessions. I think that's by design - Goodwin is trying to tidy up weaknesses of our game, and thinking it's easier to do so if we relax in other areas - clearance work, and defensive forward movement. I imagine the plan is to combine that 'refresher' on rebound strategy and kicking into forward 50, with our plan A - strong clearance and contested work, defence first forward movement. This will give us the two modes we saw in the finals last year. Have any of you noticed similar changes in tactics the last few weeks, and if so, do you think it's part of the tune up before the finals, or simply us not being up to the style that is popular this year?

I think he was outnumber 3 or 4 to 1 on many occasions, and on several of them he managed to effect the spoil to at least keep the contest alive. But he was certainly much more quiet in the second and fourth quarters in particular.

“We always try to walk it in”