Stu

Salem has fantastic spatial awareness and peripheral vision, that allows him to stop and use every fraction of a second he has free to assess his options before picking his kick. If used in the middle he won’t be hurried into dump kicks from perceived pressure which will only help our F50 connection.

I finished the podcast last night - it was fantastic to have you guys back! I also just wanted to comment that @binman's audio was really good - sounded well insulated and clear.

With our season spread over 25 weeks (23 games plus two byes), plus two additional on two weeks of practise games, the club has a long season to keep players fresh and uninjured. @binman does the approach to the weekends game show an evolving strategy to player management from the club, compared to previous years? There was some changes made last year following 2022 after a lot of players ended the year banged up and sore. This year's fixture presents more opportunities for extended rest and [looks over shoulder] loading, where '22 and '23 did not. This question is really a tee up for Binman to further soothe your MFCSS @Demonland - you shouldn't let the result or performance trigger you too badly.

What he showed (to me), is that he could realistically be a forward who kicks 30-40 goals in a year, which when combined with JVR, Fritsch, and Kossie’s output, we’d have a formidable forward line.

I might go out to Casey for next Friday’s session if I can get the morning off work!

I did some analysis and compared the break between games for our first 14 matches with those from last year. While we have two 5 day breaks compared to 1 in 2023, we have a 13 and 12 day break, along with 10 and 9 day breaks in there as well. Last year we had a lot more 6 day breaks, and the pitiful bye period of just 10 days. I'm interested to see if this helps keep our players fresh during the year, and opportunities for Selwyn to better manage player training loads. Having a large gap between our 1st and 2nd games, and then the gaps between our 6th, 7th & 8th games also allows periods for those with interrupted pre-seasons to catch up on conditioning. The table shows the breaks between our games this year and last year. The first column is the game number, not the round (because of 'round zero' and our bye after the ANZAC game). The location is for this years game, not last years.

I got super excited this weekend when I realised our first hit out is only two weeks away!

But did you see a single chair with a chain dangling nearby, and a large bucket overhead?

I know it’s been said many times already, but I felt compelled to say it again… your post brought a tear to my eye while I read it at work. Having heard him open up a little bit about how tough he has found the footy industry, I’m very sure he greatly appreciated what you said to him on our behalf. Thank you again for a truly beautiful post and a 10/10 training report 😊

We trade pick 6 to Hawks for pick 4 and our first round pick in 2024. We then trade pick 4 and 11 to WCE for pick 1 and take Reid :-)

Good point - it’s also worth noting how Goodwin is willing to risk losing individual games, for the betterment of the season. In some of the wet games (particularly when we lost), there was commitment to continuing to play a certain way in the hope that consistency would pay off in the long run. Now that we’re in the finals and the result is all that matters, the FD will have plans to enact should it get wet.

And you’ve got to compare like types…

I still vividly remember after one particular play the 7 commentators saying how Jack was “built for finals” after he caused carnage against the Hawks in the 2018 semi final. It’s still true in 2023.

“Cos I’m Binman!”

I tried to take the quiz on my phone… so I got “incomplete” and my phone got AIDS.

My inclination was if they decide they want to rest May, who looks like he’s carried lower back pain all season. Just a guess though.

Adding to this, that’s exactly what we did in the 2021 finals. Had huge scores and winning margins in the prelim and grand final. After 22 games in 2021 our average points for was 86, compared to 91 this year. Points against was 66 in 2021 versus 73 this year. Net difference is 2021 was 2 points better off per game. Not much.

Goodwin seemed to do a great job of finding solutions to Mitchell’s tactics. The short kick game was nullified by going one-on-one, and when the Hawks tried to run and carry we went back to our standard defensive formations. When they went back to short kicks in the third and fourth, we went man on man again. It showed great flexibility to change up the game plan and something we didn’t see last year. Particularly pleasing was how well the team ran out the game in the last quarter. Lots of smothers and tackles in the F50 even after the result was sealed.

Thanks for going to the effort to put this all down in writing. Made a few abstract thoughts I had bouncing around upstairs a little clearer!

I think the AFL realises that the antagonistic way they’ve treated other codes has been an inefficient use of time and effort. People can enjoy more than one code, but when they make these hard line stances it makes people choose sides and even turns non-hard core fans away. The image of Barassi punching a a deflated soccer ball on the front page of the Herald Sun during the World Cup bud period didn’t win them any new fans. This generates good publicity, keeps fans happy, and brings in extra paying customers. It’s a sound business decision.

At least the Cats are making the Pies play the full 120 minutes. Love it.

I believed, like others here, that Brodie’s absence from the AFL team was as much to do with fitness as it was to do with ‘forward craft’. He looked like he was running in concrete against GWS and St Kilda. Coupled with the observations in pre-season about his fitness levels compared to Max and others (likely due to his long term injury in 2022) it’s not surprising he struggled during our loading period. My theory is that they’ve been using this four/five week period to build his endurance and/or power to get him primed for Finals. I’ll put my money on Brodie having a really strong six weeks 😊

As sad as the Petty news is, I’m more worried about how much we will all pump him up over the pre-season and get upset when he doesn’t kick 6 in round one. He’s been a revelation and we’re worse off without him, but being injured he won’t play any bad games this year. So we’re left remembering 8 goals across 1.5 games.

While that was horribly frustrating and saddening, what it shows is that we can still find a foothold in games even when the game isn’t on our terms. Its a contrast to the Pies who only have one way back in to games.

I hope this is like the Round 20 2021 game versus Gold Coast. We put the foot down in that game, after a tough opening 10 minutes.