Skuit

Woop woop. Was flat for a few days and now ready and raring to go again. Go Dees.

Jack Watts swimming in Germany.

Hey Drunkn - I admire your spirit, composure and level-headedness since you've joined this site and persistence since. I'm disappointed your brother hasn't been given a gig yet this year - especially in light of Tmac and Weids' form so far (and Petty getting a shot last year, although that may have ended up detrimental to your brother's cause in the long run) and I'd probably be just as disappointed if it came down to just the one poor outing v Box Hill. Without betraying your inside line to the club, can you give us any indication if Dec is close, what they're saying to him for example? Encouraging? Needs to improve certain aspects etc.?

Hardwick: Seven years as head-coach of Richmond before success (notably losing out to Dean Bailey who was given the flick at the lowly and compromised MFC after three years). First finals appearance after four years, after which the team dropped out of contention again. One flag since and back to the pack already. Buckley: Took over a premiership team and two years later it was out of the finals for a prolonged stint. Seven years altogether before he got the club back to the decider - finishing in 13th the year prior. Ultimate success still wanting. Simpson: Took over and coached the team to a grand final in his second year, before scraping into the finals on the last day of the season just two years later and being utterly wiped out by the opposition in the second week (more so than the job they did on us last year). Found ultimate success a year after. I could go on. Beveridge - adopted a premiership window team and had a dream run through the finals, then what? Ross Lyon, perennial failure with up followed by down. Roos - one flag in eight seasons of coaching the Swans, with no return in the following five years. Chris Scott - see Buckley basically. Even Clarkson - took the young Hawks to a flag and then dipped out of the finals altogether. Have faith in your team and its coach. Good luck to my beloved Dees vs. the Toiges - I'm right behind you for this one, whatever may come.

So wait, we're ten pages in and ready to give Dr. Misson our fitness coach the Game of Throne's treatment because; A) Jetta suffered an incidental (illegal) knock to the knee during a football contest. B) Channel 7 said May won't be back for ten weeks, although the club says it's four? Half the AFL players play with niggles and existing injuries week to week and play with the risk of exacerbating problems. See Ryder in round one vs. us - one misdirected hit and he could have been sidelined for a month or more. MFC Roos cares about one thing - prior, during and since his departure : Paul's legacy. He did good at our club but everything since has been slanted toward this single fact. He also achieved one premiership in eight years at Sydney, 15 years ago. Prior to this year, Goodwin - with his own plan - has achieved a 28 - 20 win/loss record, and took the MFC and almost all of its players to their first prelim in 18 years. But let's set the dragons on him too, because obviously he has no idea.

Can you describe what a square meal is Legion, and do three of them relate to Legendre's three-square theorem and the fact that Viney's number 7 is the first that cannot be expressed as the sum of three squares ? Does a square meal include spuds?

Gee, the mood here has soured. His name was being thrown around for selection last year prior to a serious injury and he was performing consistently in the twos. Now everyone thinks he's set for delisting six months later and after just his second year on the list? Okay.

For example, spoiling is a 1%er - half the goals scored against us the defenders can't even get across to apply pressure, and other times they are outsized in the marking contest. It may not be for lack of effort. Attempted 1%ers aren't measured.

Goodwin, from all quarters, is a dedicated student of the game. And of other sports. He traveled widely in the off season in search of one tiny gem from another sport we could import in order to get an edge. Perhaps he should have taken a chunk of time off like Buckley or gone and sat in Hawaii like his predecessor but that's another matter. To think he didn't personally review the prelim is ridiculous. And if he didn't dig deep into it with the team it would have been because he believed there was a psychological advantage in not doing so - which may have been an error but it's not a matter of arrogance. He has never displayed an attitude anywhere close to arrogance, despite having a huge record of personal achievement. Another error may have been to plan with the assumption of natural development and a better-drilled team around our plan. Most of us probably thought the same. We are a young team and you can't always plan for injury. We are getting exposed again for the high margin of error undermining the game-plan and its likely lack of sustainability. In our development toward the end of last season it's not unreasonable to think that the game-plan was beginning to show its worth. He is certainly stubborn - which can also be framed as persistent and having belief in his self and the programme. Other top coaches have been here before. See Buckley barely a year ago. And if he's not reactive to the opposition, he also learnt that from Paul Roos. Cast your minds back to the Roos era on here - endless complaints of poor game-day coaching, player selection and an inflexible style. For those citing the glory days of Roos' defensive structures please go and look at the facts. We switched to a forward territory plan. We get scored against more easily but not more heavily. In each of the years since Roos' departure we have conceded less and less. And scored a hell of a lot more. It's frustrating to watch us scored against so easily but the end result is less goals against. A whole lot of people couldn't bare the thought of Roos' dour style when he was incoming, and the game has certainly changed in favour of attack. Goodwin was ahead of the game. The balance isn't working this year for whatever reasons and scape-goat you which to blame. It occurred last year as well, and Goodwin made adjustments. He has always shown patience - whether you consider that a good trait or bad - and the results have been mixed - but if our club as a whole had acted with more patience throughout the years it would be in a much better state.

LH: Can you walk me through what it was that West Coast did to systematically dismantle nearly every aspect of our game-plan?

I actually agree and was thinking this just before. I would love to see Goodwin relax the zone against Richmond and just send the players out for a contested scrap. Let them get some confidence back and play to their attributes.

That 2018 game-plan took us to a prelim. It also fell down and was countered on a number of occasions - although, we should note, not against two very experienced teams and wily coaches in our (and almost almost all of the players) first two finals at the MCG. Now we just look outright lost and bereft of confidence - which leads to indecision, more pressure and then poorer skills. The game-plan was always a high-risk compromise - its major components being players moving forward from behind the ball and trapping it forward. Two major rule changes this year have touched these exact two components. We can no longer have extras running from behind the ball and the kick-in rule allows teams to progress the initial outlet contest further up the field. I believe our tentative, finely balanced game-plan is probably now shot - but likely because of the rule changes. The sad thing is that we spent the last four years recruiting for this plan with contested ball-winners and by getting the best defensive personnel available at a high cost to tip the offensive/defensive balance ever so slightly in our favour. I don't know what the answer is now.

Here's where you're wrong.

While Weid may be one of a number of passengers right now, it’s Tmac who’s a broken sleeper in this train-wreck, with Spargo little more than a pebble in the path of the outbound train. And just to murder this locomotive metaphor even further, Jones is the incompetent train-driver from the coal-fired era when others have already switched to the efficiency of electric, while the Wagners are unwanted stowaways. Hibberd got drunk and disruptive in the dining cart. Disembark: Hibberd (forcibly removed), Spargo (who would’ve thought there would be no room on board for someone the stature of Charlie? - needs a rest), anyone with a Wagner in their surname, and Tmac – the MFC isn’t some Saving Private Ryan endeavor where we need to ensure at least one brother survives. Embark: Garlett and Lockhart up in the front carriage, KK in seat HB, and Keilty and May to share the remaining tickets wherever they can find the best spot up front or in the back. Lucky: Jones again Unlucky: Stretch

Probably not the time to bring this up just yet, but . . . We're undoubtedly playing [censored] football right now and our structural issues aren't anything new. Still, even accounting for some slide, the difference in our performance between our early finals' appearances and now is so stark as to be completely perplexing. Meanwhile, it's not remotely far-fetched that by the end of this round the top three teams will read: 1. St Kilda 2. Gold Coast 3. Fremantle Are the personnel of these teams and respective coaches now world-beaters and masterminds - as opposed to ours being hacks and newly out of their depth - or has something fundamentally changed in the game to have thrown it so suddenly upside down? Are almost the entire commentariat and massive body of football spectators who invariably had these three teams in their bottom six for 2019 also just clueless? Sure, it's still early and even and I expect these teams to drop down (although the top three at the end of the last three even crap years were all in at least the top five at the finish of round five) - but its undeniable that there has been some form of disruption to date. Has the AFL's rule tinkering - which in being fundamentally two-fold and structural is probably more than just tinkering - had a greater impact than what can easily be determined by the eye? Is the MFC, which has developed a game-plan of such small margin of error and recruited accordingly, copping the impact of these changes more than most?

Maybe instead of an honesty circle we can try an honesty man-on-man this week.

Win this one and we could find ourselves just one game from the top of the ladder by round's end. Lose it and you can take comfort that everyone else is crap too.

Hot-damn: I knew there was a connection. Check out the current Champions League semi-finalist Ajax's twitter scroll from April 17 for an appearance of our own Big Max: https://twitter.com/AFCAjax?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author Or from gawndog37 himself who now appears to be a fan: https://twitter.com/gawndog37?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author Jack Fitzpatrick thinks it's 'huge'. Also, Goody recently stated that soccer was one of the sports he has been drawing from, as well as field hockey, interestingly.

This has been a reasonably consistent theme with Goodwin from the outset for the slightly more senior players - dropping them a week or so after everyone on here has truly lost patience. Validates what most of us can see, but also suggests he's willing to back in players for a time if in the midst of a form slump. I won't always agree but it's a worthy trait. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

I put this one together a couple seasons back - with several players still current it needs an update if anyone can be bothered. Cripps may have entered the list by now as well. A fair few Brownlows among this crop. The most contested possession across two games (career): Patrick Dangerfield - 48 (2017; in career games 190/191) Clayton Oliver - 46 (2017; in career games 30/31) Josh Kennedy/Nat Fyfe - 46 Chris Judd - 44 Gary Ablett Jr. - 41 Dustin Martin/Jobe Watson - 40 Joel Selwood - 39 Dane Swan - 37 Trent Cotchin - 36

Also, while I'm here, may as well add some other MFC-related tid-bits from this swamp guy. Biggest hit-out differentials in a game - @AFL era +66 - 2015 R12 - nth (89) v gws (23) +60 - 2019 R04 - MELB (73) v SYD (13) +59 - 2015 R09 - frem (86) v adel (27) +56 - 2016 R09 - wce (71) v port (15) Most recent MELB players to have 20+ disposals and 3+ goals in a game vs SYD 2019 R04 - NATHAN JONES 2007 R05- Aaron Davey 2000 R18 - Shane Woewodin 2000 R03 - Andrew Leoncelli 1993 R13 - Garry Lyon Melb vs. Syd: the third time in past 3 years that sets of brothers from 3 different families have all played in the same V/@AFL game 2017 R18 ADEL v GEEL & 2018 R16 MELB v FREM being the others. The overall V/@AFL record for sets of brothers from different families playing is 5 (most recently in 1933).

Probably belongs in the Clarry thread, but (courtesy of some twitterist named @sirswampthing): Fewest career games to register 10 games of 20+ contested possessions 64 - Clayton Oliver 65 - Patrick Cripps 81 - Josh Kennedy 94 - Nat Fyfe 110 - Tom Mitchell

I'm leaning toward exhibit A.

Cast your minds back to last week and recall that feeling you had when the ball went anywhere near the vicinity of Buddy. In a similar exercise, think about when Tomald had the ball. Therein lies your answer.

If I was a set of coaches the coaches' votes this week wouldn't be far off (but with Petracca ahead of Salem). So I agree. And I would take that from Jones every week. But that may be due to lower expectations or the desire for someone to provide some sort of leadership in a team-lifting sense. Although the response to his first goal was actually quite ugly.