RadishDee

The swings of this year continue to hit hard. Where do we go from here? The most depressing thing for me is that we are looking at significant time to improve if we continue with the current trajectory. The coach isn't changing, so we can't expect any change to gameplan, tactics, selection, or skills improvement. Some player movement is expected but it's not going to make us a better kicking team any time soon because our longer contracted players are our poorest kicks. So we seem to be doomed to endure this for at least 3-4 more years. My question to the panel is what should the club be doing today to bring our next premiership closer? Because I'm not seeing the club pursue anything that's actually doing that.

A good afternoon at the footy! The attack continues to improve, starting to hit goals, hit up teammates, things starting to click. It's nice to see this come together. Strangely, the concern for me at the moment is the defence. We're still giving up a lot of goals per inside 50 and giving up lots of points on turnover. What does the panel think needs to change to improve? Do we bring in a proper mid-size defender? Does AMW fill that gap? Howes? Rivers?

While I've been gloomy about the team and our prospects for weeks, this game has given me some hope. Hear me out. This year we average a goal from 20.9% of Inside 50s (15th in AFL) and we allow a goal on 27.3% of our opposition's inside 50s (dead last by over 1%). The Crows are a top 4 side who score a goal on 26.2% of inside 50s (3rd in AFL) and allow a goal on 20.0% of inside 50s (also 3rd). In the game yesterday we scored a goal on 26.2% of our inside 50s (yes, the same as what the Crows average). This is a huge improvement over a stingy defence and it should not be underestimated. We allowed a goal on 23.6% of their inside 50s yesterday, which while still not great the exact AFL average and is clearly an improvement against a potent attack. I think we can avoid too much more cellar-dwelling, but we do need to continue to make improvements. We also clearly need a small/medium defender who can defend players like Rankine who also seem to run riot over us. (What I wouldn't give to have Hibberd back!) Can we start to see some light at the end of the tunnel?

How many more weeks of terrible forward half play does the footy department think is acceptable? It's already been about 70 (going back to 2022). Another season or two should do it? Each week the club needs to be doing the things that are going to get us closer to another premiership. So question to the panel, what do we do to achieve that? Because staying the course right now seems to be getting us further away. For mine, the Petty experiment has to be killed. He may bring the ball to ground, but when he gets a shot he's not punishing enough. Petty and Turner look like the future of our backline, so they should play as such. If Jeffo and JVR are the future up forward, let's play them there. If they go 3 weeks without kicking a goal, the club must persist. It matters very little that Petty gets 10 balls to ground a game that then result in 1-2 goals but butchers the ball when he has the chance himself. Goodwin gets some tactical things right on occasion and he won the flag, but he gets a lot wrong. Selection, interchange, sticking with tactics too long. The panel has acknowledged all of these problems this year on multiple occasions. Replacing Goodwin doesn't mean that we have a potato as a coach, we get someone in with their own tactical thoughts, some fresh ideas, no preconceived notions about what works and what doesn't. Maybe they wouldn't do much better, but do we really think that the next best coach waiting in the wings would be worse? I am seriously concerned that the quality of our youth is not developing properly. We are already starting to see worrying signs of regression from Rivers, McVee, Sparrow, and Windsor. These were supposed to be the backbone of the next generation to achieve lasting success, but these players already a shadow of themselves. I don't want to think about what this could mean for Langford and Lindsay. Maybe this team can achieve the ultimate again before Max, May, Viney, Lever and others have to inevitably hang up the boots, but we need something drastic to change to get there and the team isn't changing at the moment. Perhaps on the lighter side, although I love the pod, I have been frustrated for a few weeks about the disposal quality question. I have heard the panel tell us that Langford, Lindsay, Bowey, McVee, Pickett, Melksham, and VanRooyen all as great/elite kicks. By my count that's 7 players. Is this really true? Who are the actual really great kicks on the team?

Here we are again, forward 50 efficiency and accuracy costing us games. Still. For a problem that was clear in 2022, why should the supporters and members (let alone some of the playing group) put up with this? We are also SEVEN POINTS PER GAME behind our expected score, well and truly last in the league. And yet, does anything change? Sitting here yet again trying to support a club that apparently doesn't seem to actually have the ability to improve whether through lack of skill or lack or gutsy decision-making is mind-numbing. There are players on this team good enough to be one of the best teams to ever play. The supporters believe that, I believe that. So why does this team continue to achieve mediocrity? Surely there are people out there that can improve this team and want to improve this team. I see nothing from the club's board and staff that makes me believe it has any interest in doing so. Where is our President? Where is our new CEO? Nowhere to be found, accepting the lack of change in fortunes of this team. As far as umpiring goes, why doesn't the club have the guts to have a dig at the AFL for allowing this standard? Yes there are likely fines involved, but it would show the club that yeah we care enough about this to make noise and spend some money on it. Is there any form of protest or comment that the club can make that would show that a lot of the smaller clubs have had enough of the quality of umpiring and the AFL must make plans to improve? We should make the AFL address it, change the storyline to being about the AFL's mismanagement of its own game.

Rant incoming… I am sick to death of this team losing winnable footy games in this way. It has been too many years. And the club has not fixed the problem. We currently sit last in the league in 2025 for accuracy and goals per inside 50 by a full percentage point for each. We have not been above average in either category since 2021. Goodwin and the coaching staff acknowledge it’s a problem but there’s no improvement! Maybe kicking technique can’t be improved in the AFL, then we should have moved players on and recruited better ones. What are the coaches doing if they’re not improving skills anyway? The coaches do selection. Would JVR have benefitted from a game against WC last week instead of a week off after kicking 5 at Casey? Would one of our most accurate forwards this year in Turner been better off in the forward line rather than spending 100% game time in defence? Maybe practising at Gosch’s and Casey means our forwards aren’t used to kicking with a grandstand behind the goals? Get some time at Junction Oval or any other ground with a grandstand. The club, as a whole, cannot continue to accept this. The words of Goodwin indicate that he doesn’t accept it, but the actions of his charges tell a different tune. It stinks of a club that is content with mediocrity and I’m fed up. The supporters and members must ensure that the leadership does its jobs and leads the club with diligence and a drive for success.

This one really felt like it was lost on Thursday. The selection integrity just doesn’t seem to be there. We’ve lost disposal and tackles 2 weeks in a row. Last week’s individual tackle counts: May Rivers Spargo 0 Petracca Langford Fritsch Windsor Henderson Petty 1 Melksham Chandler Sharp 2 That’s almost half the team with 2 or fewer tackles. None of those players were dropped. Tackling doesn’t require skill, just effort. Yet the selection committee selected all of those players again. The only one dropped was Turner with 3 tackles and a goal. This week’s tackle counts: Petty Sharp Lindsay Henderson 0 Langdon Pickett Spargo May 1 Gawn Salem Bowey Melksham Sparrow van Rooyen McDonald Windsor 2. That’s two-thirds of the team with 2 or fewer tackles. Will the selection committee make a statement this week and actually drop some players that aren’t putting the effort in? —-————— Curiously, over the last 10 games, we are third in total pressure acts (289.6) but seventeeth in tackles (53.1). What does the panel think is causing that? Can we assume that our opponents know this so they are happy to invite pressure because the isn’t significant downside?

Obviously lots of problems from the game, but there are positives. Langford looks really good in only his second full AFL game. Turner did some nice things. Chin was great, our most consistent player at the moment. McDonald did well too. Most of all, I can finally see the game plan coming together. Does the panel agree? There are three key problems as I see them: Skill errors going forward giving the opposition time to get back and cover. Forwards (especially Roo) playing from behind and running away from the player with the ball. Tackling technique kept resulting in fast breaks to the cats. These all undermine the trust the players have in one another, which leads to space on the outside for the opposition. Technique and forward tactics have long been big problems for us. I think the reason there are so many calls for Goody to go are because they remain unfixed. How else can these problems be fixed sooner than turning over 40-50% of the list (which could take 4-5 years)?

Something is clearly very wrong behind the scenes. The senior players seem disinterested at best on game days. What’s the cause of this? Coaching? Players? Positioning? Game plan? Does the panel know if things are different on the training track? I recall the early word from the track watchers last year was that energy, talk and spirits were high. Has that changed? Moreover, is the Club going to do something about this before season’s end?

Looking at some of the game thread post on Demonland for this game, the comments on the game plan already concern me. Though I didn’t see any of the game. Does the game plan work with the players we have? How many weeks do you think it will take to know if it will or won’t work? Are we going to do the same as last year, try and make a game plan work that doesn’t given our strengths and weaknesses only to abandon it mid season?

MIDFIELD Was it just me or did we seem a lot better not only without Oliver but after Sparrow went down? Do we usually too many midfield bulls who can only extract the footy and can't run, chase, apply pressure, or execute kicks? It seems to me that the makeshift midfield in the second half against the Suns was made up of players with better kicks and better run, is this the difference? Is this what the midfield should be? Fewer Viney/Oliver/Sparrow types and more Trac/Riv/ANB types? OLIVER It's pretty amazing how much better we look without Clarry. Does the panel think the mentality at the selection table has been that an injured Clarry is better than the next best replacement? And if so, has this mentality been found out as wrong? 'CULTURE' If we suppose that there is a cultural issue at the club, what does that panel think is the source of it? Is there division within the playing group and if so, what is the divide? Surely Trac, Gawn, Vines and the other leaders are all on the same page, so who would be on the other side of the divide, if it exists at all?

Did I travel back in time? This game felt exactly like the final against Carlton last year. A hard-fought, brutal, contested game. Our pressure and contested ball were good. Poor discipline taking away shots at goal. Each of our goals felt like it took 4 times the effort of theirs. Had chances to put the game away in the fourth quarter but didn't take them. Lose by under a kick. I think this game underlines why the gameplan needed to shift this year. We don't have the forward line to kick goals in a congested forward 50. We need to change to a transition game plan so we can use the players we do have to score in an open forward line. Unfortunately we don't have the midfield players and defenders to execute it. This year was a tough one, but next year we could come back, the gap from worst to first in the AFL is pretty small at the moment. Thinking ahead though, should we move beyond the transition game to whatever game style will be after that? Get ahead of the pack. What will be the game style to defeat the transition game? Can we rebuild into that more easily?

CONDITIONING Looking at some stats for some answers I came across our points conceded as interesting. In 2021, we allowed 80 points on more on 3 occasions and lost all 3. In 2022 it was 8 times and we lost 7 of 8 (beating the Hawks 91 - 81). After the winning streak was broken, the scores conceded were really inconsistent with it see-sawing back on forth every week. In 2023, we also conceded 8 scores of 80 or more, but only lost 3 of those (hence the forward line becomes the issue because we lost a lot of games not conceding a big score). This year in only 20 games (rather than 24 or 25 in previous years) we have conceded 10 scores of 80 or more and lost 9 of those 10 (Port being the exception). What's clear is that our defence is significantly worse this year, especially since the middle of the season. So what's changed? I put it down to 3 things, personnel, game plan and conditioning. So which is the main culprit? Conditioning to me is the main issue. We look slow. We're second to contests, and also getting cut up on the outside. Meaning that our players are getting stuck in the middle. The zone isn't working as well as it has previously and we're much easier to open up than in previous years. When we think about it, this makes sense. Our teams in the last few weeks have been young. Young players haven't developed their tanks yet. But on the other side, we also play a lot of older players (Gawn, Melksham, McDonald, May and Viney all playing recently and over 30). So we have a fairly stacked team of late with about half the playing team (11ish by my count) either 18-21 or 30+. It doesn't make for the fittest group on the park. Can we improve this next year? I think we can. The pre-season was very compromised as has been much discussed. With an extra few weeks break and the chance to come back with a full list I think 2025 looks alright. KOLT I'm loving Kolt! Has anyone on the panel noticed how often he pops up in the right areas in the forward line? When a key forward is taking a mark or there's a scrap on the ground, the Kolt seems to be there more often than not. With another pre-season under his belt I think he'll jump to another level next year. PETTY Has been really good recently. Not hitting the scoreboard very much but is taking important marks on the wing. JEFFERSON I was surprised to see that Jeffo has the most VFL goals of any AFL listed player. With one more pre-season under his belt, does the panel think that he'll be ready at some point next year. 2025 The main thing we will have to do in the offseason is refresh the list. In addition to the 2 dead spots on the list there are multiple players on the list that are sadly just not AFL standard anymore: Schache, Hunter, BBB, Tommo. I know the podcast has been down on our list and talent, but think about how much better we could be with even 3 of those 6 list spots taken by players that actually might improve in the future. The 3 recruits from last year (Billings, Fullarton and McAdam) have been disappointing, but another Demons pre-season will improve their fitness which can only help. While I'm not bullish on Billings and Fullarton, I think McAdam has a chance to make a difference if he can get fit. With a good draft and 2 recruits better than previous years, I think we can build and challenge again next year (much like the Cats and Swans have done). Have faith, the core of this team is still excellent and the rest of the team will come. Though I have to say the ruck position specifically gives me cause for concern. Our next generation ruck got pilfered and we can't seem to develop a new ruck (which is very unlike the Melbourne of the pre-Gawn years). Can we get a ruck to play after Max? Will Verrall be ready?

PSYCHOLOGY I loved the discussion on mentality and psychology from the last episode. The negativity in our beloved football club is self-evident on the field, for example the moment between Max and Maysie in the last quarter. But it's all over. The players look stressed and in their heads. I hope the club finds a way to change this or I fear this season is going to be like 2020. Is part of the problem games at the MCG? This may sound like heresy, but the MFCSS is strong and I have often felt in the last 5 years while watching the Dees at the 'G that when a Melbourne player makes a mistake, there is an audible groan from the crowd. This has to have an effect on the players. Was part of the massive success of 2021, the fact that all the finals were played outside of Melbourne where most supporters were not overburdened with MFCSS? I remember from Maxy's book that the mental changes in the offseason going into 2021 were fundamental to the success in his mind. Could the MFC faithful out there try and bite their tongues and see if anything improves? Or is the MFCSS too strong? FORWARD LINE Whatever the outcome of this season is, the footy department MUST find a solution to the forward line woes for the 2025 season. It was the problem in 2022, 2023 and part of the problem in 2024. It's the only significant long term problem we have (I'm still bullish on the midfield in terms of talent and experience) and the team can't continue to accept that.

Pondering the last month or so of footy, the 2 most disappointing sides have to be Melbourne and Adelaide. With Burgess in charge of fitness at the Crows and Griffiths, a Burgess acolyte, in charge of fitness at the Dees, is there something common in the training of these 2 sides that could be causing these results? Are the training methods out of date? Are they training in a hard block in May that's going to pay dividends in the rest of the season? Is there too much focus on fitness and not enough on skills? It just seems interesting to me that those 2 sides, who should be fit are languishing at present.