The Taciturn Demon

So true.

I think this is definitely the way to go. Returning to "wily" plus-28 second-clubbers who at their best offer middling performance might be "best practice" when you're chugging along nicely, and clearly going to make the top 6, if not 4. We are nowhere near that. Sorry to be pessimistic, but the system at the moment is so broken, I can't see us winning more than we lose in the final nine games no matter who we put on the park.

I feel you'd get Parish understanding you were buying vanilla yoghurt only to discover you'd got natural/Greek - not a mild flavour; almost no flavour at all. I can't help but feel this is what Richmond did with Hopper.

Thanks so much! Love this kind of insight.

That sounds fair to me. I like Bowey, but he's doing very little at the moment. I also like the idea proposed by several posters on here of trying McVee in the middle. Early in his career to make the move, I know, but he has everything we don't have in the centre square: beautiful sideways movement, composure combined with good disposal and good decision making, and speed.

If May gets $1800, Xavier Duursma is about to get a $250,000 fine for his effort this afternoon.

What's the knock on Moniz-Wakefield? First time I've had a proper chance to sit down and watch Casey this year and he looks above average. No guarantee anyone translates VFL form into AFL performance, but I think we're miles from a settled, confident AFL side forcing good Casey players to wait their turn.

Me too. It had nothing to do with the umpiring, though.

Very fair summary. I'm absolutely baffled by how the decision-makers thought the player described above could fit into our team without one of the best ruckman of the last 20 years being in some way relegated or played out of position.

It may not be if the pressure and positioning is so poor that we gift opponents easier-than-average shots at goal.

Astonishing finals series for a second-year player.

I would be stunned if we made the finals. Our form isn't just poor; it's fallen down a crevasse; we have bone poking through leg skin. Our form is starting to smell a little like almond. My only hope is we ditch the dour conservatism at selection and in games. Three times now we've been comprehensively beaten by teams who for one reason or another have played plenty of kids. And several of those kids have made really good contributions. We, on the other hand, have looked slow and staid, a team of plodders on tram tracks. We treat Billings and Hunter as if they're vital cogs in the machine, seem excited by the prospect of ANB as a tagger, give Taj Woewodin the James Jordon treatment, don't seem to know quite where Sparrow fits. Playing Kozzy more at centre bounces is great; could we leave him there for longer? Petty as a forward seemed like a sensible experiment, but it hasn't worked, and we're getting massacred at centre bounces. Is Fullarton really that far off AFL form? And, as others have already mentioned, playing McVee, Rivers and Salem in the middle seems like a trial with very little downside at this point. I haven't watched as much VFL as I did in previous years; maybe there really is very little there worth considering. But a bit of dash, some decent sideways movement and the ability to occasionally hit a target, puts you ahead of a few in the seniors at the moment.

Doesn't Brayshaw's retirement clear some space? And wasn't McDonald's post-Flag contract quite generous?

Yep. I don't really mind us taking a punt. I do really mind going back to him immediately after a completely warranted return to the reserves.

I just expected a far better kick of the football.

I'm not sure our coaching is poor to the point of being terminal, but I'm with you on just about everything else. "We're inaccurate" is an easy throwaway. For a very long time, we've failed to take advantage of a zero-pressure kick inside fifty - a free kick or mark somewhere between 60 and 90 metres from goal. We compulsively refuse to kick to the advantage of forwards. Where other teams turn a 50:50 into a 60:40 with weight and trajectory, we routinely turn it into a 40:60, or as you said, kick it straight to a spare defender.

Talked about this being the kind of dip all teams go through and that in many ways we improved on last week's performance. Said clearances and composure under pressure remained a very significant problem. Said the club had "found something" in Neal-Bullen as a tagger. I actually think Goodwin has become a far better public communicator over the last 18 months or so, but he didn't convince me. Not on this being a dip, not on this being a step forward and not on Neal-Bullen becoming an ultra-defensive midfielder when at times he's been the only thing keeping the rusty barge that is our midfield floating along.

Well said. I also think there's a little bit of revisionism going on around here about what he's done in his career to date. He wasn't just OK in the Premiership year; he was absolutely critical to the success of that backline.

No, I agree. That Richmond comment was just me at my most wildly optimistic. In part it comes from the fact that, although I've had concerns and quibbles with how this team plays over a long time, I haven't had the sense that "This has been coming" like so many others on this forum. Yes, I've worried that we would naturally fall away or that the response to our predictable 22/23 style would be an overcorrection, but suddenly being creamed by teams with no runs on the board - nah. I'm interested in what happens next, too. Particularly given that some extremely important players are now well into their 30s. I'm also not interested in "bouncing back". Yes, a far better performance on Monday is important. But if it's just a on-off reaction to an embarrassing effort, who cares?

I feel the same. So much about that game was so unusually bad that it almost felt dream-like. I half-expected Goodwin to go into the press conference and go full Chris Scott: "A virus ran through us this week. We thought about replacing half the team." But no. So what is it? "We're overrated" has come up a lot on here. Almost certainly true, but it doesn't account for total un-competitiveness for a full three and a half quarters two weeks after being thoroughly rinsed by West Coast. The optimist in me says "Well, Richmond had some huge losses in their 2017 and 2019 Flag years". The realist says the same as you: something's going on.

I don't find myself subject to the Mandela Effect very often, but AFL rule interpretations is an exception. I could have sworn that shortened reasonable time interpretations were instituted at the start of year maybe two or three seasons ago and very quickly dispensed with. Did I just imagine this? Another that I'm certain was tried many years ago (and which made sense, but would have been difficult to umpire) was that if the tackling player dragged the ball in and held it to the player over the ball, they (the tackler) got done for holding the ball. This happens all the time these days. Another was that a push in the back was a free kick. Ha ha. What a duffer I am. As if that would ever be a rule.

Long-time reader, first-time contributor. (I was on Demonology years back and always appreciated the thoughts of much more knowledgeable, perceptive and insightful Demons supporters than me.) I appreciate that anyone who makes it to this level, let alone plays dozens or hundreds of games, is an exceptional footballer. But everything is relative... Lachie Hunter. What's going on there? What do Goodwin and the decision makers like about him? I know he may not play this week, but in the recent press conference, Goodwin made it sound like he desperately wanted him in the team as soon as possible. Is there something he does really well that isn't obvious to a person (me) with (at best) a mediocre understanding of the nuances of modern football? I ask because from what I see, the "brilliant footy IQ" we heard about at the time he was recruited, has never materialised. I don't remember it being there at the Bulldogs, to be honest. I don't see him as a particularly good kick (even over 25 to 30 metres), he's not a robust player, he doesn't kick many goals, he seems to take players on at the most inopportune times and the underground handball is almost like a tic. I see last year he was in the top 150 in the league for score involvements (behind only Petracca, Pickett, Viney, Neal Bullen and Chandler). Is it as simple as that? Despite the apparent sloppiness, is he in fact a very effective link player? Or is he just a known quantity benefiting from a reasonably conservative football department? Is it simply a case of better the devil you know than a debutant or five-gamer?