The Taciturn Demon

Who would you go out of your way to trade out?

Super interesting. I've wondered for a long time what happens in post-game analysis sessions. Just out of general interest, but also after watching vaunted players make the same enormous errors or indulge in the same failures over and over again. It's been years now, but Jordan Lewis, sticks out in my mind. I haven't seen a player go to ground that much and leave the difficult defensive stuff to his colleagues since Under 14s. And yet it never changed. And he was praised repeatedly for his leadership. And he placed high in the B&F in his first year. I realise that a huge amount of coaching is being at peace with every player's limitations. And when you have a player like Viney, who can will you over the line with his courage and aggression, I'm sure there's way more forgiveness - way more willingness to accept the bad with the good. But, in the end, I agree with your comment. Some things are hard to get out of players' games. But when it's affecting entire seasons, it's the coaches' and players' responsibility to at least work on it.

This post is from almost exactly a year ago and remains shockingly relevant, even with Kozzie spending way more time in the middle.

I know the last moments were thrilling and grotesque. From a media perspective, they are morbidly fascinating and fun to pick through. I don't really blame anyone for concentrating on them. But I desperately, DESPERATELY hope the club doesn't focus on them alone. If they think the problem with that game was communication and logistics in the final fifteen seconds - or even the final fifteen minutes - they are pathologically deluded. The reason we had eight consecutive goals kicked against us in the final quarter of a game we thoroughly dominated is infinitely more important than how the ninth consecutive goal came about. The cartoon incompetence of the last fifteen seconds is sound and fury. Ok, it doesn't signify nothing. But it shouldn't distract us from something less eye-catching but way more important: the midfield that Goodwin has unwavering faith in going to water over and over again for long periods in games when we desperately need them to break even. EDIT: I should add, when I say "going to water" it sounds like I'm saying the only problem is these four or five players and their flaws. I don't mean that. At least not that alone. I mean that the entire midfield system has been broken for a very long time and showing cracks even BEFORE 2021. Individually, these are very good players - albeit three now a long way from their best. But the sum of the parts - the how of centre bounce tactics, craft and combination, not the who - hasn't been as good as it could be for ages. The extravganza that was the second half of the 2021 Grand Final has lived too long in too many memories of people who aren't paid to be nostalgic or sentimental.

Shocked his name doesn't come up more on here. I'm not close to the club, but every single thing I ever heard about him was that he was a man of enormous integrity, respected for far more than his footy. Did he leave the club on decent terms?

When there's close to zero pressure from the midfield, there's very little even the very best defenders can do.

They are back. And the thing that got a lot of people through the dark days of 2007 to Roos (I would say a bit earlier, to be honest, but it's not the the done thing) - that deep down we knew we were mostly watching battlers have a crack - is no longer there. This is a team comprising players who don't just know how to win 10 in a row or fight back against very good opponents, but win a flag! And now they're routinely getting beaten by 10 or 15 goals, perennially losing to Carlton and setting the most embarrasing records in football.

The question Demon forum readers have been asking since 1999.

Shame insomnia. Why do we do this to ourselves?

It's truly phenomenal in its awfulness. People on here are talking "worse than 186" and I think in the cold hard light of day, most people will say "Actually, yeah, it's not far off."

West Coast wouldn't have lost that game if they were up by 8 goals at three quarter. That's not a throwaway line. There's something uniquely wrong with this team at this moment.

Interesting that a lot of this thread is about small moments or single problems. To lose a game when you're eight goals up at the start of the last quarter, with no notable injuries, close to EVERYTHING has to go wrong. Kozzie on the bench at the end or the 666 [censored] up are just two of dozens upon dozens of disastrous decisions and failures. You could do an entire thread alone on the absolute calamity that was our centre bounce work as St Kilda got a sniff. We didn't [censored] the bed. We filled an entire bedroom with diarrhoea. This team's fall must be close to the most precipitous of any team in the last 75 years. From bringing back a sense of pride in the club, to becoming as large a basket case as significantly less talented teams between 1970 and 2013. What an unfathomable disappointment.

Yep. Seems to get better every year and she's already very good.

Zanker! Good lord!

This is where we need to shift our attention. Stop deluding ourselves into thinking known quantities in their early 30s are suddenly going to return to 2017 form just because they move clubs. Start looking at five- to 30-gamers in their early 20s and determine whether they're not quite up to it or are simply in an unfortunate queue. Less Hunter. More Derksen.

Go big. Hold off on Sparrow but bring the rest in In: Spargo, Howes, Adams, Petty, Culley Out: May, Tholstrup, Sharp, Langdon, McDonald

It's a really fair point. He's been an exceptional one-on-one footballer. I like it in theory. I just wonder if he's got much left in practice. Those hamstrings seem like they're one small over-extension from evaporation.

Interesting that on Saturday night, Bowey, who was having another really solid game, was swung into the forward line. Like you @zoe1617, I'd love to see Langford spend more time in the forward line, although his overhead marking, which seemed like such a weapon in his under 18 footage, has been a touch underwhelming so far. I think Howes forward or an a wing would be well worth a try as well. Not so keen on May forward and JVR back. Now the season is well and truly over, I'd like to see the FD start thinking about what the team might look like in coming years and try combinations they expect to become fixtures: Tall defenders: Turner, Petty, Adams. Centre bounce midfielders: Langford, Pickett, Rivers. Tall forwards: (way less certain, but...) Jefferson, JVR, Kentfield.

Marvel/Ticketmaster probably ask you to pay a "small wallowing fee", so that's arguable.

In pools of their own misery.

I reckon I can be convinced on lots of outwardly counterintuitive things as they relate to footy. This is one that not even the strongest argument would turn me around on. Yes, footy careers are short. Yes, you need to make every game count. No, you don't need to play when very unwell or seriously affected by injured. A half-fit X is better than a fully fit Y is one of the stupidest cliches in all of top level team sport - far stupider in an 18-person game.

I just realised something amazing. Did you know Dustin Fletcher is only 50! As May gets to the end and with Lever looking a little shaky, I reckon we should be giving him a phone call. Not sure if he'd be interested, but we'd be crazy not to ask. Also, Rhyce Conca. THIRTY-TWO! That's the new 23 for the AFL. Already at the club and you know he's fit as a fiddle. Make the call, Timmy Lamb. Actually, make it a conference call. Fletcher, Daniher, Conca and, [censored] it, see what Ryan Gamble is up to.

Completely insane. But this seems like back-against-the-wall desperation to me. There's no way a half-competent football department would consider this if they didn't think they were all on the chopping block. I said Dan Houston earlier. It might be more like Byron Pickett.

He's the anti-Lachie Schulz. And the anti-Brodie Grundy: legs six times larger than his torso.

Yes. And so we should be. He also mentioned during the Carlton press conference that he's inculcating habits and behaviours that make sure we stop having enormous in-game periods of uncompetitiveness and losing to flailing semi-VFL sides. This is exactly the line he was pushing in 2016 - and Roos before him. You can't be returning to the absolute fundamentals AND bringing in a 32 year old who really only played exceptional football when his side were absolutely humming. I noticed on another thread someone mentioned a rumour that Goodwin was not just safe but possibly looking at an extension. This astounded me, but I far prefer that than Goodwin feeling like he has 12 or 15 games left to prove himself and so countenancing the most outandlishly unlikely throw at the stumps.