KozzyCan

Balme being sacked lead to Daniher coming in, making a prelim the following year and a Grand Final two years after that. Also you seem to be forgetting one coach in particular.

Few things. Everything from clearance starts from the midfield so if those guys aren't getting it done then maybe they need to be moved out of there? Goodwin can make those moves but so far he's backed them in. Petracca is the only one who gets moved forward despite being a more damaging midfielder than either Viney or Oliver. Max is old and not impacting games like he used to but you can get by without a ruck dominating games. We rely too much on him saving us with his marking. Need to adapt to that. Other thing is we are absolutely horrible at the turnover game which is far more important to modern footy than clearance. We struggle to force turnovers and when we do we don't score from them. That's a whole team thing and an issue with how we rebound.

Think Goodwin knew we were in for some pain late in the pre-season which was why he was tempering expectations. It shouldn't matter as the club planted their stake firmly in the ground last year that the expectation was finals. I can't think of any moments so far this season that have really shown how we're trying to play in a way that will actually stand up. The players look completely confused and are second guessing themselves, the running patterns are a mess, and guys who won a flag together look like they've never played football with eachother before. I can't see it suddenly clicking and the team looking like a threat again any time soon. The best we could hope for is that Goodwin releases the shackles and lets the players play on instinct, but to do so would be yet another failure to change the gameplan.

Ultimately, the moment the club no longer believes he is the man to take us forward is the moment he should go. Past achievements count for nothing in that respect. You simply can't afford to be sitting on your hands as a club.

That record really says more about our club's shortcomings than Goodwin as a coach. The results we are seeing right now are as bad as we saw in Neeld's first year with a far superior list. That trend simply cannot continue for a whole season. I've seen some argue that it takes time to learn a new gameplan, and I agree to an extent, but the transition cannot and should not be this bad. We've been told the team is working on their forward entries for years they are as bad as they've ever been. Collingwood learned a new gameplan in one off-season that took them from second last to top 4 in 2022. Ditto for GWS in 23. Geelong also changed the way they played after 2021 and won a flag the following year. There are teething issues and there's being completely uncompetitive and out of sync with each other. If we're in the same position at the bye I would say he absolutely does not deserve to finish out the season. It will be incumbent on the club to start looking towards the future.

The fact is the club was expecting finals and we currently look like bottom four and have several stars who have tried and are trying to leave the club. How much patience do you give him to turn this around? The rest of the season? The rest of his contract? Do you reset expectations and embrace a rebuild? Is he even the right coach to take on that task? Better coaches than Goodwin have been sacked by stronger clubs than Melbourne.

I could absolutely see us getting a little sugar hit, managing to jag 3 out of the next 4 and the club thinking we're turning things around before getting absolutely smacked back into submission by the better sides.

Goodwin absolutely has favourites as does every coach. It's not so much about who the coach is mates with but there are players at every club who get a much longer leash than others. Guys like Lachie Hunter will get pushed out of the club for breaking standards while guys like Oliver will get chance after chance no matter how many time standards are broken.

2-6 will mean very little when we get to the bye 2-12

Petty is the same unfortunately.

We play a completely different style. We were still massive on contested footy and clearance but we had our defenders push up the ground to provide outnumbers when we went forward and left our defenders on an island. These days we have our forwards running back to help out in defence and have no one to go to when we actually win the footy so we can't score.

Forward entries have been pretty poor under Goodwin regardless of who our midfield coaches have been since 2019. Even in 17-18 there were some frustrations but we were a much better scoring side then as our half forwards pressed up to the contest aggressively before doubling back to run and gun it to the forwardline.

Sure but ultimately you can't keep hemorrhaging forever just because the club has another position to fill. The people currently at the club will be responsible for making a decision.

It's an issue but I don't think the club can really sit on their hands if the current form continues through to the middle of the year. Collingwood lost their president prior to the 2021 season but they managed to remove Buckley and start looking for their next coach despite facing a board challenge from both fans and Jeff Browne.

Reckon the whole 'choose your own adventure' training regime deserves a bit of blame here.

The players being in two minds about where to move the ball says to me they're getting conflicting information rather than straightforward instructions. Was similar under Neeld, we'd always hear about how the players were still learning the gameplan. I think it's [censored], it's footy not rocket surgery. Keep it simple so players know what they're doing and what to expect from their teammates.

The fact that we've had so many of our best players with a foot out the door over the past few years should be enough to get Goodwin sacked on its own.

I simply don't agree that this side can't play a different style that is competitive with the modern game. This labourious chip kick control game where we slowly move the ball around until we finally bomb it to the goal square ain't it though.

All these examples weren't even about the ball use but the decision making.

Don't know that the turn around in the third quarter was really anything to do with coaching specifically. All our gun players just went to another level and we started walking out the front of clearance and nailing every shot at goal at the same time the Dogs were hitting a wall.

2021 we were second for inside 50s averaging 56.3 and second for marks inside 50 with 12.7. We were also 1st for shots on goal averaging 28.4 but fourth for goals kicked at 12.9. So still some conversion issues there but generally much better in those areas. 2022 we were third for inside 50s but with a higher average of 56.5 but marks inside 50 dropped a bit down to 11.3. Importantly marks inside 50 shot way up this year with Geelong ranked 1st with a whopping average of 15. We were ranked 8th in this area. We also dropped off on shots on goal, ranked 6th with 26.6 and 6th again for goals kicked averaging 12.5. The highest scoring teams this year were Richmond, Geelong and Brisbane who all averaged over 14 goals a game. I think this year was really the canary in the coal mine that the game was moving in a different direction from our contest/defence forward half style. 2023 we were first for inside 50s with an average of 58.4. 6th for marks inside 50 with 12.8, 4th for shots on goal with 26.7 but 6th for goals again with 12.8. I believe this is the year you were talking about where we successfully locked it into our forward half but couldn't really improve our scoring off the back of it. 2024 we fall off a cliff for inside 50s, ranked 15th with an average of only 49. 14th for marks inside 50 with an average of 11, 15th for shots on goal with 22.9 and 14th for goals with an average of 11.3. And as I pointed out in my previous post we're significantly worse in these areas this year. It's interesting to me that we weren't much worse in 22 or 23 in regards to our forward entries or scoring capability but the competition drastically improved in those areas and went past us. Some might say that it's a fools errand for us to try and emulate football styles our list wasn't built for but it's clear that going back to the well that won us a flag in 2021 wasn't going to get it done again. We had to change and we waited far too long to actually pull the trigger. Now we're trying to change but so far Goodwin has not shown that he can transform this side into one that can play the modern game.

Reckon both are pretty ordinary. Oliver looks like he's just going through the motions, Petracca looks like he's genuinely miserable to be playing here. Wonder what the young players are thinking seeing a senior player carry on like that.

Our inside 50 entries have actually gotten far worse. We're 15th for inside 50s averaging 50.5 a game. This is surprisingly up from last year where we averaged only 49 inside 50s per game. These are pretty average numbers for inside 50s per game over the past few years so not a massive issue on its own. Here's where the problems really start. We are dead last for scores, averaging 8.5 goals per game and 11 behinds. Meaning we are getting 19.5 scoring shots per game. That's as bad as richmond last year. We're 16th for tackles inside 50 averaging 7.8 a game down from 10.7 last year. But even worse we are equal last for marks inside 50 and a dismal 7.5 a game down from 11 last year. For reference Richmond were the worst in this area last year with an average of 9.5. It's really just appalling how bad we continue to be in this area and unforgivable that we've gotten significantly worse.

Reckon Rowell stays at the Suns if they're pushing for finals.

It's pretty rare to see a team as disconnected as we are. Something is really off this year.