Lord Travis

We haven’t beat the Swans since Dean Bailey was our coach. He’s been dead for four years. With the side in poor form, and knowing how the Swans own us, i have zero confidence about tomorrow’s match.

He got dropped and then had his jaw broken in his VFL match. He got dropped for a reason and hasn’t had time to rectify the cause of his dropping and build form to return to AFL level. If he plays, it’s poor decision making by the coaching staff.

This is not the first time in the past few weeks that we've heard referencing to buying in. We’re now at year 6 of the Roos/Goodwin build or year 3 of Goodwins tenure. We should be well passed the stage of having to ‘buy in’. What has happened over the offseason to fracture the club? Is it player level? Coaching level? Something has happened if we’ve reverted back to the level of needing people to buy in!

He’s one of the best kicks in the league and has been for years. He’s just inconsistent and doesn’t get enough of it to display those kicking skills and vision regularly. He kicked 45 goals from the wing back in 2012 while at the Swans though, so can be very damaging. Heres another one for the hindsight file. He could’ve been ours! https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/overlooked-jetta-cousin-now-racing-up-the-draft-rankings-20090930-ge84ds.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

3 years of ongoing foot injuries and multiple foot surgeries have robbed him of any pace and power. He refused to even have a set shot for goal from 40 out last week as he knew he couldn’t kick the journey. Jack could’ve banged it from 50 on the run a few years ago. As said above, he’s been Trengove’d. I don’t think he’ll ever recover those attributes, and as a result we’ve likely seen his best footy already ?

Have a friend who is a coach at Essendon. Can confirm this is one of the tactics they used. Another was his opponent streaming forward of the contest knowing Jones wouldn't/couldn't go with him. If we won the ball and Jones got it, they weren't as concerned about him being damaging compared to what they'd be able to get out of exploiting the match up. They rotated Heppell, Parish and Smith through the wing playing off Jones to great effect. It's a match up that opposition clubs are exploiting, and they would've done the same last year against Tyson. We need to stop playing slow inside mids on the wing and play someone with running stamina and/or pace. Players like Fritsch, Stretch, Hunt, Hibberd are the types we should be playing there now. The wing needs to stop being a grave yard for slow inside mids or retiring players being protected. Not sure what to do with Jones unless we play him inside mid again and start pushing Brayshaw and Oliver to the outside for stints?

Every single club can say the same about a stack of different players. McInerny last through to pick 37 in the rookie draft, so every club passed on him over 100 times. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Likewise, though from what I've read they've been playing Bedford more back than forward?

Does anyone here have any knowledge of the upcoming draft? We have to use our first round pick this year as per the draft rules of not using one in the draft in the past 4 years. Who are the best hard running and pacy midfielders in the upcoming draft? We need quick mids who have good footskills and run both ways. Ports most recent draft crop of Conner Rozee, Zak Butters and Xavier Duursma gave us headaches in round 1 and look built for the modern game. Butters in particular looks like he will be a very damaging player. Who are the best pacy and agile small forwards? We need quick small forwards who can use speed to harass like Aaron Davey of years gone by and hit the scoreboard too. The likes of Spargo have poor-average pace and offer little to no defensive pressure (see Spargo zero tackles in round 1!). They also do not consistently hit the scoreboard, averaging less than a goal a game.

70,000 is a pipe dream. The club’s lucky they conned enough of us to beat our record and get close to 50,000. The 70,000 talk shows how delusional the higher ups are and how far off the pace we still are.

We’ve lost our past 5 matches now (Prelim, JLT 1+2, Round 1+2). That’s a bad form slump. We need to turn that around tonight or our season will quickly slip away as we lose touch with the top 4/8. I feel sick heading to the ground at the moment. I have no confidence we can get the job done and am confused how such a talented list can perform so poorly. FIRE UP DEMONS FFS!!!

If we lose tonight I’ll [censored] spew.

Would kill for Tim Kelly or Wayne Milera type to provide some zip and clean creative disposal. Exactly what we’re missing!

I was an advocate for drafting him. He looks decent. Solid role player, no fuss. Has the right attributes to make a decent career as a small forward. He’s just what we need and unfortunately we missed him. Now we move on and hope Bedford etc come on and fill that role.

0-2 doesn’t mean we can’t make top 4 or finals, but it does mean the margin for error has decreases each week we lose. We now need to go 15-5 for the remainder of the season. If we lose to the Bombers, we have to go 15-4. On form and seeing how other clubs have better adapted to the new rules, it seems unlikely we’ll perform that well. It’s a disappointing start to the year thus far, and I’d hate for this year to become a waste. Our list is clearly ready to challenge, so anything else is unacceptable.

That’s scary. Those numbers show they all hit their expected output or better. There’s not really any improvement to come from them. Our forward line seems to be the big weakness now. It’s obviously not scoring, but the most damning part is the lack of defensive pressure. If we get it forward and don’t score, we now fail to lock it in and it rebounds up the other end like lightning. Spargo was dropped for laying zero tackles last week. Lockhart cracked in for a first gamer. Hannan is cooked for most of the year. JKH is gone for the year. Kent no longer at the club. We need Garlett into the team ASAP.

Our game style is shithouse. It’s like we’ve gone back to 2014 when Paul Roos was just starting to teach our players how to defend and they were running around like headless chooks.

Need to have football basics drilled into him. Whether that’s VFL or AFL level I don’t know. He just makes far too many fundamental mistakes with the basics of the game. His strength and power are impressive, but aren’t utilized in games and therefore become irrelevant.

Our percentage is 48%. That’s Neeld era percentage!

The Petracca squib summed up his season thus far. We need to win next week or it’s season over. Only 3 teams in 100+ years have won the flag from 0-3.

1 goal in two quarters in unacceptable in any match. Fight it out boys and show some pride for the jumper for [censored] sake!

Key issue is still lack of leadership. Lewis might not be a great player anymore, but at least he’s a vocal leader who barks orders and organizes the troops. Lever is the same. Their leadership absence is evident. Neither Jones or Viney are vocal leaders. It’s great to have some lead by example types, but we need vocal leaders to organize us. This is still a young team who need guidance.

On track for an 80 point thumping here. What key changes do we make for next week to try and save our season?

So many key player a out of form. Gawn has been woeful. Has he drunk too much bath water?

Season on the ropes. Us vs Essendon next week, loser is likely cooked. So many player so out of form, and our game style is atrocious.