RalphiusMaximus

OK, I just have to vent on my one great complaint from this game. Bloody Max Gawn. He could have had GOTY sewn up and he passed it off. The guy roves his own hitout, breaks a tackle and runs the ball out of the square. All he had to do was take it to 55m or so and belt the hell out of it for a goal. Why did he do the team thing and look for a pass? Why? Interesting. I wonder if this contributed to the space our forwards were finding?

Quite happy about that. This was everything that we've been crying out for in our side. It seems like they're finally getting the balance right in the side. The addition of Langdon, Bennell and Pickett give us some pace and skill to compliment the raw grunt, Oscar down back frees up Lever and May to play their natural games and Weid plays a more traditional full-forward game than T-Mac which helps the forward structure and gives us a moving target. Some of the passes to the lead were sublime today, none better than the bullet from May that bounced of Jackson's chest. It was very interesting seeing the more senior players going out of their way to give goals to the first year players. Even the Weid declined a set shot directly in front of goal to give Jackson a freeby. I'm also thrilled with the vision Bennell is showing. I don't care if he's not enough of a contested beast for Goodwin. That's not what he was hired for and trying to turn him into another inside animal is pointless. He's in the side for the damage he can do with the ball, not for his tackling and contested ball-winning. His hand pass through a mob of Hawks to create a goal was sublime.

He looks good, but his pace isn't great. That will hurt him as a small forward. Tough as hell though.

Cody Weightman. Amazing mark and goal from a first-gamer.

It's also worth saying that OMac and the Weid made a big difference to the structure today. Oscar frees up May and Lever to play a more attacking brand and having Sam up front means we have someone contesting in the packs which means that the blind kick in hope isn't quite as disastrous for us as it normally is. Well worth persistingwith both of them. Is it just me or was Kozzie trying to set up Bennell all game?

He didn't run under it. That was just BS from the commentators because they weren't game to say he was pushed in the back and not given the free. There were three contests in a row where he was shoved out and they marked behind him. Not a peep from the Umps. And the random one outside the boundary against Oliver that nobody knows what it was for...

Seriously? The Umps were searching for frees to pay to GC all night. That free to Rankine on the boundary... WTF? And the two dodgy frees to give Ellis his second goal. Then there were all of the HTB decisions they paid to GC that they refused to pay to us... The umps were a disgrace all night.

I see what you did there. He doesn't though.

Thanks for that. I quite enjoyed it.

Think outside the box and play it in the USA. Try to nab some of those sports-starved supporters.

Put my tablet down and relax?

Honestly, I'm not sure. He seems to have produced a lot of great assistant coaches which suggests that hie methods work. On the other hand he might be a bit of a spent force by now. He's been a senior coach for a long time.

I was under the impression that the concern with Pert was that he would try to micromanage the FD (apparently he did that at Collingwood?) and mess with things he shouldn't. He doesn't seem to be doing anything like that. I don't mind him working behind the scenes to try to keep the club functioning.

At least they aren't showing us replay after replay of the injury. There have been a few where they took great delight in finding the best possible close-up angle to put on super slow-mo just to make us all nauseous.

Arms aren't meant to bend like that. Looks like a memorable debut for you Kelly.

I'd love to get him at the wright price. He's been done no favours up at GC17. Really bad place for development. The only thing they develop up there is bad habits. An important point is that he was the training partner of Jake Lever when they were juniors and the two of them were regarded as among the best trainers/workers of their year. He would do well working with Jake again and possibly push Jake along to work harder as well. He was a top ten pick. That talent doesn't just vanish.

Looks like Jono Patton has broken down again. He's in tears on the bench.

Petracca - One Magical Quarter.

Can we leave some of the coaches behind as well?

Part of that is the rule-change that killed Goodwin's first gameplan. In 2018 we were playing with four forwards and two extras at the back end of the square at centre bounces. That gave us extra players charging through the centre at the bounce, all heading forwards. It worked brilliantly, as we saw from our insane number of inside 50's that year. Even then though, it was clear that our efficiency in the forward 50 was a problem. While we were having massive I50 counts, we weren't blowing a lot of teams away on the scoreboard. We won on weight of numbers rather than good structure and quality forwards. When they changed the rules and we couldn't have those extra players behind the ball it hurt our ability to get the ball moving forward quickly, our I50 numbers dropped and the poor efficiency became more of an issue. That being said, there has also been a massive drop in efficiency which is hard to explain solely through that one change. In 2018 we scored from 46.2% of I50 entries. In 2019 we scored from 38.1% of I50 entries. This year we have scored from 33.6% of I50 entries. Has the quality of forward entries dropped by that much in two years? Was the loss of Hogan THAT significant? I'm more inclined to point the finger at a gameplan that encourages a crowded forward 50 and has no way to isolate a forward target and get them an uncontested mark. As teams figured out just how little danger there is in our attack, they have happily set up to spoil the long bomb and run it out of defence. West Coast in 2018 showed the world how easy it is to get around us by having their wingers break into space early on the assumption that the ball was going to come out of our forward line with relative ease (again, toothless attack gives them that freedom) and now teams are happy to set up for the rebound 50 with confidence knowing that we simply don't have the capacity to hurt them when they don't commit fully to defending.

It should be noted that we had the no. 1 player in the league for % successful i50 kicks and we traded him for peanuts. For the record, I am pretty sure that the bad delivery is a result of a team rule put in place by the coaches. It fits with what we've seen of Goodwin's philosophy and frankly it hasn't changed from the day he took over. If he didn't want the team doing it, we wold be seeing signs of it being stamped out by now.

Just a small step. And we need to get it done while our core group of mids are still in their prime...

That intercept by Spargo was the highlight of the whole clip as far as I'm concerned. He read the play well ahead and made up a huge amount of ground to get where he needed to be. Just great play.

We are. Unfortunately that step is recruiting a couple of genuine key forwards and developing them while overhauling our gameplan and bringing in a proper forward line coach so that we actually have a workable forward structure and tactics to deliver the ball to them in a useful fashion. It might take a while.

I'm really liking the look of young James Jordan. A few people last season thought he was showing a bit, and right now it looks like they were right. He's harder than you expect, a good ball-user and has that bit of poise where he manages to find time. He could turn out to be a very nice surprise packet.