praha

Grundy is an established AA ruck and arguably one of the best rucks in the league. He might even push AA selection this year. Crazy we got rid of him, crazy he ever even played at Casey, and crazy we never played him in finals, ESPECIALLY if our intent was to trade him. We might have gotten more for him. Instead we had Schache suit up 🤡

I think we're playing him because no matter how bad he is at AFL level, having him in the VFL will bring his trade level down even more.

Explains Hoskin-Elliot winning the Kent Kingsley Award for Spuds Who Play Well Against Melbourne.

I swear I meant to write someone else... I think I was reading about Oscar Allen and my brain went into auto-pilot. Yes, I have a brain.

Freo throwing the kitchen sink at Chad Warner. Watch us recruit Charlie Dixon and Oscar Allen.

I might have my numbers wrong but North hasn't won at the MCG since 2017. Against guess who?

need to stick with Tholstrup. For multiple weeks. If he's not playing this week I'll be really disheartened.

11th is generous. We're much closer to Adelaide than we are to the Bulldogs. Or even Hawthorn.

That is coach-killing territory. It's the kind of drop off you'd experience from losing key personnel and also probably your coach. Think Richmond this year. Or Hawthorn in 2022. You're talking key resource changes. I'm thinking Goodwin still needs one more pre-season to turn it around but the football department might be really close to the cliff here. I'm not sure he even survives the year unless his and his team's coaching improves. That's not to say I'm calling for that personally, but the club is one really bad loss away from the board stepping in. We're looking at a a sub-20k crowd this Saturday night, a loss could really up the volume on the jungle drums. I don't think we'll lose though. Missed pre-seasons, and losing Brayshaw... you can't justify that drop-off even with those. Especially when you consider how we started the season with really strong wins. The drop off is holistic across the season and reflective of broader issues. Melbourne can't be the only team that just goes from being top 2 in multiple statistics, to bottom third and literally all of them, after a single pre-season. That's a major red flag.

I find it so hard to believe that it "simply didn't work". We played good football with both in the side. Gave up way too early. And then picked Schache over him in a final. To top it off we ship him to another contender. Smh.

I'm here all week!

watch Collingwood win this lol

internally yes but Goodwin and the coaching team have mostly escaped it. Schwartz has really been the only one to externally in the media question Goodwin's tenure.

I don't have a dog.

The losses to WC, Freo and Collingwood aren't scrutinised enough. We are badly out of form and very poorly coached right now. We're definitely entering "Please explain" territory from the board because we've lost all momentum after the flag and simply haven't been able to grow or really take advantage of that success off and on the field. Collingwood will come back and win. But North are playing well atm. On current form we are probably ranked 16th-18th over the past month. We should still play finals but on curreny form i reckon 10 wins maximum.

Schache was played as a sub as a backup ruck.

Cats and Dees... yes. Collingwood is just a superbly coached team where the buy-in and hunger is at an all time high. Collingwood rarely won big last year. They just found a way to win. But there was always a lingering sense someone could beat them. Sydney is just awesome.

This might be controversial around these parts but it might be time we stop letting Gawn be the final sign off on who we recruit.

Hawthorn would give us a football lesson if we played them today.

When the Dogs are on they look legit top 4. When they're off, it's a real mystery. Ditto for Freo but when they're off they just look legit [censored].

The ridiculous thing is that we're playing better statistically than either Carlton or GWS were at this point last season. And by a considerable margin. We're also only two games off the pace compared to last season. Petracca is a huge loss obviously but Lever returning is huge and I hope Goodwin sticks firm with either Tomlinson or Petty in defense, and bloods Jefferson. We went an extended period last year without Oliver and also Gawn (even though we had Grundy). We've hit this patch at probably the best time: before a bye, before we play North, and before a fairly reasonable draw home. Five more wins from here gets it done: North, WC, Essendon, Gold Coast, Port, Bulldogs, GWS, Collingwood.... all very winnable. Brisbane in Brisbane honestly the toughest may match we have. We're not dead yet.

I fully expect us to bounce back, make finals, and then lose to Essendon in week 1.

I think that two straight set finals exits is a red flag.. this season I don't think he's coaching well but a lot has happened and it's just snowballed. Hence why I think we're better off judging him at this point next season.

The reality is that there is life out of footy and Maynard is clearly very close with a number of players. Which is probably our problem. We need to be hated and feared. If this was Hawthorn during their prime years and even now, they would leave everything on the field and regardless of friendships they'd have gone to town on Maynard. And then resume regular programing off the field. The problem is we aren't feared. Even after our flag, people knew that what's happened now was going to happen. We're in the same basket as Footscray. We could have the best list ever but it won't matter because the big boys of the league know they're in a different league. Love or hate him, Neeld had the right idea in that he wanted us to be the hardest team to play against and hated. You can want to he a hard team to play against, but unless you're truly feared, there will always be the belief that if you match our intensity, you have a chance to win.

Goodwin should be given a chance to right this ship. But the walls are closing in.