Adam The God

You're entirely speculating with no facts. "If" is a pretty important word in your post.

That isn't what I said. I said he didn't set his own wage demands...

Yep, first 15 minutes was daring and had we kicked straight in that time we'd have been 6 or 7 goals up and it'd have been game over. We reverted to safer ball movement and they got on top of us in the second half of that first quarter.

How does too much speed of ball movement gel with the defensive back 7 though? That's the balancing act. I think it's giving licence to a certain few (as per my recent post in the game plan thread) and allowing some flexibility with the ebb and flow the game to take the game on more with the corridor.

It's probably a bit early for this as whoever wins the flag should be looked at very closely as to how they achieve it. Our FD will also be looking at likely trends in the game and how to exploit them, and how to ensure our weaknesses are minimised. But I've been thinking about our ball movement specifically. It's clear we tried to use the handball more often in the second half of the season, but it wasn't used in game to try and get players into space (except from centre clearances) or break lines. Geelong, Collingwood and Sydney tellingly all use handball to break lines and move the ball quickly. Had we been on this year, our pressure up, I think we probably don't allow the handball to break lines against us and it turns into a dump kick to our likely outnumber behind the ball. If you look at Collingwood they've got some good kicks in the Daicos boys, but the rest are certainly not elite. We have Salem and Bowey that could be employed in a similar way, and essentially I'd argue we employed Salem and Bowey at times in this way last year. I think maybe one of the factors I was wrong about this year and I think posters like @Lucifers Herowere spot on about is our pressure rating meant we were vulnerable to this faster, line breaking ball movement, and the pressure rating meant we were vulnerable to conceding scores in ways we didn't last year (minus that Collingwood game in 2021 when our players couldn't get out of first gear). It's likely we'll still have the best defensive set up next year, so having a fit back 7 with continuity could go a long way, both to improving our scores against, and our own offence. As strong defence for us turns into offence. However, there is no doubt in my mind, and there seems to be a bit of a consensus on Demonland about this, we need to move the ball quicker. Even if we had Curnow and McKay in our forwardline, we move the ball too slowly and I think we have to be prepared to give up a few more slingshots, back our defenders to stop them and be more daring going the other way to increase our unpredictability on game day. But if we're going to be more daring, we have to be smart about who has the capability to hit those kicks. May, Salem, Bowey, Petracca and even Petty if he stays behind the ball are about it I reckon. What do others think about improving ball movement?

How do you know LJ is demanding anything other than potentially wanting to go to his home state? He has no say in what Freo are willing to offer him contractually. Come on, let's not be nuffies about this.

You'd feel right at home OD. Back in your element.

I love how last year our flag was built off the coaching of our assistant coaches and now when we don't win it, it's all Goodwin's fault.

Depends what you mean by massive changes and to what end/where @Sir Why You Little. If we'd had a fit McDonald this year, who we went 10-0 with and then 6-8 without, we're having a different conversation now. We need to have a genuine back up or player that takes Tom's position and relegates Tom to the back up, but can play that hard transition running game from deep to the half back and forward again. Our game falls over otherwise. I do think we need changes, don't get me wrong, but I reckon without 24 hours passing, it's easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And yes, I am gutted, [censored] off and embarrassed by going out in straight sets, but when half your team is clearly carrying major fitness concerns, it was probably only a matter of time this year. It will be interesting to see the wash up of Griffith.

Only a group of Melbourne supporters would want to change their premiership winning coach for an untried senior coach because he played for Melbourne. It's as bad as Essendon supporters entertaining Hird as a coach because he's a legend of their club. It's real big brain stuff.

I could have put this in the game plan thread too, but it'll be fascinating to see the ramifications of tonight's loss on list management and game plan. It's very easy to panic at the list management table and throw the baby out with the bath water vis a vis the game plan, but I do wonder how the end to our season will influence how we view say our forward line for 2023. It would appear having Max as a forward and Grundy as our main ruck is a terrible idea based on Max's influence forward in the last few weeks, but if Grundy and Max were fit, maybe they'd form a super dangerous partnership? Then we have Petty the forward, who outside of Max is our best contested mark. 2019 is evidence enough that he'd be a capable forward. So does the season ending in the way it did mean we actually go Petty forward instead of Max, or does it mean both go forward and Grundy comes in? I think it's interesting that Goodwin and co admitted last week they should have played Gawn in the ruck more. That to me suggests they're not completely sold on Max as the 80% forward / 20% ruckman. Then there's JVR and whoever we get back for LJ (if he goes). As for how these things influence game plan changes, does Petty and/or Gawn going forward allow us to move the ball more centrally? Kicking to the pocket means slingshot is harder against, but kicking centrally puts more pressure on the opposition and leaves more space for our crumbers. Have we also seen the last of Melksham, Hibberd, Hunt and ANB in Melbourne jumpers?

May struggled for large parts of tonight though. Played a brilliant game on Buddy except for the 50m. But like last year and much of this year, when the ball was on the ground or the ball came in quickly, May panics. Max's dreadful tap work gave up 4 goals tonight. Controversial, but if he's not taking it out of the ruck, which is a good play for him, his tap work is a liability. Opposition teams learnt to read his taps years ago. Max and mids never seemed on the same page and it meant he would be tapping to space where we'd be out of position. Danger time. It's not a one week thing either. A fit Max is exceptional around the ground, elite, best in the game, but at stoppages he's too predictable.

Spot on. And there are wider ramifications. We had 65k+ members this year. Make a prelim, banged up, I think 2023 sees us still on target for 70k+, but going out in straights could well cost us 5-10k members next year.

It's probably early for this in the wash up, but Griffith did oversee Brisbane when they went out in straight sets a couple of times too...

Correct, I don't, but each to their own.

Nonsense. No one ever called it a panacea, just that it was a major factor. Talk about re-write history...

Just on Richmond, they're going to give up multiple first rounders for two solid B+ graders. I guess there's not a lot else on the market, but those two wouldn't scare me.

Great post mate. It's an interesting discussion because the l wonder whether it comes down to a black and white decision in list management terms. You either try to do what Geelong has done and keep your club around the mark and hope to challenge. Or, you draft a group of players together like we did and go really hard for 5 years and see if you can win 2 or 3 flags and then bottom out and load up again. The more time goes on, and having won the flag last year, my view on this is we should be aiming for the latter strategy. With the Grundy chase and the long term deals everywhere, it would appear the FD is of a similar view.

My point is it's not over and if we beat Brisbane, we're a big shot against Geelong...

You know it's possible that LJ has said no to Freo, so Haselby, a former Freo man, plays some media games to downplay LJ.

It'll be interesting if LJ stays. I wonder, could we play LJ, Max and Grundy? Play LJ as a midfielder..

Surely that's the thinking.

Sounds like Clarkson doesn't want to rebuild. He wants to hit the ground running if this is remotely true.

And yet we'd be two wins off a flag and a big shot against Geelong on the MCG.

It's the pressure up the ground. Our half forwards and mids didn't do enough to ensure Sydney's entries were dirty or wide. They went pretty centrally because there wasn't enough pressure on the ball carrier. I'd love to know our post clearance pressure ratings over the last two months.