Adam The God

I never said Trengove was a dud, just that his first two years are ridiculously overrated. He played in a terrible team and his poise stood out, but he wasn't a great ball winner (numbers wise) and he never had explosiveness to his play.

I've begun to wonder whether JJ is too slow for the pace of the midfield and is better suited to a wing or a flank where he has the ball in front of him. I thought Sparrow's first half against the Bulldogs was exceptional. His best half ever IMV. Needs to put four quarters together and he'll be very damaging.

Reckon you'll find we started the week before the St Kilda game. Often you get the little zoom the first week and then performance starts to plateau. If you remember the first half of the St Kilda game we were brutal. Probably the best half we've played this year.

They don't listen in team meetings. One of my good mates' cousin is a Hawthorn player and he tells my mate he never listens in briefings. This is a relatively senior player too. I can imagine Trac tunes out too, but maybe I'm being unfair. :P

I've noted a few posters reckon we played a more aggressive ball movement style against Bulldogs. I'm not sure I agree. I think we've identified a weakness at centre stoppages with the Bulldogs set up. They tend to cheat forward a bit, which means if we can create a loose ball situation and tap it forward or get a handball going the other way, we get out the front of stoppage. We did this multiple times and we scored from it pretty much every time. From a half back situation I felt we looked to switch early in the game, but we still tended to go long down the wings to a contest a lot. As the Bulldogs aren't particularly strong in the air defensively, we weren't exposed to intercept too much, but Weideman was run under the ball quite often. I'd be keen to read what people think we did differently. We didn't seem to play on more fr half back. I think we just got our centre stoppage game going, but they dominated us around the ground. I noticed as in the Freo game, we allowed a 2+ at the contest. We still won it occasionally, but perhaps there was some disorganisation around stoppage? Without Lever I doubt we wanted to give up +2 in these areas. The Bulldogs were quite aggressive in these situations and I thought May was ordinary most of the match (aside from maybe 5 strong contested marks) and Petty struggled in the second half. Essentially, we didn't win the intercept possession in the air, which meant giving up those two extras at rhe contest was useless. I wonder if allowing the plus 2 means that it frees up Gus to sweep behind the interceptors? I haven't examined this thoroughly enough, but he does get in behind almost every time. It's like the Salem role from last year, except Gus is much better in the contest and Salem is a better kick. Even though JJ has made some great leaps forward this year, I actually think we should send Gus back to the wing and Salem should sweep when Lever returns. It either pushes JJ out of the team altogether or he plays some wing, half forward and half back. Gus gives us better stability behind the ball as the First line in the defensive structure. Anyway, what do others think?

Some of the commentary on this thread is ridiculous. Half way through the third quarter in the GF, WTF is Hayden Young going to do? Nothing. Jackson was instrumental in the most powerful 15 minutes of football perhaps ever witnessed. That's why Freo are going all out. Anyone stupid enough now to be going, oh we should have drafted Hayden Young (who's basically only cemented his place in Freo's side this year), is kidding themselves. Jackson was the right selection every day of the week. Just because you can't handle the thought of him leaving doesn't mean you have to post nonsense. Is what Freo are planning on paying him ridiculous? Of course it is, but Luke will become a very good player and is no more inconsistent than most of our team (aside from probably Oliver) given the position he plays. It's time we got a little perspective in this thread.

Just read this out to the wifey who is a soon to be clinical psychologist and she said that makes so much sense haha. Neither of us had ever thought about it this way. It's a great frame mate.

No, everyone is loading differently because no one else was 10 zip. The fixture also plays a part in terms of balancing those loads. We have by far the hardest draw, and rightly so, we were premiers, but that likely plays into what we can and can't do.

Every time one of our players went near it last night the Bulldogs everywhere behind us yelled out "[censored] you, Pickett!", "you're a [censored] Gawn" etc. They really do hate us. I hate them too, but I'd forgotten I hated them until last night, simply because we won the important game that mattered last year and shut them up.

True, good point. Lots of luck last year. The Suns game is a very good example, but we also faced numerous opposition without key players. The early Geelong game at the MCG is one. The lack of crowd down at GMHBA in Round 23 was probably a huge factor too. As I say though, you couldn't ask for a more perfect season.

Good stats. These are complete outliers in our game for the last 5 years. Very unusual. I expect it to turn in the coming weeks.

Yep, it's interesting isn't? I was sitting on the wing too. I thought both teams had iffy free kicks that were let go or paid. Bulldogs perhaps more so, but the rest of my family sat down the Melbourne end and they were convinced the umpiring played a huge part in the result.

And more injuries. 2021 was arguably the greatest, most dominant season for an AFL club in the modern era. We didn't lose by more than 4 goals and could have won all those 4 losses. People expecting us to replicate that A+++ season are kidding themselves. Yet... despite the constant injuries, a poorly functioning forwardline and a lack of continuity in our defensive set up (how we win games), we're second on the ladder with destiny in our hands. I expect we'll see a response in the next month. I expect we'll finish in the top 4, but I've been wrong before.

Reckon we might have just cost ourselves top 4 tonight. Certainly top 2 seems unlikely now. Our leaders were sorely lacking when we needed them to stand up in the last quarter, show poise and get the job done.

Nah.

Acres is a turnover merchant that St Kilda were happy to let go...

It's a pity it doesn't sound like a repeat of the 2015 draft that had Weitering, Curnow, the McKays and Hipwood.

Yep, if we can get another young tall to compliment JVR that might work really nicely given TMac and Brown probably have 2-3 years left. JVR and the new kid can develop at VFL level until they push out the two senior guys. But we want elite talent here. Top 10 talent.

Be funny if they lost Darcy to us after all this. :P

That's a strong team mate. We might be a little iffy kicking for goal, but we should be able to contested possession the ball over the goal line.

The Josh Mahoney connection. Interesting. If Rutten falls, I wonder if Mahoney goes too? Maybe their fates are tied together. Can't imagine what they could offer Gus given their midfield is already pretty crammed.

What do you mean 3rd week in a row? Against Geelong we played Brown, Jackson, Fritsch, Bedford, Spargo, ANB and Harmes. Against Port we brought in Melksham. And this week we've dropped Bedford and kept Melksham. By forward set up you mean Brown and the resting ruck?

Yep, I'd be playing Petty forward this year too. Long term he'll be a star back, but we have Tomlinson and Turner as cover. TMac is still 6-8 weeks away, so I'd say he's just about done for the season. When that becomes known, I reckon we'll ultimately go with Petty. JVR comes in next year and Petty goes back again. It would also explain why Smith is training forward, as we'll be fully stocked with KPDs, but short in the forwardline.

I wasn't suggesting it was intentional. That's the problem really. The lack of self awareness. Anyway, I loved Jeff as a player and I don't know the intricacies of the situation, so I'll leave it there.

Gee, I hope I don't pressure my son like this...