Adam The God

Look, don't get me wrong. I'm as frustrated as the next MFC supporter and I want to experience a flag with my family at the MCG, but I also know, realistically, you need a whole heap of luck to go your way and they don't come around that often for a reason. I think what we've seen over the last fortnight on Demonland is a huge overraction. Chandler kicks his goal against Port, Grundy and Gus kick their goals, and we're suddenly 9-2, 2nd with a strong percentage. Instead, it went 11 points in the opposite direction and the sky is falling. And this has seen the return of a lot of posters who I would consider quite negative, and they are seemingly (if I'm being kind) incapable of knowing their history. And history is hugely important in setting realistic expectations. I'm not going to lay out all the Hawthorn stuff again with their 2015 premiership year being one that saw them finish 3rd and lose to everyone else in the top 5 around them, before winning the flag. And I'm not going to mention the premiers from last year who were 5-4 at Round 9. And we won't go into Richmond's 2017 flag year, where they were 5 zip and then lost 4 in a row by 76, 5, 2 and 3 to sit 5-4 at Round 9 (and later 7-5 at Round 13 + losing to St Kilda by 67 points in Round 16). None of this is to say we'll definitely be premiers this year, but knowing your history and your football makes all these strawmen cliches like we can't beat top opposition, we beat up on lesser opposition etc etc seem completely ridiculous. We're nothing like the Daniher era, because we have an elite tier of players (we didn't under Danners), we have a game style built for finals (under Danners, it was all offence and no defence). Of course, Demonland is a place to vent our frustrations, but if you have a [censored] take, you deserve to be called out for your [censored] take. And we've had a lot of [censored] takes around here recently.

The whole point of the conversation has been about scores conceded from stoppages, not our inability to intercept. Perhaps our inability to intercept has meant the plays have led to stoppages, but that's a different conversation. They don't run forward side every time. That's just factually incorrect. That's Fox Footy handpicking a couple of moments. Watch them on Friday night. Most of the time, they hold space and guard and play behind the stoppage, but they're, IMO, in D50, too far from the back of the stoppage, so there is space to exploit for the opposition forwards and mids, as much as there is space for our half backs to slingshot if we win it.

I thought this was going to be about a supporter base that has been so starved of success for 57 years that has now flipped and expects to win every flag in the next five years. An inability to deal with success humbly, rationally and logically.

Yeah, it's not 1998 mate.

If he's playing a defensive role and blocking up space and defending ball movement (given he's quicker than Hunter), how does that change the conversation? Langdon no longer plays the attacking role, so to expect the same attacking output is perhaps pretty unfair. Would we like more out of him? Possibly, but we don't know the internal KPIs.

That's a forward and midfield pressure thing though, not a stoppages structure thing. I agree, we look ordinary at ground level. 2021 we were very good in that area. Not perfect, but very solid.

Scrappy kicks and dirty entries don't lead to direct scores though. They're coming from stopages, so that's a structures thing from stoppages. And if you look at us statistically across rhe year, we're not struggling for centre clearances. We're good in that area. We're struggling at stoppage clearances.

Completely agree. Sure, we need guys that can win or defend groundball (that's ideally your smalls), but I'd much prefer someone who is a legitimate threat in the air. That's not Himmelberg. It's the usual, hey, this player plays somewhere else and is therefore better than anything we've got.

What does he mean by "tight"? My view on our wingers is that we play wide, as in, we don't play sweepers as such (on most plays). Our wingers play 1v1 out the back of a stoppage, but say 15-20m off, rather than as that inside slider off the back of the contest (5-10m from the ball up) to handball receive or defend. This is obviously a shift from Gus last year playing that sweeper role as a dummy defensive winger, and Salem/Bowey and Langdon playing it in 2021. "Tight" sounds like they are somehow goalside of the contest or very close to the stoppage as a sweeper?

Never rated Jayden, so I'm comfortable with it.

Weideman indicated he wanted to go, so we managed a trade for Schache to cover for Weideman.

Reckon he'll play against Collingwood.

Looks lost when we're in the top 4? This might be the worst post of the year. Congratulations.

LJ wouldn't get a game in the modern game. He had absolutely no defensive game. Loved him, was incredible offensively, but would be a liability when the opposition had the ball. I agree though that we need more x factor forward of the ball. I'd be looking for an x factor small (Watson?) in the draft and getting in Bailey Humphies ear. When Richmond changed the game in 2017, they did it with Riewoldt bringing the ball to the ground and contesting, and a fleet of smalls with x factor at ground level. Problem is they need to have a good aerobic base too, which takes time to build. But I'd trust our mids to get it in there enough to give that sort of set-up some looks. Right now we have too many guys that aren't quick enough, nor mercurial enough in the forward half. Kozzy and Fritsch the exceptions to the mercurial.

This seems a potentially fair criticism. From a teaching perspective, it would make sense to release the shackles in the second half of the year after making strides with intercept game. It means that if Clarry or Trac is being tagged, they can throw the tag by still contributing with intercept and defence. Trac obviously has the ability to go forward too to break that tag.

Great point about tempo and this rightly being moment-dependent @deanox. If we adjust our structures more defensively in D50 when momentum is against us, it might take the pressure off our feeling that scoring could be generated at any moment, and lessen the fumbles. Who knows...

Okay, so a little debate topic I wanted to post in this thread too, RE our stoppage clearance numbers (our centre clearance numbers are decent). I think we may have to tweak our approach to stoppage clearances to tighten up scores against clearance. I believe in our quest to score (both on slingshot from D50 and inside our A50), we leave too much space around the contest for teams to chain out of when we lose clearance. Of course, it works the other way around too, but I think our ability to defend D50 is more important than slingshot. If I'm right, maybe it's a case of clogging up D50 at stoppages and sacrificing an easier slingshot/handball chain out of our D50, but keeping the space in the A50 at stoppages, and back our defensive system to stop teams scoring when they chain out of our A50. What do others think?

I think we may have to tweak our approach to stoppage clearances. I believe in our quest to score (both on slingshot from D50 and inside our A50), we leave too much space around the contest for teams to chain out of when we lose clearance. Of course, it works the other way around too, but I think our ability to defend D50 is more important than slingshot. If I'm right, maybe it's a case of clogging up D50 at stoppages and sacrificing an easier slingshot/handball chain out of our D50, but keep the space in the A50 at stoppages, and back our defensive system to stop teams scoring when they chain out of our A50.

Potentially, although from a psychological perspective, the club may feel it's important to get one up on them at this stage of the year. @Engorged Onion, you probably don't agree with this? However, that may well be the club's thinking. And to perform on the big stage.

Just like the 2014 Hawks, hey? Finished 2nd, but lost to 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th. So they lost to everyone else in the top 4 and 5th... The footy media have the attention span of a rock.

I'd lost my voice by half time. The MCC for the most part have painfully little understanding of the game and rarely get going vocally. At every centre bounce, I'd be yelling something. Everyone else pretty much nothing. I'm passionate, frustrated and irrational at times during games. It's afterwards that I become contemplative.

Aside from the nature of yesterday's loss (RE ball movement), what is this based on at all? We've improved our scoring sources, ball movement and experimented with personnel to lessen the load on Gawn, Clarry, Trac and Viney. The areas that hurt last season were stodgy, predictable and slow ball movement, and an inability to defend ground ball in D50. I'd argue we haven't seen a big improvement on the defenaive ground ball, but otherwise, weve improved our ability to fenerare scores from different sources, with an unpredictable forward mix. Sure, around the ground stoppages need to improve numbers wise, but with our best three mids in there nore often, I would be surprised if that doesn't improve. I'm not sure it's a fair analysis to call what I'm saying burying my head in the sand. Nowhere have I said our performances the last fortnight have been good enough. And I've very definitely said that yesterday's loss was "pathetic". It's less about a narrative and more about realism. You're never going to get 23 rounds of perfect football. We didn't even deliver that in the brilliance of 2021. We had the same doubters coming for us then too. Of course, we have to improve, but the point I keep trying to make is that you could have been saying these exact same things to Hawthorn or Richmond supporters the years they won their flags. Given our travel thus far and lack of continuity with the side, to be 7-4 and 4th, we have a second half draw that I know you know is very VIC based and should give us a chance to cement our top 4 spot. Yeah, we do have to win another 8-10 games to make top 4, but I expect us to win the majority of Carlton (x2), Geelong, GWS, St Kilda, Richmond, North, Hawthorn and Sydney. And we have home games against the Lions and Adelaide, which are eminently winnable. Neither teams are the same teams away from home. I have no idea whether we're going to win the flag, all I'm saying is, all is not as bad as it may seem.

I reckon it's more likely he was being tagged by O'Meara. Port also tagged Jack. He wasn't up to scratch yesterday, but would be very surprised if there wasn't a tag on him.

The way we've been losing hasn't been remotely like 2022, except for ironically today's loss.

Mate, it's bizarre you're getting on here and writing a book (like I usually do) without having watched the game.