Adam The God

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.

I have no idea whether we're trying to time it for Collingwood, that's pure guesswork, but this is why it's so folly to be picking apart results at Round 10 and 11, and saying ridiculous things like sack the coach, we won't make the 8 and other such nuffiness (I'm not saying you've ever said remotely anything like this btw). As for what I hope, I really do hope we're targeting that Collingwood game.

What is a loser mentality though mate? Some of us are merely saying we need a bit of perspective. It's fine to vent our frustration, but you're implying here we're not contenders because we've lost two games by a total of 11 points, yet we sit in the top 4 with a very healthy percentage that also happens to currently be the best percentage. I'll pop this in here as well. ---- It's all well and good to be frustrated. I thought we were pathetic today, but I find it easier to look at the bigger picture and history is an important reminder in AFL footy (and anything really). We're top 4, with a softer draw coming up in the second half of the year, with less 8 point games than our other top 4 opposition. Many parts of our game are in good shape (our turnover game), and others (stoppages) need some work. The stoppages issue IMV has much scope for improvement when we start to throw our better mids through the contest more often. So that's personnel. The history side of it is more telling. Many supporters seem to have this expectation that having won 2021, we'd be winning flags over and over in the same way. We've had to change the way we're playing because the competition adapted to our intercept game in 2021. But no team in the modern era has gone through seasons like our 2021 season repeatedly. They've all had ups and downs. Let's look at the Hawthorn threepeat team as a prime example. 2013 was their 2021. They won 19 games and aside from their qualifying final win over Sydney, won their prelim and GF by a combined 4 goals. Their finals series that season was nothing like the dominance of ours in 2021. And maybe this, plus the fact they'd fallen after their 08 flag, kept them hungry going into 2014. But still, 2014 saw them finish second on 17 wins. To Round 10, they were 6 and 3 (there was a bye at Round 9). Those three losses were to Sydney (who finished above them in 1st), Geelong (who finished one place below them in 3rd) and 5th placed Port. Plus, they fell over the line to Essendon (who finished 7th) by 4 points in Round 2, and some of their wins were big wins to the likes of the new and young Suns, eventual wooden spooners St Kilda and struggling Brisbane who finished in the bottom 4. If that was our start, we'd have been saying all the same things. Oh, we can't beat the sides around us, our competitors, but we have no trouble beating up the lowly sides. We're flattrack bullies etc. Their 2014 finals campaign was better than their 2013 finals series, winning two finals easily, but winning their prelim against Oort on the MCG by 3 points. Again, nowhere near as good as our 2021 finals series. Moving on to 2015, and this time, they finished 3rd on 16 wins. They went the first 10 rounds 6-4. To Round 10, they lost to Essendon (who would finish 4th bottom), Port (who would finish 9th), GWS (who finished 11th) and one of their main competitors Sydney (who finished 4th, one place below Hawthorn that year). Meanwhile, they beat Geelong (who would miss the 8 that year), us (who were very ordinary in our second year under Roos - we finished 13th), 16th placed Suns and 14th placed St Kilda. Again, a season to Round 10, nothing to write home about. And their finals campaign in 2015 saw them lose their qualifying final and having to go the long way to win it. Why did I bother with all this? Well, perspective is a funny thing. And it's funny how quickly we forget things. We've forgotten how powerful our 2021 finals campaign was, and expecting us to replicate that is folly. As for it's all over by Round 10 or 11, well, history shows us that is simply not the case and that if you're in the hunt for the top 4 and injury-free come the last few rounds, that's the goal. Not being the clear premiership standout by Round 10, because we know how that goes, don't we Melbourne fans (*cough* 2022 *cough*).

People will hate it, but Selwyn Griffith said on the Demonland podcast, that by this stage, players are starting to fatigue badly. Layer on the possibility that we're targeting the Collingwood game to be blistering (think that St Kilda game in Round 8 last year), we could well be managing players that fatigues them in the Freo and Carlton games and causes 15-20 intercept mark spills, suddenly poor accuracy and poor disposal and decision making...

Nor what we've put into practice for the first 10 rounds either.

Agreed. 👍

I love Rivers as a shut down / intercept defender, even occasionally as a running defender, but I think he's started to chew off far too much with his kicking.

Today we played like 2022. We played safe, long, slow, predictable footy. That hasn't been the way we've played this year.

Here's the thing though. It's all well and good to be frustrated. I thought we were pathetic today, but I find it easier to look at the bigger picture and history is an important reminder in AFL footy (and anything really). We're top 4, with a softer draw coming up in the second half of the year, with less 8 point games than our other top 4 competitors. Many parts of our game are in good shape (our turnover game, our scoring sources), and others (stoppages) need some work. The stoppages issue IMV has much scope for improvement when we start to throw our better mids through the contest more often, plus I'm sure we'll have some tactical tweaks too. So that's personnel and tactics that you don't necessarily want to show in the first ten rounds. The history side of it however is more telling. Many supporters seem to have this expectation that having won 2021, we'd be winning flags over and over in the same way. We've had to change the way we're playing because the competition adapted to our intercept game in 2021. But no team in the modern era has gone through seasons like our 2021 season repeatedly. They've all had ups and downs. It's very similar for Richmond's 4 year period, but let's look at the Hawthorn threepeat team as a prime example. 2013 was their 2021. They won 19 games and aside from their strong qualifying final win over Sydney, won their prelim and GF by a combined 4 goals. Their finals series that season was nothing like the dominance of ours in 2021. And maybe this, plus the fact they'd fallen after their 2008 flag, kept them hungry going into 2014. But still, 2014 saw them finish second on 17 wins. To Round 10, they were 6 and 3 (there was a bye at Round 9). Those three losses were to Sydney (who finished above them in 1st), Geelong (who finished one place below them in 3rd) and 5th placed Port. Plus, they fell over the line to Essendon (who finished 7th) by 4 points in Round 2, and some of their wins were big wins over the likes of the new and young Suns, eventual wooden spooners St Kilda and struggling Brisbane who finished in the bottom 4. If that was our start, we'd have been saying all the same things. Oh, we can't beat the sides around us, our competitors, but we have no trouble beating up the lowly sides. We're flattrack bullies etc etc. Their 2014 finals campaign was better than their 2013 finals series, winning two finals easily, but only won their prelim against Port on the MCG by 3 points. Again, nowhere near as good as our 2021 finals series. Moving on to 2015, and this time, they finished 3rd on 16 wins. They went the first 10 rounds 6-4. To Round 10, they lost to Essendon (who would finish 4th bottom), Port (who would finish 9th), GWS (who finished 11th) and one of their main competitors Sydney (who finished 4th, one place below Hawthorn that year). Meanwhile, they beat Geelong (who would miss the 8 that year), us (who were very ordinary in our second year under Roos - we finished 13th), the 16th placed Suns and the 14th placed St Kilda. Again, a season to Round 10, nothing to write home about. And their finals campaign in 2015 saw them lose their qualifying final and having to go the long way to win it. Why did I bother with all this? Well, perspective is a funny thing. And it's bizarre how quickly we forget things. We've forgotten how powerful and abnormal our 2021 finals campaign was. Expecting us to replicate that was always folly. As for it's all over by Round 10 or 11, well, history shows us that is simply not the case and that if you're in the hunt for the top 4 and injury-free come the last few rounds, that's the goal. Just because we're not the clear premiership standout by Round 10, doesn't mean we won't win it, because we know how that one goes, don't we Melbourne fans (*cough* 10-0 in 2022 *cough*).

Reckon Collingwood might beg to differ. This is how they've played for 12 months. Sure, you need multiple avenues to goal, and we need to stop allowing too many goals from stoppage, however it's our sloppiness as you say that let us down.

Adelaide win tomorrow and it's back to thank you Peter Bell for a top 10 pick. 🤣

Again, have you listened to the podcast with our own fitness boss...?

Yep, agreed. Tomlinson to McKay, May to Curnow and Lever gets to play interceptor. He'd better be a hell of a lot cleaner next week than he was today though. All of that said, Rivers has worried me for weeks with ball in hand. He misses targets as much as he hits them.

No team can take unrelenting pressure. There is nothing insightful about that as a take mate. That's essentially how you win any team sport and certainly AFL football...

Funny you say Hunter, because if you look at our inability to convert our defensive half turnovers into scores, yes, inaccuracy was a huge factor, but I think we missed Hunter more than we might have imagined. He's a very smart player and usually hits targets and makes good decisions.

Possibly, although I'm not a huge fan of Gus with ball in hand, but perhaps I should give him greater credit? Who knows? I think we'll see him behind the ball next week anyway and Hunter back on that wing opposite Lingers.

Thanks. Interesting given the bit below the bit I quoted on the AFL ap said: "While Walyalup outscored Narrm by 12 from stoppages throughout the game, it was their third quarter where they outscored Narrm by 25 points from stoppages- that set up the significant victory". It's also intrresting to note the next bit mentioned by the AFL ap: "Angus Brayshaw misses a crucial set shot at goal, from a Walyalup turnover. It's Narrm's first score of the match from a forward-50 intercept chain." In other words, we couldn't turn the ball over in the forward half of the ground today, but our defensive half turn overs should still have resulted in a significant score, somewhere up or over 100 points. So lots of room for improvement.

I hold the view that it's very likely that most teams treat playing us like a final because we were premiers only 18 months ago and still finished top 2 last year, and are in the top 4 again this year.

It means we didn't capitalise on our scoring chains from. defensive half turnovers. Instead of kicking, say 5.2, we kicked 2.5...