Adam The God

You could argue, a bit like West Coast in 2006, that sustained success was impossible given Collingwood's cultural problems. There were murmurs in 2022 (think De Goey), and now the other side of the 2023 flag, alleged cultural issues again.

Yet we win and we'll most likely be 4th ourselves. It's a strange season. It's Sydney and then the rest atm IMO.

I agree with most of this. Where I'm more hopeful is around our ability to reduce their successful slingshot game. And last week provided the blueprint at stoppage to prevent them getting it to the outside. Bring the same pressure and cleanness at stoppage ourselves and we're a good chance.

I think @binman may have touched on this overall point and I certainly have as well, but there was a run down of our stats since R13 in the HUN this morning. We're 1st for groundball differential since this time. It's pretty clear that we changed the way we set up in the first half of the year, which meant we could generate scores and wins without winning groundball, in fact usually losing it easily. This goes to that point Binners has often made previously about Chris Scott's mantra of managing players and potentially missing finals, but being cherry ripe by the pointy end. Our philosophy early in 2024 also had the positive side effect of developing our slingshot transition game. So instead of winning groundball at contest and trying to play a forward half territory game, we were happy to set our zone deeper, win the clean clearance if possible, but otherwise try and intercept when the ball goes inside 50 against or simply reset with a stoppage. This also meant there was less bang, crash, physicality to each stoppage, and enabled us to win without Clarry dominating. Since the Brisbane game, we have certainly set up more aggressively at stoppages and tried to play a more forward half territory game. Get the ball forward at all costs, knocks, long kicks to contests etc. The HUN article also noted since R13 that we are 1st for long down the line kicks and 1st for contested possession differential. This contested possession turn around feeds into us being 1st for scores per inside 50 against, so our defenders are doing their jobs as well as mids and forwards. One other thing I'd note over the last fortnight against West Coast and then Essendon, is our ability to transition the ball quickly from that long kick down the line situation to a goal out the back. Melksham is a key part to this, but so are Petty, Turner and JVR in being able to bring the ball to ground and not have it intercepted. We then follow it up with a ground ball possession and it basically leads to a goal out the back. When we broke down in the third quarter last week, McKay took multiple marks on Petty, 2 or 3 at least. And our game broke down for this period. It's really vital that we at least halve most of those contests, because if we do, at worst we get territory, and at best, we get a scoring chance. Our three talls have a big role to play again today against Freo. If they can stop their intercept game, make it more chaotic, and prevent Freo from being able to control the ball with uncontested marks at half back, and we complement this with aggressive, powerful pressure and cleanness at the stoppages, it will go a long way to getting enough chances to win the game. Then it's about taking our opportunities in front of goal.

Not really. He could get a bit stronger over the ball, but another pre season enables this.

If this is something you can access easily, @WheeloRatings, are our scores from stoppages up this year? It certainly seems like we're still scoring a lot from stoppage despite the evolution of the game shifting to more points from turnover.

Okay, cool, the "drop off" confused me. So we've got better at winning contests after the bye. I guess that tracks.

Except we tend to play our subs for 15 minutes anyway. I think the thinking is probably that Billings will cover the large expanses of Optus better than Laurie.

Just so I'm clear, the lower the percentage, the more you've lost contests 1v1? In other words, it could explain a more aggressive set up at stoppage? We have might have less that ends in a defensive 1v1 contest, but we lose more contests. Is that it or have I got it back to front?

Not to press this point too much, but they'd just list him as "season" and start him as "indefinite" next year, plus there'll be multiple videos over pre season with him if he doesn't make it back for 2024. I don't think fans will have a meltdown if this is the media strategy we have (and should have).

They'd then call it "Season" surely?

So I've been thinking about how we're pushing our half forwards more aggressively into the stoppages in the last few weeks. The old term for a half back or half forward pushed into the stoppage was an "inside slider". It got me thinking about our early season set ups. We'd either win a clean clearance that would lead to a good scoring chance (lots of scores directly from stoppage) or we'd lose clearance very easily with seeming (to my eye) very little post pressure on the opposition ball carrier. Yet we weren't overly hurt by these clearances against. Does anyone have a take on why that was? I don't recall us pushing half backs or half forwards up to the contest to pressure the ball carrier, but we were still often able to generate an intercept behind the ball or to neutralise the contest and reset for a stoppage. My take in the first half of the year was that we were happy to get the most potent clearance, but if we lost clearance, we'd lose territory, giving us space to slingshot back into. Did we rely more on our defenders winning 1v1s earlier in the year and do the stats support this? I'm not sure if @WheeloRatings has access to specific 1v1 win percentages, but it'd be fascinating to know whether this has shifted post bye? If we relied more on 1v1 wins behind the ball earlier in the year, having gone 1v1 at stoppages recently, it means our defence is more exposed to 1v1 contests, but it hasn't stopped our interceptors from intercepting because those inside sliders that we're pushing up to the stoppages apply enough pressure to rush the opposition out of stoppage. Anyway, keen to hear the thoughts of Demonlanders.

If you don't win contested possessions, post clearance pressure is essential to cause enough turnovers/intercepts to go back the other way. Clarkson and Chris Scott played this game for years. And this was part of our plan obviously in 2021-2023.

Tyson, yes. He went to Chelt Sec with Bowser,but a few years ahead.

Smith, Schache and BB will be done after this year. TMac may hang up the boots too, but given his year, I'd love him to play on. This'll leave 3 or 4 spots. I think we'd prefer 3 list spots.

Which end of the ground does Petty want to play at? Forward or back? Because if we see him as a forward and the Crows see him as a back, that may have a say in things. I think he'll move back next year whoever he plays for and JVR, Turner and Jefferson will be our KPFs.

You little ripper! Now for Sydney to beat Brisbane.

This is like Groundhog Day...

Only problem is one of the guys in it is playing against us.

Adding Kalani White to that back half in 2026 or 2027 post May will be handy too.

Perhaps they'd take Howes' role in the back half, but I'd like to see him play wing and then we can push Windsor into the midfield. Probably not next year but in 2-3 years. And Bowey's current role. I really think we should look at Bowey as a mid.

This is the go. I hope we're sniffing around Butters. If Hinkley goes, he may well ask to be traded. Allegedly, he waited for Hinkley to re-sign before he recommitted most recently, so it might be time. If Port miss again, surely Hinkley gets the boot...

That's what I thought, just like Watts.

That's fair.

A bloke called Jesse Hogan...