Adam The God

Go you bloody Redlegs! Stick that one up you, half of Demonland! We totally took away their game and they had no answers. Everyone bangs on about how good Ratten is, made no moves at all on May, stuck to his plan (as most modern coaches do) and King wasn't good enough on May, who was utterly dominant bar two moments where he was outmuscled. Our defenders and defensives systems totally bossed them. Utterly choked them. Take a bow, Steven May. The best game he's played for the club, by some way. He's had a really great season. I'm happy for him. Lever was a handy support player. Oscar... vulnerable. Oliver did some important running early in the game, but didn't come into the game until the last. Showed what a competitor he is. Loved that moment in the last where he burst away from the contest and hit the next target. Petracca was incredible in the 1v1s and 1v4s(!), let them score one easy goal from the centre stoppage with poor defensive marking, otherwise he and May were the difference. That match winning goal was Dustin Martinesque. For all the talk about Butler, did a couple of nice things, but our systems didn't let him do it often enough and he only got it 11 times. Some really important stopping from Viney in midfield. Didn't get it a lot but his defensive role around the stoppage was vital. I was wrong there. Glad we played him midfield tonight. If he's going to play midfield, I reckon he needs to play the defensive role, unless Oliver is quiet. Langdon's run was great as usual, as was Hibberd's, before injuring himself. Rivers is a really impressive young player. Great poise, toughness and good ball use. Well done, Jason Taylor. Another Taylor Special. After a slow start, Wagner worked into the game and was well positioned a number of times, and ended up being a handy contributor. I think one of Salem's best games for the club. Really solid in defence. Good ball use. Spargo laid a couple of really important tackles at key moments. That last tackle near the final siren to ensure we got the stoppage and it didn't ping back the other way was massive. I thought Hannan and Kozzie really struggled, although Kozzie at least laid some tackles. Still, we didn't let their half backs zip off half back. I disagree with the sentiment that we had a lot of passengers. Hannan didn't do enough and Kozzie tries to be too fancy instead of taking the game on, but other than that we put in a really solid 3.5 quarter effort. I also disagree with what Jordan Lewis said after the game, about neither side really getting their game going. What we delivered tonight is our game. Our mids weren't on the top of their game, but they defended really well in tandem with our defenders and our forwards. We're developing ways of winning when our stoppage game is taken away from us. And that's team defence. And we beat another side who beat us in the clearances and inside 50s. Exactly as we did to Collingwood and very similar to what we did to Brisbane. The tackle count is a really interesting stat too. They beat us in that 36-47, so it was all about the defensive zones and how well set up we were. Every time they looked up, they wanted to go off half back, but couldn't. Every time they tried to switch, the zone migrated quickly across the ground. The players need to bring this every week. The game style wins finals. It's now up to this group to bring the effort consistently.

Because we haven't allowed them to play their only game, which is run off half back. We're not winning enough CP. I fear Hibberd down means we'll run out of steam. His attack off half back has been good.

Petracca needs to go through the midfield now.

Oliver has been trash fire in this game. Worst game I've seen him play.

His kick to Clarry that cost us a goal earlier was absolutely the right move, and Clarry went one-handed. That goal was totally on Oliver, not on Jones. Oliver looks low on confidence tonight.

We totally took their one game away from them and then Jones kicks across goal, in between two Demons, goal and completely swings the momentum. The play before that, we have them totally covered and Jack Viney clumsily hits Phillips above the neck, soft, but free kick. Goal.

I'd go one step further and say it relies on pressure across the ground. If our mids are off, it doesn't matter how much our forwards are bringing and the opposite is probably true as well.

Whilst speed is helpful against us, it's stoppage set ups and pressure around the ball that really counts. We get done on the spread, which is a work rate thing more than pace. We also fail to pressure outside runners adequately around contested situations. IMO the speed is handy, but it's overplayed in the case of discussing our game. Our biggest hurdle is consistency. We're horribly inconsistent. If we bring the required work rate today we'll win, if we don't, we'll lose. As simple as that.

Fair enough. I disagree that we needed to inject those you mentioned just to add pace to the side. Either the forwards and mids bring enough pressure or it won't matter. We clearly wanted attack off half back so brought in Wagner and Rivers, and Jones will add pressure forward of centre. Tomlinson will move to the wing. pushing AVB forward to add pressure with Jones. Our game IMO is based on 18 players running hard both ways and our mids and half backs using the ball well from stoppage or contested situations.

Fair enough. I'd debate that Bedford is fast though. I'm not against playing Hunt on a wing, but clearly he has been an inconsistent performer over the journey. As for Bennell, he's not involved enough and Baker is a young guy trying to develop his game in the 2s. There's nothing wrong with that. It's a standard development path. I think it'd be stupid to just play fast players simply because they're fast, if they're not going to get involved or be accountable to the way the team wants to play. I reckon Bedford will definitely see another game this year. It's just about consistent performance and the spot will open up. Particularly, given the condensed fixturing ahead.

I expected nothing else. They are one of the most arrogant clubs and for a club that's literally won a single flag, they haven't even made the finals for a decade and their supporters are talking Grand Finals. Are you serious? They also lack the self awareness to say something like 'stop Petracca, Oliver and Gawn and they have nothing'. Well, that's close to our whole starting midfield. Which superstars are we stopping from St Kilda? I'm normally not phased by what opposition supporters say on other forums, but there's always an arrogance to St Kilda supporters. I can think of 4 or 5 times where I've had run ins with their deeply smarmy supporters too. It'd be nice to shut them up and see them crumble and tumble out of the 8 from here. And also, no, there's very insight in all of those points.

I'm not sure I see the logic there mate. When he was 19 you wanted him and now that he's 21 you don't? He's precisely the sort of player that could add forward half pressure and dynamism that we lack IMO.

No, the Dogs still needed good ball movement. In order to adequately switch as they did for most of the day, that's good ball movement.

I think Harmes needs to lift. There's no doubt about that in my mind, but he's also being played out of position. He could play half back much better than he is, and really rebound hard off half back, but I think he'd be more valuable up forward.

Turns out Fritsch made the decision for us this week... I could be totally wrong, but I get the sense that right now, Fritsch is happy just kicking his goals. He doesn't want to get his hands dirty with pressure acts. Maybe this is a confidence thing and his focus right now is trying to increase his accuracy. Who knows, and of course I'm only speculating. Plapp is the forward coach. I think the opposition let him lead to the pockets a bit last week, because it's harder to kick them from there. I think we need to be smarter in our forward set ups. And on another point I've made a bit on here is about Goodwin's philosophy of setting the system and the player's roles within it and then in-game deviating very little from that. Here is a quote from Richo on Goody's philosophy as per The Talking Points release today. "We're going to get what we deserve [if you don't bring the required work rate]". This to me demonstrates we will continue to show little movement in the box and the players must take responsibility (and this is obviously wider than Fritsch and Melksham) for their game's and their work rate. It's player empowering. Are they up to it?

Yeah, he clearly hates Langdon. Just hates him.

If we win or lose it will not be because Fritsch has been omitted for failing to remember he's a professional athlete allowed to travel to another state because he is there to play elite sport.

I'm always late, but I work for myself. Fritsch is living amongst his team mates and manages to be late. I know no further details, but given the club dropped him, I'm betting there were no extenuating circumstances. It's [censored] unacceptable. You are half way to bloody training, given you're living with team mates. And it's about accountability, so yes, work place culture does fall apart with no accountability.

Wow. This is a genuinely a mind-boggling post. Do we know why he was late? If not, how the hell would you know? Culture doesn't come through turning up to your job on time? Are you kidding me? Take some responsibility. He has. He copped it on the chin and came out today and played well in the practice match.

It depends on three things for me: 1) do our medical staff think his body's stuffed or do they believe his body will hold up? 2) the cost in money terms and years of contract. 3) whether he'd even come to Melbourne. I have a feeling we'd be a better proposition than Sydney...

I initially scratched my head at this a bit from both a team selection POV and a balance/cohesion POV, given there are so many new names in this week. Now that I've had a little bit of a chance to think on it, I don't mind them, as long as the team balance and cohesion isn't thrown out too much. I don't think it will be. * Clearly Max replaces Preuss. * Jones will likely play some midfield minutes this week in place of Sparrow, but I'd prefer Jones just stay forward as a pressure forward. Maybe the Sparrow role is for Vandenberg? * It seems like Wagner for Harmes. I've been pretty vocal on Harmes playing forward, so this is the one that pisses me off a bit, but we'll likely play Jones, Vandenberg and Viney or Petracca forward, so it might work. * It looks like Rivers for Lockhart and I reckon listening to Richo on The Talking Points, we want more run off our half back line. Rivers provides this. I'd have Lockhart in the team, but let's see how we go there. Lockhart certainly is a Nev clone in that he doesn't attack enough IMO, but I think that will come in time. * Continuing the theme of run, we want to play Tomlinson on the wing and stretch their two way running here, so Oscar comes in and Tomlinson moves to the wing. This will probably push Vandenberg forward to play Jones' role, while Jones takes Sparrow's, or Vandenberg will take Sparrow's. Either way, you'll see Tomlinson and Langdon on the wings. We need to turn St Kilda slingshot weapon into a vulnerability and if our defensive mechanism is on, we'll be able to do that and ping back the other way. Tomlinson and Langdon will be needed for this. In effect, it becomes Oscar for Fritsch. I wonder if Tomlinson will play a defensive role on a Brad Hill, to free up Langdon to sweep and attack? * Brown clearly comes in for Tom. Tom's hampered by his foot and can barely move. He'd be a liability on the counter, so playing Brown and keeping the two talls is probably a good move. Let's see if Brown can bring the pressure acts and get involved in scoring chains. I do have questions over the pressure side of his game and ideally we'd be playing Jackson in this role, but let's see. Overall, lots of moves, and I think their success will depend on whether we can get strong rebound off half back from the likes of Wagner, Rivers, Langdon, Tomlinson, Salem and Hibberd, and add more offence to our game, which we severely lacked last week IMV. I like the idea that Vandenberg and Jones will play forward. I hope Viney does too, but I fear he won't. A forwardline of Weideman, Brown, Melksham, Kozzie, Jones, Vandenberg, Viney and a resting Petracca is potent enough and defensively (with the exception of the two talls and Melksham) far more defensive, which I think we need with St Kilda's sling shot game. Let's see how we go!

Even more so when you have an elite fitness base like our guys allegedly have, working under an elite fitness boss.

Interesting. I'd be inclined to say that we could be transformative in the way teams go about team selection/balance if we played a bunch of mids as permanent forwards, in Harmes, Jones and Viney, if it works. The latter two are good kicks for goal and Harmes is a good kick for goal on the run, so I'm getting impatient to see something like this tried. It comes down to who we leave out then. Is it Fritsch? Is it Melksham? Or both? It's clear the FD haven't settled on the best mix for the forwardline, so I hope the above is the path they take.

Good post, Bob. What's also clear is that our CP game is not anything like what it was in 2018. We're way down on CPs. Is this a product or 6/6/6? Or is it a product of teams working out how to make us dispose of the ball under more duress than in 2018? Or is it similar to the balance we were trying to find in 2017-2018, but this time the balance between defensive system and winning CPs? We're certainly not generating the same amount of CPs, but we've won 1,450 CPs (one less than Carlton who are also a game behind many others) and we're averaging 121 CPs per game. So let's say we add 121 to 1,450, we get 1,571, this would put us in the top 4 for CPs (or top 5 depending on how Carlton continue tracking). I really believe work rate is the key to getting the game played on our terms. We just don't bring it consistently enough.

Well, we're blessed to have you, Doctor. Thank goodness for you.