Adam The God

A first rounder for Langdon? What a waste of a pick. You want elite talent with first rounders.

I'd throw a heap of cash at Conigilo or Kelly and draft the best available in the ND.

Ah yes...

Yep, thought so. Hawthorn have enjoyed beating up on us for years. Apart from their soft as butter supporters from all the success they've endured and become used to, the reason I hate them the most is the disdain they've shown for us over the years. So many times we've been pummelled. And my wife is Hawthorn, so there's that too. At least, these days she only watches Melbourne games and always tells me 'Go Dees' before I head out the door to the game. She'll only change sides if Melbourne beats Hawthorn in a Grand Final, she says. Bizarre rule, but at least there's a chance. You watch us get absolutely murdered next week by Clarkson's control game. Even without their midfield, their slingshot and zippy forwards will be, as usual, our kryptonite.

Yep, agreed there.

I think an easy to follow, strong and reliable system makes a team seem like they have more depth. What you want, IMO, is to have any role player come into the system, know the system and be able to implement a basic function within it. Our system is shot and therefore our 'depth' looks more ordinary. In some ways, Hawthorn's lauded control system is a tougher system to play than our own, because foot skills are king. However, it appears our easier system requires a greater work rate in bursts, while the control system is more about aerobic power. I'd like to see us develop some new systems that either blend control v chaos or provide something entirely different. I was hoping we had the brains between Goodwin and Jennings to come up with something like this. We'll see. This is completely wrong. The zone was relaxed markedly in comparison to most other weeks. Thanks for this post. It's very heartening to think we have Lewis internally saying that they'd been here before at Hawthorn. Even that great Hawthorn side that evolved over the coming years. I had completely forgotten they were 1-5 in 2010. I would have loved that. Their only win was probably against us.

Nope. Not aggressive at all. We played a longer zone and occasionally when handball was used by Richmond through the back flank and along the wing, the middle of our zone pressed more aggressively, but still had cover behind them. It was an interesting tweak, which within 4 days was surprising, but they clearly knew they had to. Particularly, against the pace of the Tigers. It did get a little more aggressive in the last quarter, but it was still a deep, long zone for the most part.

I reckon this lets the club and players off a bit. We're not a bottom 4 worthy team with our midfield. We constantly break even / win the midfield battle. This group of players is not a 1-5 team. This is coaching, fitness and now a total lack of confidence. This is clearly why they've played Melksham in the midfield over the past two games, to improve our connection between mid and fwd. He was the leading assister in the league last year and remains our best ball user. Unfortunately, the move hasn't paid off as much as they would have hoped, because Melksham has less time in the midfield to ensure his kicks hit targets.

I wonder what old mate Roosy thinks about the veil of negativity now. No other club does the sort of [censored] our club does to its supporters. From 4th to 18th in one off season. ?

Fair enough. Gus is the perfect compliment to Clarry IMO. They both need better defensive games though and need to be able to kick to the advantage of their forwards a lot, lot better.

How did you think he was when he went forward? I thought he was arguably more embarrassing.

Nope. I'd argue Brayshaw is our most complete inside,outside player. He's a good player who is only going to become a very good player. Langdon is a butcher too. I take it you'd do the deal?

Unfortunately, I think you're right. We've been here how many times before? 10 goal loss minimum. Their control style will maul us. Staggering. We managed to outdo our 37% efficiency inside 50 from Saturday. 31%?! Incredible. It really is Neeld-esque stuff.

Our macro leads to a lack of confidence in the micro. The game plan has utterly killed confidence. He was a liability in defence last year too, but everyone loved him because he was a nice kick and was playing in a team that was confident. Now he's lost confidence and his only asset has deserted him.

It's literally happened for close to a decade. No one down, everyone up. That goal Ellis kicked was a classic example of this.

What I find scary and staggering is that we've gone from the 4th best side in the competition, to dead set last over the space of one off season. Is that some kind of record?

Don't get me wrong. I thought our forward entries after quarter time were woeful, but our forwards simply don't tackle. Even in the first quarter there was a moment where four of our guys could have chased and Hunt was the only one who chased. Setting a longer zone enabled us to defend the ground better when Richmond tried to slingshot. Aside from his good goal, Lockhart was like a headless chook when he moved into midfield. I thought he was a liability at times. But so was our decision making across the board.

Are we seriously blaming the umpires? There were inconsistencies both ways tonight.

We played a far less aggressive zone tonight and it kept us in the game. The ball use coming out of our defence was atrocious and gave away at least 2 or 3 goals (if not more) and we don't lay any tackles in our forwardline (that's work rate and positioning). That said, I mentioned in a thread the other day that we'd play an extremely aggressive zone, be in it at quarter time and then lose by 7-8 goals. It was so predictable and kicking 2 goals after quarter time is unacceptable. The coaching is terrible, the game style needs a complete revamp, our leaders are non-existent and we're looking at a number one draft pick at this rate, because we simply don't play four quarters. Oliver, Brayshaw and Lever are the untouchables for me. I rate Harmes nowadays too. But as for the rest, we've got a lot of very average players.

Are you trolling? I think maybe you are. The most obvious examples last year were Brayshaw and Harmes.

Bit dangerous to post this. Is Charlie happy with this being out there? Jetta is the worst offender at this. He's a small that constantly goes up to spoil when he should be at ground level. I love him, but he rarely impacts these contests. Hibberd's the same. I can only think the instruction is to back yourself to kill the contest. The problem is, we rarely do.

Best way to respond is to thump Richmond. But it won't happen.

HH's avatar should pretty much be 'Jumping At Shadows'. He seems to know everything despite having absolutely no inside intel whatsoever. Yeah, but it's the most obvious piece of commentary. We've all been saying this for it seems like years now. We're so easy to coach against, because our players are told to hunt the ball. It's so rare our mids actually commit team acts like shepherding or blocking. The game plan from the contested situation has always seemed to be 'we'll back ourselves to win the CP'. It's why we regularly lost the UPs, but were happy as long as we won the CPs last year. The modern game surely shows you need a pretty good balance of both. Yes, but usually, this sort of stuff actually needs to come out. I remember when many on here said similar of The Age's reporting on Schwab. If it's causing such disharmony, maybe something needs to be done. Whatever the case, we need some bloody good leadership at the moment. We can't get it on the field, hopefully we have it off it. We coped extremely well in 2017 when we had a couple of really important outs. Our system that year was working. We didn't always bring the work rate and were inconsistent. Now, you look at the stats and watch our games, and you'd have to say it's the reverse. And the reason Collingwood could plug and play, is their system is far superior to ours. I know I bang on about system a lot, but it's so clearly the issue right now. Yes, fitness plays into it and work rate, but system is the chief villain in our woes.

Hmm. Not sure what to make of this. We've talked about drinking bath water for a while. Could our guys seriously be stupid and arrogant enough to think they'd done enough last year? Are you [censored] kidding me? Although I love him, I find it hard to rely on anything Roosy says, because his own legacy is tied up in Goodwin's success. It's a lot easier to put the blame on the players. Of course though, it could be both things. Roosy sticking up for Goody AND some players coming back unfit. I'd love to know who came back unfit. I hope they're not being played right now, when guys like Stretch, by all reports, are terrific, professional trainers and last a week in the seniors before being dropped again. The bloke himself was puffed out 10 minutes into the first quarter on Saturday.

Given you're one of the few who regularly gets to training though, Saty, have you witnessed any shifts? And the club aren't going to confirm there are internal problems.