Adam The God

So this analysis is basically contradictory or at the very least bad faith. You can't dismiss the missing players who will make the new game style work and allow us to implement it and then claim the coach is putting his faith in the wrong guys. We've been a stoppage team for years, until we shifted in the first half of last year. The game style we want to play that is fast and accurate requires the missing players from the back. If we can get some continuity with our best team, we can have an advantage over those teams you mention with our stoppage game as those other teams rely on transition for scores. We just need to be good enough transition and keep our stoppage game going (our stoppage game was dreadful all game against North).

Agreed, I'd keep Viney out of centre bounce unless Clarry is on the bench, but I'd prefer Trac becomes the man in the case of Oliver on the bench. I don't think we have to be as aggressive as trading out all of Oliver, Viney, Sparrow and Trac, @GS_1905 . I'd just be playing Trac majority forward, with 40% mid time, Viney as a pressure small forward that can attend forward 50 stoppages and Sparrow out of the team, unless he plays purely as a midfield stopper. Oliver, Kozzy, Trac, Rivers, Langford and even Chandler definitely has more balance to it, with Windsor and Bowey off the back of stoppages ala 2017-2018, plus Lindsay and Salem at high half back. I also agree with @binman that it's easy to overreact after one game.

Good post, DS. Oliver should play mid 100%, Viney play mostly forward and get involved in forward 50 stoppages, Trac should play 50-50 forward-mid, and Sparrow may eventually need to make way. Get McVee and Windsor into the team and alongside Lindsay and Bowey, we might start to see better execution. And the problem is some fans have no patient to watch the implementation. They complained for 2 years (2022-2023) about the shifting modern game style, and the minute we start to try and modify our game quite drastically and it doesn't click immediately, fans are up in arms. We're trying to play style that we need to play to be successful going forward, but a game that relies on fast, accurate transition, but we're missing two of guys that will improve this immensely.

Our backline was under siege because our mids let their mids walk it out of stoppage.

Might have happened if outsiders had been elected to the board...

And if Kalani White is any good, we'll get him for a second rounder...

And you reckon Goody and Chaplin are instructing the players to bomb long to 2 and 3 vs 1 contests? In Round 1, there was decidedly more space in our forwardline and we moved the ball well. It's on the players.

Chaplin oversaw the highest scoring forwardline in the league in 2018. It's Round 2. You don't know what you're talking about.

Narrower ground doesn't help...

Again, my post said the modern game, ie what wins games right now. Not what wins games and flags in 2021. And if your pressure and contest is off in 2024-2025 you get beaten...

I reckon 100%, the players failed to execute. I guarantee you, Goody was not directing players like Viney, our Vice Captain and 200+ gamer to bomb blindly to a forward outnumber on slingshot. Midway through the third, we were generating multiple slingshot opportunities and then squandering those opportunities that most teams would turn into scores. It looked a lot like the first half of last year when we failed to take our opportunities on turnover. Prior to that stretch in the 3rd quarter though we'd failed to beat North for scores from stoppage and by the end of the game, they murdered us from scores from stoppage. I don't think it's a matter of a different voice. It's a mindset thing, which I hope Shand cab help our guys with. Because as @Roost it far said, when under pressure, our older guys revert to old bad habits, like bombing long to the contest. I'm 99% sure, the instruction from a stationary slow entry is to chip it around between wing and half forward until a forward can get enough room on the lead or we just keep maintaining possession with shorter kicks. Our older guys bomb it long to the top of the square ala 2021-2023, and our younger guys like Lindsay or better ball users like Spargo look for shorter options to hit up and maintain possession. It was obvious in the third quarter the difference in ball use from some of our older players, who at this stage, seem unable to change their engrained ways.

I thought our back 6-7 struggled (sure, the entries were ridiculously simple which didn't help), but Howes and better were probably our best. I wouldn't be dropping Howes. I think Caleb will get up, which means he comes straight back in at the expense of Woey. I'd bring Langford in for Sparrow, but I don't think that's what they'll do. AJ for Jefferson seems a no brainer, not sure who the sub will be though. Maybe Sharp drops back to sub? Just looking at the stats from yesterday, I saw Lindsay do a couple of nice things, but had no idea he laid another 6 tackles and had 20 himself at 85% DE. He is a real find. I took my son (who before yesterday was convinced he was a Blues supporter) to his first full game, so I wasn't watching as analytically as usual, but that's another great effort from the Spreadsheet. The good news is by the end of yesterday, my son was singing "we are the old dark DEMONS!", so some progress was made. 😄

💯 spot on here. Although, I also think 2017-2023 it was a directive to get it forward and lock it in, and play territory. As for the Viney bit, I and others have been writing it for 5 years.

What? Read my post again. I said "if you don't have pressure or win contest you're not going to stay in the modern game". The reason we've not won those games where we win CP and clearance is because the other team has out pressured us. You're not old mate Steve are you? 🤦

This is literally every team. If you don't have pressure or win contest you're not going to stay in the modern game...

Yeah, we weren't consistent early in the game, we were poor at contest for large parts of that first half, but the aggressive forward handball that we saw last week was on show multiple times and we looked dangerous. But those Viney entries in the 3rd killed the game, and the last quarter we gave up... Nothing is ever as good or as had as it seems. Although it does feel like it today.

At one stage, the scoreboard said 8 goals to North from stoppage to 2 goals from us. So we were clubbed with our 1 wood...

Can't disagree with this. Given it was North, it was easily our worst performance in 5 years.

An appalling performance. We had the ball on slingshot repeatedly in the third quarter (when the margin was still 2-3 goals), and I reckon Viney had it 4 times on those slingshots and his entries were not AFL standard. Long kicks to the advantage of a 2 or 3 vs 1 in our forwardline. We then proceeded to have a starting midfield in the first 10 mins of the last that was Sparrow, Chandler and Viney. We are not going to win many games with those guys in there. Viney needs to play majority forward, bring his pressure and his surprising goal nous, but his ball use in the midfield is a killer. And the way we dropped away in the last 40 minutes of football was alarming. Chandler played well, Howes did a couple of good things, Bowey (aside from that clanger) was good, Spargo was handy at times, and that was about it. The missed tackles (particularly in the midfield), the poor groundball (with the exception of Clarry). The leadership group need to have a really good hard look at themselves. When momentum went against us not a single player stood up.

Crazy that anyone complains about being hard done by. I've already seen a bunch of Melbourne supporters say they're going to watch the game from their couch. You can't then complain that we get TV fixtures. More of us need to turn up...

Yep, super neggy around these parts. Looking forward to some wins and some posters disappearing again for a while.

Not sure I agree, clearly. One has played a season, the other had an Oliver R1 2016-like impact on debut last week. But when they were drafted is irrelevant to the point I was making. We have the cattle, it's a matter or.building synergy and refining other parts of our game (ie stoppage) to maximise our strengths, whilst developing our weaknesses (transition). Answered above, but again, I dispute this strongly. Last year we had McVee and Salem at half back. This year we'll have McVee, Salem and two elite runners and kickers alongside them. How many players do you need before you "have the cattle"? It's also irrelevant RE scores for inside 50 as we played probably 12 games last year with an early version of this transition game in mind where territory was less important than slingshot. As I've said previously, see the Geelong win in round 6 last year. We killed them on transition. That's the blueprint. They were unbeaten to that point in time. Add Windsor, Lindsay, more dare with ball movement, different forward structures, and what we did between 2017-2023 + part 2 of 2024 is irrelevant. Well, actually, the modern game is points scored from defensive 50 transition. But you're posting as if we want to play a territory game and bombard the opposition with repeat inside 50s. I've said our MO is to go for aggressive "perfect" centre and forward half clearances that lead to scores or rescind territory to the opposition, and thus allow us to slingshot back in. Every game is different as every opposition is different, but against the faster transition sides, this will be our go to Nah. Contest is always king. But modern footy requires speed on the ball from contest. Winning clearance, zones and repeat entries are no longer enough. That's important nuisance I think you aren't acknowledging. No list is every finished. Our approach has been to continue replenishing our list while our stars are still in the sweetspot. In 4 years we've added JVR, Jefferson, Windsor, Kolt, McVee, Lindsay and Langford. It's a significant injection of talent, and I expect us to continue. Have a good season and can really hit the FA/ pre FA market.

Disagree, we've got enough players to play the transition game to a high enough standard, where our scores from stoppages game will give us a huge advantage over most teams. Salem, McVee, Windsor, Bowey, Lindsay at the back are all beautiful kicks that can be relied upon to maintain possession and keep chains going. Spargo, Melksham and Langford at the other end are elite kicks, we want them connecting between wing and half forward. But the modern game starts at the back with slingshot, so load up there with beautiful kicks and guys that can break lines with poise. From there it's about our players becoming confident and knowledgeable in our transition that there is no second guessing because there's synergy. This might take time to build, but the more continuity we get with these above guys at the back, the more it'll become instinctive.

A reminder of what we've missed. ❤️

How do you know he's underdone?