Adam The God

Gawn's tap work has been excellent but his handballing and contesting around the ground has looked tired and half-arsed. For a guy who talks up his leadership, yet another example of our poor leadership. Jones has tried his heart out but panics in critical moments. That punch over the line is the perfect example and there were numerous last week. As for the rest of the team, they are so low on confidence that they fumble almost everything and our forward line continues not to function. I'd be trying to isolate Hogan or Tom McDonald one out. We're also far too predictable at stoppages. Viney and Petracca can't come back quick enough.

Impressive coaching staff, but we have assembled a reasonable team too. I'm more concerned by the on field, than the off field. We simply have no leadership on the field. I'll be interested to see how we go with Tom McDonald in the side.

You look at Sydney's leadership and then ours and that's why we are where we are. Struggling.

I wouldn't say Wines is skilled or quick. But I'd agree with the rest of it. We need speed, so he's off the list for me.

Lynch would walk into any team, but we have Hogan and a developing Weideman already. Plus, Tom McDonald who rarely misses in front of goal. While at the other end, Oscar is developing nicely, Lever, Hibberd and Jetta are all stars and Petty looks to be a ripper (can't wait to see him play some more). Our key positions are fine, it's our midfield that is lacking. I'd throw Dylan Shiel a 5 year contract and $750k. Pace and ball winning ability. Could be the missing ingredient to our midfield. I'd go hard. And I've been a Tyson fan in the past, but I'd look at a trade if it helped us get a comparable mid with better pace.

It was Fritsch for Jeffy, otherwise I was pretty close, mate.

Wow. We traded pick 10 for Moorcroft? I'd forgotten that. What a horrible trade.

You may well be right, mate. Wagner has been passable.

Jones' lack of on field leadership is certainly problem. I'm sure he's great off the field driving standards and expectations, but on It, he doesn't impact the overall contest enough. The perfect example of this is the Richmond game. One of the most ineffective 30 disposal games from a captain I've seen.

I think they'll go with the following team... B: Jake Lever, Oscar McDonald, Neville Jetta HB: Bernie Vince, Michael Hibberd, Jayden Hunt C Jordan Lewis, Nathan Jones, Christian Salem HF: Angus Brayshaw, Jesse Hogan, Jake Melksham F: Alex Neal-Bullen, Sam Weideman, James Harmes Foll: Max Gawn, Dom Tyson, Clayton Oliver I/C: Charlie Spargo, Mitch Hannan, Tom McDonald, Jeff Garlett Ideally though, I'd prefer to replace Neal-Bullen with Spargo; Harmes with Hannan; and put Fritsch on the bench, but since they're both playing, I don't think we can have all of Neal-Bullen, Harmes, Spargo, Hannan AND Fritsch in the same team.

Maybe it's because I'm in the latter stages of my film's edit at the moment and therefore very analytical, but the message of this thread isn't clear to me. What's your point? If we're discussing what the nucleus of our team is, it's the best 22 at the moment... If we're discussing what the nucleus of a potential premiership team is, well, that's very different, because I wouldn't have Lewis, Vince or probably Jones in there. Since the thesis isn't clear, I'm going to run with the nucleus of the next premiership team. I'd have: Hogan, Salem, Petracca, Viney, Lever, Brayshaw, Gawn, Oliver, Hibberd, Tom McDonald / Weideman, Oscar McDonald, Jetta and hopefully Hunt. I, like a few others on here, have high hopes for Petty too. I haven't included Tyson as I think his lack of speed is a severe impediment to Goodwin's game style and will see him on the outer long term.

Fritsch needed a rest and would have been a liability in the heavy wet conditions last night. Stretch was brought in to counter some of Richmond's pace. The problem is his game has gone backwards for at least two years and he doesn't want the football. Each time he got it, instead of taking off, he stopped and went back over the mark. I question our development with Stretch. We tried to turn him into a contested player when we needed a speedy outsider. Now all he does is second guess himself and fails to play on instinct.

It's a strange and frustrating feeling to absolutely dominate a team for a whole half of football and come away with a 7-8 goal drumming.

You know I like your posts mate. They're usually measured, thoughtful etc but this post offers no solutions. To me it seems a bit like blind faith, unless there are things about our game style that you think will start to win us games. I know we were playing the Premiers tonight, but our system is broken and our team is completely bereft of confidence. We need to try something new. I'd also love to know what Goodwin tried tonight that was anything more than an extremely aggressive press (the most aggressive for the year) and not playing our wingman as spares up forward and back.

Completely agree, but whenever they went inside 50 or there was a stoppage inside defensive 50, they looked like scoring and often did. But I was ropable in the first quarter, because I knew we'd lost the game by kicking 1.5. We simply didn't look like scoring in the second because we'd kicked so poorly in the first that it was as if we didn't believe we'd kick goals. Scoreboard pressure is one of our main failures the last fortnight. We simply haven't converted our dominance into legitmate scoreboard pressure. This has a lot to do with our dysfunctional forward line, but also our inaccuracy. We're failing to do the basics right. It's interesting because historically, our accuracy has often won us games. But if ever there was a time we needed to go back to doing the basics properly it's now. We constantly fumbled again, missed gettable shots and defensively often had no one out the back of the packs playing the sweeper role. Like last week, we probably conceded 8 to 10 goals because we lacked the discipline of having a sweeper back, which if you look at Richmond's backline, they continually had.

I think we're playing a game style (Richmond aping) that is not sustainable with our list. It requires pace and that's the major deficiency in our squad. All you do is short chip to draw out our press and then move the ball quickly over it. We must be the easiest team to coach against. It's under 14s stuff. We've gone backwards because our defensive set up is too easily countered by the above and our list isn't quick enough to play the offensive side of the game style. The fact we thought we'd try the really aggressive press (with our lack of pace) tonight against Richmond (packed full with pace) beggars belief and suggests we're not going to be tweaking the game style we've worked on all summer. I think we might be in for a bit more pain this year. Richmond are well coached and a decent side, but we're so low on confidence now - that was a massive factor tonight. We were rarely clean and they were almost always clean. I only hope we can capitalise on Essendon's shorter break next week on a fast Etihad deck and get some momentum going back the other way. In the meantime, I'd be dropping Vince. He's finished. He was at the end last year and shouldn't have had his contract renewed. The body language from our supposed leaders was very poor too. Gawn with his head down after they got 4 goals ahead. Jones gave that goal up to Cotchin with a soft handball. Vince's lazy handball in the last quarter. These are all little cues that show the rest of the side where the bar is set. And it's pretty low. Oliver, Jesse, Gawn, Hibberd and Lever were great though. Melksham at least found the goals this week, but as fir the rest of the team, there were nowhere near enough other contributors. A thoroughly disappointing night that does not bode well for our immediate future.

And bizarrely I have every confidence in him with ball in hand at the other end. He must play forward. FF, rotating CHF and second ruck.

I reckon they'd welcome another AA level player into their fold with open arms. Hibberd is a half backer, Jetta is a lock down small defender. They're hardly in the mould of generals, but a KPB intercept defender is.

Hunt for Wagner, Balic for Bugg, Stretch misses out? Vince, Hannan, Garlett and Fritsch to play?

I got sick of hearing this rhetoric under Roos, but I think it still unfortunately rings true: the difference between our best and worst footy is still far too wide. We can play scintillating footy; then we can play holding pattern footy which is serviceable; and then we can play as badly as any team in the competition (worse than anything Brisbane and Carlton can dish up). Of course, this happens with young teams, but it really does highlight the dearth of real onfield leadership that has been missing for almost my entire lifetime. I just hope our younger, emerging leaders don't learn too much about leadership from our older leaders, because they're not good enough.

Agreed. I still believe we have one of the strongest backlines in the league. That is individually. But as a unit, as players within our current defensive mechanism, we have one of the weakest. Oscar is a promising up and coming KPB. Hibberd is a gun. Lever is a gun. Jetta is a gun. Hunt is a gun, but needs to improve his disposal (no more than Houli at Richmond though). That's 5 really solid players. They are not a defence that should be leaking goals as we do. Our system is ridiculously flawed and I cannot understand why we've reverted to the aggressive press that killed us so much last year. The first two rounds saw us test varying levels of the press, but against Hawthorn in the rain, the aggressive press was absurd.

Is he out with a broken hand or is he out?

We play the anchor player a lot, but it often gets thrown out the window when the momentum goes against us. Obviously, this is a pretty common thing in footy. Players going away from structures when the going gets tough. The great teams stick to their structures, no matter what is happening with the momentum or the scoreboard. Having Vince and Lewis back there isn't great. Both are slow and neither are great leaders IMO. It's worth noting that I think we played a much deeper (less aggressive) press against Geelong and it enabled us to restrict scoring significantly in the second half. I don't think we should employ the high press anymore, at least not until we've got 2 KPFs in the team. I wonder if we've fallen into the higher press in recent weeks? Surely though, that would be a simple adjustment in quarter or at worst, at the breaks? I understand the attempt to model our game on Richmond (the smaller forward line, the ruck rover ruckman, forward press), but it's not playing to our strengths though. I'd consider going one-on-one a lot more often than we've tried. We've got a lot of guys who I'd usually back in to beat their man one-on-one. But I have a sneaking suspicion our current game plan may well work really well against Richmond, who basically get the ball forward at all costs and then press up to the next contest. Our aggressive press going back the other way, could well lock them in and at worst, catch them out in transition, as Hawthorn got us. I think like a lot of our defenders, he's playing reactionary football, rather than instinctive beat your man and then look to run and carry (vintage 2017). He came straight in against Richmond last year and looked to be the outlet off half back. He's done that a few times this year, but nowhere near as much as last year. This year he's looking to lock down a bit more and his run and carry is being stifled as a result. Likewise, Lever is being asked to lock down, rather than float within a deeper defensive set up. Good to see you've finally acknowledged Oscar, Steve. But I agree with the rest of your post. And I'd also add that Jetta, Hibberd and even Hunt have historically all been excellent one-on-one players. This is what I mean about not playing to our strengths. If we play that less aggressive press you've mentioned (which I agree with), it leaves more one-on-ones, but it also allows Lever to zone off his man. I commend ingenuity from a coach, in fact I cried out for it for years. And it must be said that Goodwin and his FD have certainly tried a host of bold moves from the Diamond Defence to running the half forwards off the back of the square, to playing with no wings etc. I really like the inventiveness, but when it's not working and we actually have really good defenders (three of which were in the 40 man AA squad), it's time to play a different system that will play to their strengths. I reckon it'd be interesting to see us employ the press we used against Geelong more often, which was far less aggressive than even 2017's press. But certainly, our current defensive system is far too all or nothing. It's kamikaze-like the way we race out and try to tackle the ball carrier and as we know, too often sides that have decent enough skills can pierce this zone. I'd argue it's the other way around. He played all last year as the running back, but also got back to the last line at times. This year they seem to be trying to play him deeper and demanding more accountability. The same goes for Lever. And as I've said here, it's not playing to either of their strengths.

Jones tagging did not lose us the game. His ability to shut down Mitchell early and our better efficiency of ball movement and conversion had us well on top at quarter time. We didn't take all our chances there, but the plan was clearly working at quarter time.

Good point. He probably comes in, but I'm not sure who for. ANB is a connector forward, so we need him. Harmes is on thin ice, but I'd try him off half back. Fritsch is worth another game. Salem is stringing some good patches together.