Adam The God

It's about the angled kicks or the short kicks into the hole up the field, and then going quickly when the time is right. I know 4 weeks is a long time in football, but did anyone watch Round 1? It was all on display there.

Crazy how much skinnier and trimmer he looks in those photos.

And my understanding is we don't have a ball movement coach amongst our ranks. A bad oversight that.

I've said this multiple times. Trac forward, Viney forward and Oliver defensive mid with a focus on intercept game ala 2021-2023. I implied this in my previous post... long down the line is hopeless. What we need is Max to impact stoppage. Yes and no, and this is my point. We are strong at creating turnovers (particularly in the corridor), but our decision making and ball use is not good enough. Improve ball use and our fortunes turn.

This is where I sit too

As much as I'm p'ed off about our reverting to the long down the line strategy and already going away from the short kicking game at the back, it's reasonably clear that this is on our senior players in Viney, Trac, Clarry and even Max. Our ball use when we turn it over (where we are often creating more than enough turnovers to win games), is solely on the shoulders of these guys who are being asked to make better decisions with the footy in hand, and so far, they're incapable of delivering. Sure, there's very ordinary forward craft in our front half, but the Geelong game was a very good example again of sometimee having 3 or 4 free forwards to kick to, and instead we pick out a nest of Cats. We've done this every week. We need to find roles for those three mids that maximise their strengths and minimise their weaknesses. Their strength in the stoppages has disappeared in the last three weeks after a flying start against GWS. We need to get back to winning stoppage, but we need receivers for them to give to, or half forwards or CHFs that lead up at the play to give them easier options. And our leaders need to lead and understand their limitations. Our season and Goody's future hinges on Max finding form and better ball use from Viney, Trac and Clarry.

I didn't know this. That's actually huge and something we can hang our hat on. Where did you read this?

How do you figure that? If we want him gone, maybe, but he has a large contract with us. We hold the power.

I hope we see Adams in the next 8 weeks. With injury comes opportunity for others.

Unlike Dangerfield, Langford is a beautiful kick. Pros and cons.

No, you need balance in your midfield. The guys that can win it in the contest (Langford) and the guys who burst from the contest (Windsor).

Go on...

Agree. Fortunately, we would still have 10 or so premiership players on the list even if we trade out those aforementioned players. And we're, I'd argue, 2-3 years into a list reset already having got 4 very good young players into the club. We're not starting from ground zero (ala 2012-2013).

Sure, but the majority of very good players come from that top 20, so IMV our strategy is still better than quantity over quality. Of course, we could be more aggressive in our trading too. End of this year we could trade out Clarry/Trac, Kozzy and Fritta and give ourselves 5-6 first round picks. I don't advocate it necessarily, but there's only so much you can do with your recruiting and the picks you have at your disposal.

Longmire is done. He'd be a good head of footy though.

If that happens, it's quite ironic that our current situation may look a little different if we'd just traded Clarry at the end of 2023 when he allegedly put his team mates offside.

ie most coaches don't survive long, neither do recent Liberal leaders...

🤣 This completely disregards the salary cap.

Spot on mate.

Indeed. We also need our senior players to do what the Hawthorn senior players did (Roughead, Lewis, Hodge and even Mitchell) at the back ends of their careers and play selfless roles. I get that Trac and Clarry should be in their prime, but they're best used as very good role players. Think Sidebottom and Pendlebury in 2023. Viney needs to play forward, Trac needs to play more forward than mid, and Oliver needs to play a more defensive role at stoppages, because the opposition play through his man. In 2023, Clarry's game went to another level because he added that intercept possession strength to his game. That needs to return. Less complaining and more just playing your role to a high standard. I'd have had Lewis back at the club before Jones, but what's done is done.

That's very telling, isn't it? Too many guys that don't do the team things. We were absolutely doing these things across 2021-2023. Last year it started to fade, and you have to wonder if those bridges with Trac, Oliver and the rest of the playing group are irreparably damaged.

No problem with Langford's pace. If he had pace, he'd have gone pick 1, but his ball use and decision making makes up for the lack of pace. We do want pace and power around him though. Lindsay (pace), Windsor (pace) and Kolt (power).

To me it looks like we've reverted from the short uncontested possession game at the back that served us well in Round 1, and we've returned to a long down the line game. Have the coaches lost their nerve already and are they playing to limit damage rather than practice and hone the new method?

It'd be a very Carlton thing to go and get a messiah in Longmire. He's finished.

That said, it might be easier for a new pair of eyes to trade out one or two guys, get some picks to go with our last four 1st rounders. We'll still have a number of veterans who can play roles as the likes of Pendlebury and Sidebottom did for Collingwood in 2022 and 2023. I also agree with @Lucifers Hero (it was you, right?) that we need a ball movement coach and a strategy coach. They could be one and the same, but I don't understand what role Nathan Jones is actually playing aside from apparent peacemaker.