Adam The God

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.

Thanks mate. Jeepers. I presume 'Defensive' would mean 'team defence', particularly if Chaplin is 'Backline'. It's precisely our team defence that has been so woefully off this year. No wonder he's not happy.

Hmm, I find Jennings' position in all of this fascinating. Many of our innovative moves over the past 2+ years were attributed to him. Certainly the Demon Diamond and the mids off the back of the centre square, which the rest of the competition then employed. I'm not sure who was responsible for the no wingers versus Hawthorn last year, but we were innovators and pretty much since that Hawthorn loss, we've continued an aggressive press, but with very little innovation. Is he saving up the rest of his goodies for a senior coaching gig? I hope we see more innovation from our mob soon.

I have no idea why McCartney was ever moved out of simply being a development coach. He is the best in the business and we have seen incredible development in the likes of our midfielders Brayshaw, Harmes, Oliver and even Gawn under his tutelage. I don't want to lose McCartney, because we finally have a guy that knows how to develop talent properly. But why in hell is he a defensive line coach? It makes no sense, unless we have no faith in Chaplin and we've placed him there out of desperation...? Can anyone else confirm McCartney is actually the defensive line coach?

I know one Melbourne player who said McCartney is pushing the players so hard it's giving them the [censored], but who knows how deep that goes. The interesting point in this article is that McCartney is one of the men responsible for our defence.

We'll know come Wednesday 10.30pm. I'm betting we play a ridiculously aggressive and high press that Richmond break down by midway through the second quarter and end up 7 to 8 goal winners in a canter. If this is the case, Goodwin will need a jolly good flogging. Cue the big fella.

And if you turn it over by foot in your back half, it results in an almost certain goal against. McDonald's kicking is a liability in defence.

It would now seem that way. Of course, it could be bad luck. Jetta certainly came off second best early on in the game, but to me, he looked unfit to play the first time he went near it.

It's pretty significant to go from limping around for most of the game (he didn't look fit from the outset) to an 8-10 week injury. Are we managing players here? It seems pretty incredible.

How the hell can you be missing for 12+ weeks with a groin injury? I'm loathed to speculate with innuendo, but I can't help myself here. Is there more to this injury than meets the eye? I was all for recruiting Lever and May, but given what we've paid for them, and their output on field, it's a diabolic fail thus far. At least, Lever turned up to training with professional standards, but WTF is happening with May? Does anyone have any insight into this?

It seems I'm not quite as pessimistic (?perhaps that's not fair?) as you seem to be. This post makes it seem like we're in more trouble than I think we are. Although, I do see what you mean about Hibberd and Jetta, and having to replace them soon. Agree completely with the forward problems. But I reckon we've got our inside midfield set. We need to get some leg speed like Collingwood and now even Carlton have. If Lever recovers, which I think he will long term, we've got a real general there and someone to build a defence around. I'm more excited by Petty than you seem to be, but time will tell. I also think Weideman will be a good player, but there's no doubt that we have some holes at both ends of the ground and through our midfield given the lack of pace through there.

I haven't rated SOS and have been vocal about it. I certainly didn't rate much of what he did at GWS with the gold he had at his disposal, but he's certainly done a good job the last 3-4 years. I'd argue Cripps is their Oliver. I reckon we need a Walsh type to compliment our Oliver though. Maybe we'll get him with our [censored] 2019? A nice breakdown of their outside mid talent though. It's quite Collingwood-esque (jeez, I really am going mad with all the Collingwood love at the moment). We'd kill for that. All those quick, nicely skilled back flankers that can roll through their midfield. I'd also argue McKay feels more like a Daniher/Buddy type, but we'll see. I think Weideman will be a good/very good player, but Carlton cleaned up that 2015 draft with Curnow and McKay as mid to late first rounders. They were a bit lucky due to the depth of KPPs that year, but they managed to almost entirely sort out their spine in one draft year (Weitering at one end of the ground and the other two at the other end). It's a bit like the 2004 draft for Hawthorn with Roughead and Franklin in the top 5.

Petrevski-Seton is exactly the sort of player our midfield is lacking. The closest thing we've got to him is Harmes.