Adam The God

What did you think of the game today mate? Did it look like the pre season ball movement that some have said? Thought we were so exciting. And of course Goody and Chaplin have been there before playing that way with earlier iterations of this team. Bassett's attacking defensive set up during his time at Port will be an interesting watch for the rest of the season. Hopefully having May, Lever and McVee back in the back 7, we'll manage to win more 1v1s back there, but it felt like the easy scores against were a midfield problem. Either from too aggressive set ups or poor set ups or poor defensive transition. I also hope having May and Lever back doesn't slow or [censored] our bounce off half back.

Lord Edward Is God saw his first full game win today. He was singing the song loudly with his nuffy dad. Thank you, Demons.

Play like that and 2018 again more often and we'll be getting 30k+ to that game. Which given the number of supporters we actually have, would be a bloody brilliant effort.

I've never been TMac's biggest fan, particularly as a defender, but he has been bloody brilliant this year, and proved me wrong. As dazzle said, give him another contract. Is showing tremendous leadership.

Pity he doesn't kick it like JVR.

Probably yes. At least Koz will make Freo pay up to get him.

He well and truly had Amiss' measure and then he went off and Howes had to play tall on Amiss, which is when he got into the game. Turner's first involvement in the game was a strong contested mark at CHB. Great stuff. The future could well be at one end: McVee Adams Lever Windsor Turner Bowey And at the other end: Kolt JVR Chandler ??? Petty Trac

That play Max has used for years of taking it out of the ruck is so dangerous if instead of kicking it long and high to a contest, he forward handballs to a mid on the move out the front of stoppage. It's practically undefendable. Because it forces the half back to press up, leaving our half forward free to bang, bang, bang.

We kill the clock correctly in Round 1 and we're 2-4. The strange thing is it was a very similar game to the GWS game. Though today our bounce off half back was scintillating. Bowey BOG for mine. Set up so much of our play. There's a sample size of 2 really clear examples of the game plan we're trying to play and so much starts from at stoppage, which we finally got mostly right today. But the biggest change was that final kick inside. It was superb today. I could count on one hand how many poor entries we had. A very welcome change, and you can see when we get that kick right, it doesn't matter too much who's down there, but as long as we get a contest, we look super dangerous. We also looked to use the corridor and a short chipping game again that was more attacking than just possession maintenance that we saw in Round 1. Amazing how we look when the players put in and the forwards lead at the ball carrier. The game, even more so than Round 1, felt like the 2018 Goodwin team. To paraphrase thegreat Roger Moore in For Your Eyes Only, "we're not dead yet, Goody".

Goody and the coaches did a terrific job winning a flag despite the mess off field. It wasn't sustainable because the FD has the wrong mix IMV (with soft cap constraints). That's on the board and the current president for his lack of oversight or decision making acumen. Green was responsible for the football side and we had Clarry doing his thing and Trac throwing us under a bus because our FD couldn't communicate properly with player. Our problems are far bigger than Goody. That doesn't mean I think he will or should coach beyond 2025, but look at the midfield coaches he's got to work with...

And Sam Frost, that said they overrated Frosty when he was on the list too.

Lol, now Jordon is a loss. The bloke wasa role player who was shown up for pace in 2022 and struggled to stay in games post Round 10. Would he be a handy role player? Sure. But the way we speak of former MFC players or opposition players, they're suddenly B+ or A graders. But in a Melbourne jumper they are constantly criticised. Jordon was a fringe player for a reason. Incidentally, this happens in all good teams. Role players fall out. Sometimes they become stars at their second club (think Josh Kennedy post Hawthorn at Sydney), but most of the time, they demonstrate the same limitations at their next club.

You know both things could be true, you lot. Goody and co have made poor decisions and communication appears poor, and the players are failing to make the system work, whilst missing easy targets by hand and foot.

We'll get some picks and players this year that we can add to this mix. I'd also take Jackson back if that became an option.

Jayden Hunt is the missing piece. Just like Sam Frost.

We had 25k against GWS and 24,5k against the Suns and in Adelaide against Essendon for our home game, another solid crowd. By comparison, Hawthorn at 14k in Tassie against GWS. By comparison, Essendon got 25k at Marvel against Port. We are a disaster off field, but this year, we've had reasonable crowds so far.

Our crowds have been pretty good actually.

It wouldn't be helping and selection has been poor, but the guys that need to get used to the new plan for it to click are our mids, and they've had relative continuity.

I'd be focusing on getting my arms out in front and taking simple grabs when I do the hard work to get into position. JVR needs a lot of work on his forward craft. Not sure Chaplin has helped him so far.

I wish we had signatures on our Demonland profile. This would go in there. "One lousy flag" - Picket 'Shouts at Clouds' Fence. The nuffiness is dribbling everywhere in this thread. I've just wasted an hour of my life reading the last 5 or so pages post the selection news. More whinging than my cats.

Buy a Demonland subscription.

Then you also hear from Champion Data that we're top 5 for ball movement this year and top 3 for fastest ball movement, which then contradicts someone like David King who doesn't have us anywhere near the top because he takes out variables to suit his own argument (that better ball movement equals ladder position). It's typical from King, but it's really, really dishonest journalism. And it's why I stopped watching them all. They have a thesis, which they then go and support with data. If the data fit, they remove the variables or use a narrow set of stats to prove a point.

If we go away from Goody, I'd go with Cam Bruce and Justin Leppitsch as the senior assistant. But what would I know?

This exchange from 2020 is very interesting to read again. Particularly, the selection issues and the lack of defensive transition. This part of the thread also discusses how we would move the ball long to the central hot spot to get contests from our talls in the air and our smalls at ground level. Hitting up the central hot spot is also what Richmond did so well during 2017-2020 (get a contest from Riewoldt or Riewoldt and Lynch, and their smalls would go to work). And like us across 2021-2023, they turned defensive intercept into attack. Reading back over the early part of this thread is fascinating. It seems our problems and Demonlanders' critiques are cyclical.

To be fair, we did this all last year. They're cherrypicking plays as usual. There's plenty of plays to the hot spot that result in nothing every game in every round. We either didn't have the guys to bring the ball to ground or we didn't have the crumbers. We would set up a five man anchor behind the ball just as this video intimates. Again, it is my view that we've overcorrected and should be reverting to what works for us. Even an aggressive press that is anchored by a five man defence. Playing Windsor and Lindsay behind the ball, with Langdon on a defensive wing, we could defend breakaways. The play Longmire describes in itself is a tweak on the kicking it long to the pockets that we did for two years, but as with most things on the footy field, the most dangerous position to hit is the corridor, or in this case, that central hot spot. Back in 2023, Collingwood would often hit that central hot spot, while we were still hitting the pockets. It meant their shots were easier than ours, and I remember at the time hoping we'd be more aggressive with that kick to a central hot spot, rather than a pocket, but we obviously felt we could defend the pocket better and then get a reset for a stoppage that we'd win 50% of the time resulting in a scoring chance. At the start of 2024, as I say, we made the change and looked more central. There is nothing particularly enlightening about this exposition when you think about it, but I'm glad there is some stuff in the press about tactics, although unless it's posted on here I wouldn't watch it anyway.😆