Adam The God

Which IMV, would still be folly given we've got a fresher Max than we would have without Gawndy and given Max's injury earlier in the year, we may well have struggled far more without Grundy.

What's bizarre is why did we never try (not once), Gawn behind the ball with Grundy rucking? It's really one of the great mysteries to 2023 and it's annoying me. :P

A bit of Bowey 21 about it. Hope he does well. Caulfield Grammarian.

I agree. This is the way forward IMO.

This data is skewed by when we played smaller players. We played the three smalls against Collingwood on KB. I don't think we get exposed for height very often. Particularly, when you've got Max at almost every kick down the line. The post 2022 game style requires more smalls. I guess I'm saying I disagree.

Yep, that's what I'd go with.

I didn't say it was. In fact, I said playing different personnel would allow us to play I'm fine with playing a different game depending on who we play. The personnel shuffle (ie Grundy and Laurie) is not what's ideal IMO. Agree with all this. 👍 Agreed. And with a multi million dollar contract. Agreed. Think Richmond circa 2017. JVR, Smith and Fritta surrounded by Kozzy, Trac and Chandler.

I do. How do you gif?

That's not what Goody said at all, he was cagey about Grundy. And since @Dannyz has said Grundy is out and Smith is forward, take that to the bank.

I think a lot of people are going on what we expect to happen, not necessarily what we would do. And what it may also come down to is Max or Grundy, and we know which way we'll bend on that point.

Just getting around to the podders now, my essential weekly listening. Now, Binners, I'm gonna disagree with you on where we lost the game being in the forward 50 tackles stakes, unless you think we lost it tactically. The first half saw us playing Kozzy higher up the ground and allowed them to come at us up the ground from kick outs. It meant we were quite happy to have the ball leave our attacking 50 by design, as this would leave more space in behind for us to attack back the other way. It would also mean that forward 50 tackles would be reduced by this. At the time, I actually thought it was the right tactical play. I'm playing a similar style with a junior team I coach at the moment and it's strangling teams and leading to heavy scoring for us, because it becomes almost always about fast break away, uncontested play off the sling shot once we cause turnovers or intercept. As soon as you win possession via intercept or winning a 1v1, you go quickly. This was clearly our plan. You allude to this, but I think it was lost because they won intercept and they were better/more effective at it. Part of this was a function of their extremely aggressive forward half press that enabled them to get repeated re-entries from higher intercepts than we were. When we managed to intercept deep in defence or even off half back and in the corridor, we mucked up at least 2 or 3 opportunities on the fast break that should have been scores at the very least, if not goals on the counter. When Oliver went down earlier in the season, we started to shift away from demanding a forward half game and seemed to be more open to the idea of playing on the counter from D50, the one major advantage of this is obviously a less crowded forward half to enter. This was also the blueprint to beat Collingwood, although arguably we wanted to create turnovers slightly higher up the field than D50. We've also seen in 2023, probably more than any other season, Goody experiment with winning in different ways. Winning in shoot outs, winning in overly defensive contested matches, winning via back half intercepts, winning via forward half intercepts (relaxing or constricting the press), allowing games to open up and then deliberately playing overly contested, forward half games etc etc. And I just wonder if we treated this game (the first half at least) as a bit of an experiment again. To see if we could beat our own system with a more Collingwoodesque slingshot game. We don't take the same risks as them by foot though, which meant it was always going to be a dour affair if Carlton brought the heat. Which they did. I'd argue therefore that it was a tactical mistake (the experiment notwithstanding) to slacken the forward press and look to sit back and hit them on the counter. By half time, it was clear that Goody and co agreed with this view, because we made an adjustment in our forward half by playing Kozzy deeper, rather than higher as per the first half, and we started to lay inside 50 tackles and try to lock the ball in our forward half. At the very least, we forced them to kick to contests outside our A50. I have no idea what Chandler's role was on the night, but given he was pretty much a non entity, I think this robbed us of forward half pressure too, it can't always land on Kozzy's shoulders. And I just wonder if Chandler was playing the higher half forward role that Spargo should be playing, and as a result was too high up the ground to be applying the necessary pressure inside A50...? I said soon after the game finished that I felt our forward mix was off. It wasn't just Grundy, because he actually did a neat thing or two in the forward half (despite lacking the forward craft), and I agree with you that he was better in the ruck than Max, but the other thing that threw our balance off was, I think, the extra mid instead of the extra speed forward in Spargo. If you play Spargo alongside ANB to defend closer to D50 and through the middle of the ground, all of a sudden you can play Kozzy, Chandler and Trac deep forward, add Smith into that mix and you've got forward pressure through the roof. It means you can slacken your zone too and not lose that important ability to lock the ball in forward half and play territory. Now that Clarry has a game under his belt, I hope we revert to this forward set up this week and drop the extra mid (JJ).

So you're thinking Grundy for Tomlinson and Smith forward...? RE the May, Lever and Tomlinson record, I had to go back and double check this as I thought they'd dropped a game together last year or even this year, but spot on. That's a crazy record. It might partly be a result of the MC picking Tomlinson for very specific roles where he doesn't get exposed and allows the other two to intercept/win their roles, this could equally be wholly unfair to Tomlinson. But it is interesting we're clearly concerned about something there. He definitely held up, as did the May/Lever/Tomlinson partnership on King's Birthday. In fact, the entire team from the KB game will be available as of next week via Fritta (Petty didn't play), and I had thought for the majority of the season that minus Smith up forward, we'd basically go with that set up for the finals. However, with Petty's injury, it's opened up Smith as his replacement. I think there's definitely room for Grundy, but I reckon the MC have put a line through him now. That means, I think the forwardline we'll go with for finals (assuming TMac and BB are done - this seems likely) is JVR, Fritta, Smith, ANB, Kozzy, Chandler and Spargo. While the defensive set up could well be the same as KB (with Bowey missing out) - May, Lever, Tomlinson, Salem, McVee, Rivers and Hibbo (except Hibbo was tactical sub that day). This means Clarry would replace JJ from that KB team, leaving Max, Clarry, Trac, Viney, Brayshaw, Sparrow, plus Langdon and Hunter. The tactical sub choice could then come from either Grundy (as strange as that sounds), JJ, Harmes or Bowey. I know @old55 wouldn't have Spargo, so if you left Charlie out, you could play an extra mid or fit Bowey at the back. Equally, if you left Hibbo out, you could fit Bowey at the back. Here is the team as above. To me, it's a little short in the front half, but as we saw with the ball movement on KB, this isn't such a problem if we move it quickly and turn the ball over/intercept in the middle of the ground. McVee May Hibbo Lever Tomlinson Salem Langdon Oliver Hunter Petracca Smith ANB Fritta JVR Kozzy Gawn Viney Brayshaw Rivers Sparrow Spargo Chandler There's also a chance they could pretty much play this team against Hawthorn minus Fritta for the extra mid in JJ.

Injury List: Deebauched - TBC, brain injury resulting in cooked cancer takes

Yes he is...?

So you don't subscribe to @binman's view that Spargo and ANB basically play defensive winger roles that then flow forward to help offence, and that possession numbers are nice, but not the KPI? I do FWIW, hence my call for Spargo to come in. I think our forward 50 will look better if we can defend better through the middle of the ground and higher. But each to their own mate.

But on the inside 50 tackle count, we backed off for a half and allowed them to chip and handball receive from the kick ins. This was when Kozzy played higher up the ground. He played deeper in the second half and was tasked with tracking that runner from the kick out. That explains our lack of forward 50 tackles.

That's one way of looking at it certainly. But if we looked Collingwood's record and offset say half of their close wins against the rest of their close wins, they'd likely be out of the 8 altogether. So it shows you that these small margins can potentially be hugely importantly. A home final, let's say, or even the idea of missing the top 4 or top 8 altogether. And I know there's nothing we can do about it, but I think we will rue to some extent not getting over the line in at least half of those losses.

This is a bloody great post mate. Fast becoming one of my favourite posters. 🙌 I'd suggest sides are hyper aware of moving the ball quickly against us, so that they get 1v1s and don't allow our interceptors a chance to intercept, hence the 2nd highest CD1v1s. It is exceptionally rare that we lose inside 50s though, so even if there is a clear correlation between higher CD1v1s and losing inside 50s, we know we're bound to have relatively high CD1v1s either way, simply because modern ball movement has evolved precisely to beat Melbourne Football Club's back 7-8.

We definitely panicked on occasion with ball in hand and made poor decisions, but our structure and contest game absorbed their pressure beautifully. On actual score and expected score, given the repeat entries. Does anyone know if under Goody, we've ever had an inside 50 differential as high as that first quarter? I'd suggest we haven't. So the Blues' contest game was awesome in that first quarter. It's interesting, because the two goals JVR missed, he usually kicks both, if not at least one of those. That's the game. I think ultimately Carlton could be a more dangerous forward half team, and arguably more dangerous around the ball with their omissions, but I think our ceiling and scope for improvement on Round 22 is way higher. In retrospect, it's still a game we should have won and let slip. That's 4 now, I'd suggest, we've let slip. Port, Freo, GWS and Carlton. We didn't play well enough for long enough against Geelong. Those losses will cost us the minor premiership. But as long as we sew up the top 4, it might be okay.

Surely, we go with JJ out for Spargo and Grundy out for Hibbo. Seems like that might be it for Grundy at the MFC.

The idea that we somehow manufacture finishing 4th if we're leading in a game in Round 24 is lalaland thinking. Anywhere, any time is and will clearly be our philosophy.

Exactly, and our defence. He's become pretty much one of our main interceptors behind May and Lever.

Butters 😍

He's already playing high half back. If you're not moving him into the midfield, the only higher place is forward. Maybe we send Gus back to play the intercept role and release Rivers into the Salem back of stoppage role?

Doesn't he mostly play wing?