Adam The God

2021 is a bit of an outlier, because our system was set up for Salem. He was constantly our guy at the back of stoppage or loose ball situations that would get us out of trouble with short, precise kicks. 2022 saw some teams tagging him and 2023 saw us change the way we wanted to move the ball. These events have coincided with more fitness struggles that has meant continuity has been difficult. It's a tough one because I'm basically saying if he gets continuity, he'll have a role to play, but history also suggests this is unlikely over multiple years anyway.

This is fair. Agreed.

It might actually force Port to develop a defensive system. I think Hinkley is contracted for next year, but surely he's gone at the end of this year?

I don't recall Salo ever kicking much more than 45m. Most of his passes have always been in that 15-30m region. I think we'll see some more good footy from Salem. And for what we'd get ina trade and what he adds culturally, Ibe no idea what we'd be trying to do there.

It's not that he might not provide the MFC with good service going forward, but it's more that other clubs would rightly not trust his body. We've years of IP on how to handle his thyroid issue and we understand his body better than outsiders.

I hope we use the rest of this season as a platform for 2025. The one thing we've managed (except for 1 week when Petty was out) is to get continuity between JVR, Petty and Turner. Another 5 games together at least this year.

Yeah, I'm finding this woe is me MFCSS vis a vis Kalani really tedious. He's been around the club for years, is clearly a passionate Melbourne supporter, his father has played over 200+ games for us. Only a Melbourne supporter would worry he wouldn't commit to us.

Well, he's re-signed Petty and Windsor, so it's not all bad. Well done, TL. Link incoming. Source, MFC socials.

I thought he looked livid on the bench in the first half. Some of the younger players I know were scared of going back into the club after the West Coast performance. I reckon the players have had a few rockets this season. We need our onfield leaders to stand up. Missing Gus, Max and Trac has meant it's fallen all on Viney, May and Lever.

JVR might have a case, but I thought Petty constantly competed against the likes of Pearce and co, and Turner in particular struggled up the ground. JVR was great inside 50.

He was also easily our most competitive in the air today.

Kolt was terrible. Young player, hopefully he'll step up next time.

An embarrassing performance. We constantly allowed them to handball to back of stoppage uncontested, and do as they pleased. The scoreline flattered us. A lack of spread on defensive transition. It seemed all too hard. I'll hold fire on a couple of players, but gee whiz, it was tough to watch. Let's just say, given contest numbers went up in the second half, I'd point to psychological weakness in the first half. And you can't lose clearance by 31(!) and expect to be in the game. There's slingshot and then there's uncompetitive at the contest, and we were that for most of the day. Although there were some terrible moments forward of centre and in the back half from our defenders, the mids are responsible for today's capitulation.

I think it was a product of who we were playing against. The first time I noticed this was last week. But I think it helps us with Trac out, and we may not have tried it had he been in the team still. Our defenders are really great at reading when and where to drop off their opponents, and I think this enables us to generate 2v1s behind the ball.

Did you see the little piece in the HUN this morning? Since R13, we're: * 3rd for chain to score against. * 1st for score per inside 50 against. So I suspect those stats are skewed by Rounds 0-12. Such was our defence and the inability of teams to move the ball quickly against us. Makes sense. And is more reliant on scores from stoppage?

N Daicos, Quaynor and Hill are the only three Collingwood players I'd be interested in...

You could argue, a bit like West Coast in 2006, that sustained success was impossible given Collingwood's cultural problems. There were murmurs in 2022 (think De Goey), and now the other side of the 2023 flag, alleged cultural issues again.

Yet we win and we'll most likely be 4th ourselves. It's a strange season. It's Sydney and then the rest atm IMO.

I agree with most of this. Where I'm more hopeful is around our ability to reduce their successful slingshot game. And last week provided the blueprint at stoppage to prevent them getting it to the outside. Bring the same pressure and cleanness at stoppage ourselves and we're a good chance.

I think @binman may have touched on this overall point and I certainly have as well, but there was a run down of our stats since R13 in the HUN this morning. We're 1st for groundball differential since this time. It's pretty clear that we changed the way we set up in the first half of the year, which meant we could generate scores and wins without winning groundball, in fact usually losing it easily. This goes to that point Binners has often made previously about Chris Scott's mantra of managing players and potentially missing finals, but being cherry ripe by the pointy end. Our philosophy early in 2024 also had the positive side effect of developing our slingshot transition game. So instead of winning groundball at contest and trying to play a forward half territory game, we were happy to set our zone deeper, win the clean clearance if possible, but otherwise try and intercept when the ball goes inside 50 against or simply reset with a stoppage. This also meant there was less bang, crash, physicality to each stoppage, and enabled us to win without Clarry dominating. Since the Brisbane game, we have certainly set up more aggressively at stoppages and tried to play a more forward half territory game. Get the ball forward at all costs, knocks, long kicks to contests etc. The HUN article also noted since R13 that we are 1st for long down the line kicks and 1st for contested possession differential. This contested possession turn around feeds into us being 1st for scores per inside 50 against, so our defenders are doing their jobs as well as mids and forwards. One other thing I'd note over the last fortnight against West Coast and then Essendon, is our ability to transition the ball quickly from that long kick down the line situation to a goal out the back. Melksham is a key part to this, but so are Petty, Turner and JVR in being able to bring the ball to ground and not have it intercepted. We then follow it up with a ground ball possession and it basically leads to a goal out the back. When we broke down in the third quarter last week, McKay took multiple marks on Petty, 2 or 3 at least. And our game broke down for this period. It's really vital that we at least halve most of those contests, because if we do, at worst we get territory, and at best, we get a scoring chance. Our three talls have a big role to play again today against Freo. If they can stop their intercept game, make it more chaotic, and prevent Freo from being able to control the ball with uncontested marks at half back, and we complement this with aggressive, powerful pressure and cleanness at the stoppages, it will go a long way to getting enough chances to win the game. Then it's about taking our opportunities in front of goal.

Not really. He could get a bit stronger over the ball, but another pre season enables this.

If this is something you can access easily, @WheeloRatings, are our scores from stoppages up this year? It certainly seems like we're still scoring a lot from stoppage despite the evolution of the game shifting to more points from turnover.

Okay, cool, the "drop off" confused me. So we've got better at winning contests after the bye. I guess that tracks.

Except we tend to play our subs for 15 minutes anyway. I think the thinking is probably that Billings will cover the large expanses of Optus better than Laurie.

Just so I'm clear, the lower the percentage, the more you've lost contests 1v1? In other words, it could explain a more aggressive set up at stoppage? We have might have less that ends in a defensive 1v1 contest, but we lose more contests. Is that it or have I got it back to front?