Adam The God

Half forwards push all the way inside defensive 50, whereas half backs mostly have the ball in front of them and don't go higher than half back. Would hope it's a possibility though as a positional swap.

And why do you think that might be? Nothing to do with fatigue?

Although our ground level pressure is really good at the moment (the last two games we've laid 17-4 vs Pies and 19-8 vs Geelong for +24 tackles inside 50), we're not converting our snap or burst chances inside 50. Therefore, I wonder if resting Chandler (some VFL and additional kms on the training track instead) and trying Bowser forward isn't such a bad move. He's quick, he's decent 1v1, he's clean and he's a beautiful kick, and played half forward as a junior. Just to try something a little different through this middle part of the season. The thing is, does he have the endurance?

I disagree. Since winning the flag, opposition supporters love to beat us. I'd like to throw an obvious rivalry in there, and that's the Bulldogs. At that Marvel game last year, I sat on the wing with @billy_blog and the Bulldog supporters around us were hugely spiteful towards us, I thought. When you lose a GF in the way they did to us, on top of the rivalry that was building in 2021, it has to stick a bit.

Yeah, revenue, how stupid.

You're very much determined, TU, that loading was no issue last year (you poo pooed it all year). Can I ask, have you actually listened to the Demonland podcast with Selwyn? Secondly, between approximately Rounds 11 to 19 in 2021, 2022 and we're seeing it again in 2023, we've seen a marked drop off in performance. That doesn't mean we lose every game, but it is a factor. This year it is most obviously apparent in our scoring accuracy, which is not only a by-product of fatigue, but our slower, less direct ball movement that then offers less penetrating forward 50 thrusts, is also related to fatigue. You'd like Selwyn on another podcast interview to come out and say we increase training of players during Rounds x to y? Or have we just suddenly become a poor footy team that can't execute three years in a row, after starting the first two 9 zip?

It may depend who we play in that first final too @Watson11. My recollection of the qualifying final in 2021 against the Lions in Adelaide was it was wet. The Lions are already a slow team, so it didn't overly impact the result.

We know the coaching team have a philosophy of backing in our system, but they've shown with their use of a defensive forward (previously Melksham and more recently Smith) and at times in 2021, a negating mid in Harmes to both Libba and Neale, we are prepared to use "negative" roles to ensure our system functions optimally. Do you think we should be more willing to use more negating players in our system?

Pretty unnecessary comment, I would have thought.

He may not be, but I'm not going to write off Max until we've seen the entire season as a whole. Also, remembering he's come back from a serious knee injury this season. Kane is as reactionary as some on here.

So if we add the two goals to the Freo game, we win it. Accuracy should improve as we head into the last 5 games of the H&A and finals.

How about you listen to Selwyn Griffith, our head of high performance talk about it here? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/selwyn-griffith-interview/id1220844996?i=1000606404637 It's not a theory, it's a fact. Teams looking to peak at the pointy end of September, increase loads. We've now had three straight years of evidence between approximately Rounds 11-19 to show that marry up with going hard during the middle part of the season and how performances become patchy and inconsistent as a result.

I've been critical of his disposal, but he was excellent the other night. And his form overall has been strong IMO.

Aside from Viney, who has had two in game injuries two weeks in a row, who else are we saying is banged up here? Listen to our head of fitness FFS. It's cumulative fatigue. Here you go: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/selwyn-griffith-interview/id1220844996?i=1000606404637

And a loss for Geelong meant their season was over.

The famed 2023 super draft was overblown. Fancy that. Just as well we have JT. I'm sure they'll be saying the same things about the 2024 draft. As they do every year. Every year is a so called super draft.

Rivers had a whopping 12 intercept possessions (only bettered by Lever who had 14 - Rivers had +3 more than the next best), 6 score involvements and only 3 turnovers from 25 disposals. He seemed to be playing 1+ in front of our defenders. Floated across in front of packs multiple times. Played a very good game, I thought. One of his best. If he'd nailed that goal, it would probably have been his best game.

Thanks for this Wheelo. Just a quick one. The AFL ap had us scoring 4 points from defensive half chains and Geelong scoring 33 points. Is there a discrepancy?

That was a typo. Resilience was the key word.

Most of that top 15 on that list spend time on the wing, so on the outside, and off half back as you say with Hewett, @Engorged Onion. This is three years in a row that we've struggled to score big and move the ball quickly enough during the middle part of the season, and still, people write off our chances at the pointy end and want to drop everyone etc. Selwyn Griffith has made it plainly clear that players lose fitness as the season progresses and need to be topped up by additional kms in the legs and/or increased weights etc during the middle part of the season. Add to this, the additional weather factors of the June period, usually bring wet and ordinary conditions, and then you've got a recipe for increased disposal inefficiency, fumbling and an inability to get overlap and burst from stoppages, half back and any contested situation. Not to say it's impossible, but these factors are all in play and plainly influence results. Not just in our games, but league wide. In Burgess' last year, Griffith was to shadow him and emulate his program the following years. Last year we had too many injuries and we allowed too many players to play through injury (taking from Burgess' philosophy of building resilience to injury). This year we're managing players better. I've seen people suggesting we drop Chandler for a freshen up. Well, that's all well and good, but that's not really modern footy anymore. He won't be sitting around putting the legs up or he'll lose conditioning. He'll still need to do the same kms as if he were playing in the AFL, but it'll occur on the training track instead. So fatigue will be an issue in any games he or anyone else play until tapering occurs. Some Demonlanders and MFC supporters on Facebook etc would like to think footy is as simple as when they played in the 90s or when played/play some ammo footy. Well, it's not, and without factoring in cumulative fatigue to decision making and ability to execute things like goal kicking, and somehow expecting 'leaders' to be better at this, I think is extremely flawed. Look at our goal kicking accuracy between Rounds 1-9. We kicked the following scores: R1 - 17.13 R2 - 13.4 R3 - 21.8 R4 - 19.12 R5 - 11.11 (this is the Essendon game off the back of a 6 break with travel from Perth, back to Melbourne, on to Adelaide) R6 - 15.6 (we had an 8 day break into this, with this being the Richmond game on the 9th night) R7 - 22.7 R8 - 13.12 (in a sluggish affair on the Gold Coast) R9 - 15.13 Incredible accuracy. And then like 2021 and 2022, we started to struggle in game to get overlap, our contest work started to suffer, as did our ball movement and our accuracy started to decline. Obviously, when ball movement starts to struggle, you're likely to get lower percentage options too. So remember how central and quickly we were moving the ball in the earlier rounds, and now how our ball movement has slowed and this has intersected with our poorer accuracy? Since Round 9, we've gone the following: R10 - 11.10 (lost clearances by 10 and were smashed on the outside) R11 - 10.12 (goal kicking cost us, as did ability to execute clean disposals in the forward half and create turnovers in the forward half) R12 - 8.13 R13 - 8.18 R15 - 8.15 Marry all this up with cumulative fatigue, what Griffith said on the podcast and increasing the fitness base from the middle point to the back end of the season, and it's pretty undeniable we're going through the same stretch of heavy training again, which is having a huge impact on performance. And then there's the clear drop offs during Rounds 11-19 in 2022 and Rounds 13-19 in 2021. These training blocks impact on accuracy, ball use and decision-making. That doesn't mean every result is determined by this, but when we do have results like the Geelong game or the Port or Freo games, it's too easy to simply say let's drop a bunch of guys, let's change our system etc. Sure, we have to find the right mix at either end of the ground, and ensure we manage players properly, but we still have time. In the back end of our season, there's less travel, weaker opponents, but there might also be some shock results up to that Round 19 area. But the MFC does not exist in a vacuum. League wide, the standard of games has dropped overtly in the past month, something @binman has repeatedly pointed out. I think top 2 *may* be out of reach now, but we're still very well placed for 3rd, particularly given Brisbane's own flakiness and their draw versus ours.

Yep, I think it's a legitimate concern with the way we've tweaked our game style to chain out of contest. Particularly, during the middle of the year when fatigue has become a factor, we fumble too much. We'd be much better trying to be more inventive in finding ways to gain territory without it slingshotting from simple dump kicks. It's a bit of a wait and see though, because the wet weather should bring our contest and pressure game to the fore, but so far we've looked vulnerable in these conditions. Either we hope for a dry September or we simply execute better in the wet, like Geelong managed last night. Oliver should definitely help in this regard.

We got it deep plenty of times last night. The majority of entries were deep. But yes, we couldn't get it to 1v1s often enough. Geelong played a very high line with no goalkeeper from defensive stoppages, but had extra numbers at the contest to chain out or clear the area.

So we're league leaders for points from defensive half chains, averaging 38.6 points from this source. Tonight, we scored 4 points from these defensive half chains, to Geelong's 5 goals 3. So although our chaining from contest in the middle of the ground worked at times to gain territory, we didn't score enough once the ball was in our forward half. I'm concerned that this tweak of chaining out of contests and the back half is actually something that can break down badly in the wet weather. Geelong were just cleaner when they chained out of contest and our defensive structures completely broke down. I wouldn't want us playing a final in the wet weather. Let me put it that way.

I think the players we have need to execute better. Simple as thst. They're creating enough chances. Just a little thing on Melbourne at Geelong, when May kicks out to the flank, we get to the foot of the contest and Geelong stand 15m from the foot of it. Geelong get it to ground and either smother our guys at the foot or the ball pings out to those 15m put Geelong players. Happened last year and happened a lot tonight. It ends up with an uncontested Geelong player having the ball at 60-55m and having to hit up a simple short chip inside 50. We did adjust to this, but it took us a while and it cost us early.

One thing I will say is that Geelong held on and scragged our players all night and got away with it. Gawn was manhandled in every ruck contest. They get a bloody good go that mob.