Adam The God

Yeah, it's not 1998 mate.

If he's playing a defensive role and blocking up space and defending ball movement (given he's quicker than Hunter), how does that change the conversation? Langdon no longer plays the attacking role, so to expect the same attacking output is perhaps pretty unfair. Would we like more out of him? Possibly, but we don't know the internal KPIs.

That's a forward and midfield pressure thing though, not a stoppages structure thing. I agree, we look ordinary at ground level. 2021 we were very good in that area. Not perfect, but very solid.

Scrappy kicks and dirty entries don't lead to direct scores though. They're coming from stopages, so that's a structures thing from stoppages. And if you look at us statistically across rhe year, we're not struggling for centre clearances. We're good in that area. We're struggling at stoppage clearances.

Completely agree. Sure, we need guys that can win or defend groundball (that's ideally your smalls), but I'd much prefer someone who is a legitimate threat in the air. That's not Himmelberg. It's the usual, hey, this player plays somewhere else and is therefore better than anything we've got.

What does he mean by "tight"? My view on our wingers is that we play wide, as in, we don't play sweepers as such (on most plays). Our wingers play 1v1 out the back of a stoppage, but say 15-20m off, rather than as that inside slider off the back of the contest (5-10m from the ball up) to handball receive or defend. This is obviously a shift from Gus last year playing that sweeper role as a dummy defensive winger, and Salem/Bowey and Langdon playing it in 2021. "Tight" sounds like they are somehow goalside of the contest or very close to the stoppage as a sweeper?

Never rated Jayden, so I'm comfortable with it.

Weideman indicated he wanted to go, so we managed a trade for Schache to cover for Weideman.

Reckon he'll play against Collingwood.

Looks lost when we're in the top 4? This might be the worst post of the year. Congratulations.

LJ wouldn't get a game in the modern game. He had absolutely no defensive game. Loved him, was incredible offensively, but would be a liability when the opposition had the ball. I agree though that we need more x factor forward of the ball. I'd be looking for an x factor small (Watson?) in the draft and getting in Bailey Humphies ear. When Richmond changed the game in 2017, they did it with Riewoldt bringing the ball to the ground and contesting, and a fleet of smalls with x factor at ground level. Problem is they need to have a good aerobic base too, which takes time to build. But I'd trust our mids to get it in there enough to give that sort of set-up some looks. Right now we have too many guys that aren't quick enough, nor mercurial enough in the forward half. Kozzy and Fritsch the exceptions to the mercurial.

This seems a potentially fair criticism. From a teaching perspective, it would make sense to release the shackles in the second half of the year after making strides with intercept game. It means that if Clarry or Trac is being tagged, they can throw the tag by still contributing with intercept and defence. Trac obviously has the ability to go forward too to break that tag.

Great point about tempo and this rightly being moment-dependent @deanox. If we adjust our structures more defensively in D50 when momentum is against us, it might take the pressure off our feeling that scoring could be generated at any moment, and lessen the fumbles. Who knows...

Okay, so a little debate topic I wanted to post in this thread too, RE our stoppage clearance numbers (our centre clearance numbers are decent). I think we may have to tweak our approach to stoppage clearances to tighten up scores against clearance. I believe in our quest to score (both on slingshot from D50 and inside our A50), we leave too much space around the contest for teams to chain out of when we lose clearance. Of course, it works the other way around too, but I think our ability to defend D50 is more important than slingshot. If I'm right, maybe it's a case of clogging up D50 at stoppages and sacrificing an easier slingshot/handball chain out of our D50, but keeping the space in the A50 at stoppages, and back our defensive system to stop teams scoring when they chain out of our A50. What do others think?

I think we may have to tweak our approach to stoppage clearances. I believe in our quest to score (both on slingshot from D50 and inside our A50), we leave too much space around the contest for teams to chain out of when we lose clearance. Of course, it works the other way around too, but I think our ability to defend D50 is more important than slingshot. If I'm right, maybe it's a case of clogging up D50 at stoppages and sacrificing an easier slingshot/handball chain out of our D50, but keep the space in the A50 at stoppages, and back our defensive system to stop teams scoring when they chain out of our A50.

Potentially, although from a psychological perspective, the club may feel it's important to get one up on them at this stage of the year. @Engorged Onion, you probably don't agree with this? However, that may well be the club's thinking. And to perform on the big stage.

Just like the 2014 Hawks, hey? Finished 2nd, but lost to 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th. So they lost to everyone else in the top 4 and 5th... The footy media have the attention span of a rock.

I'd lost my voice by half time. The MCC for the most part have painfully little understanding of the game and rarely get going vocally. At every centre bounce, I'd be yelling something. Everyone else pretty much nothing. I'm passionate, frustrated and irrational at times during games. It's afterwards that I become contemplative.

Aside from the nature of yesterday's loss (RE ball movement), what is this based on at all? We've improved our scoring sources, ball movement and experimented with personnel to lessen the load on Gawn, Clarry, Trac and Viney. The areas that hurt last season were stodgy, predictable and slow ball movement, and an inability to defend ground ball in D50. I'd argue we haven't seen a big improvement on the defenaive ground ball, but otherwise, weve improved our ability to fenerare scores from different sources, with an unpredictable forward mix. Sure, around the ground stoppages need to improve numbers wise, but with our best three mids in there nore often, I would be surprised if that doesn't improve. I'm not sure it's a fair analysis to call what I'm saying burying my head in the sand. Nowhere have I said our performances the last fortnight have been good enough. And I've very definitely said that yesterday's loss was "pathetic". It's less about a narrative and more about realism. You're never going to get 23 rounds of perfect football. We didn't even deliver that in the brilliance of 2021. We had the same doubters coming for us then too. Of course, we have to improve, but the point I keep trying to make is that you could have been saying these exact same things to Hawthorn or Richmond supporters the years they won their flags. Given our travel thus far and lack of continuity with the side, to be 7-4 and 4th, we have a second half draw that I know you know is very VIC based and should give us a chance to cement our top 4 spot. Yeah, we do have to win another 8-10 games to make top 4, but I expect us to win the majority of Carlton (x2), Geelong, GWS, St Kilda, Richmond, North, Hawthorn and Sydney. And we have home games against the Lions and Adelaide, which are eminently winnable. Neither teams are the same teams away from home. I have no idea whether we're going to win the flag, all I'm saying is, all is not as bad as it may seem.

I reckon it's more likely he was being tagged by O'Meara. Port also tagged Jack. He wasn't up to scratch yesterday, but would be very surprised if there wasn't a tag on him.

The way we've been losing hasn't been remotely like 2022, except for ironically today's loss.

Mate, it's bizarre you're getting on here and writing a book (like I usually do) without having watched the game.

I have no idea whether we're trying to time it for Collingwood, that's pure guesswork, but this is why it's so folly to be picking apart results at Round 10 and 11, and saying ridiculous things like sack the coach, we won't make the 8 and other such nuffiness (I'm not saying you've ever said remotely anything like this btw). As for what I hope, I really do hope we're targeting that Collingwood game.

What is a loser mentality though mate? Some of us are merely saying we need a bit of perspective. It's fine to vent our frustration, but you're implying here we're not contenders because we've lost two games by a total of 11 points, yet we sit in the top 4 with a very healthy percentage that also happens to currently be the best percentage. I'll pop this in here as well. ---- It's all well and good to be frustrated. I thought we were pathetic today, but I find it easier to look at the bigger picture and history is an important reminder in AFL footy (and anything really). We're top 4, with a softer draw coming up in the second half of the year, with less 8 point games than our other top 4 opposition. Many parts of our game are in good shape (our turnover game), and others (stoppages) need some work. The stoppages issue IMV has much scope for improvement when we start to throw our better mids through the contest more often. So that's personnel. The history side of it is more telling. Many supporters seem to have this expectation that having won 2021, we'd be winning flags over and over in the same way. We've had to change the way we're playing because the competition adapted to our intercept game in 2021. But no team in the modern era has gone through seasons like our 2021 season repeatedly. They've all had ups and downs. Let's look at the Hawthorn threepeat team as a prime example. 2013 was their 2021. They won 19 games and aside from their qualifying final win over Sydney, won their prelim and GF by a combined 4 goals. Their finals series that season was nothing like the dominance of ours in 2021. And maybe this, plus the fact they'd fallen after their 08 flag, kept them hungry going into 2014. But still, 2014 saw them finish second on 17 wins. To Round 10, they were 6 and 3 (there was a bye at Round 9). Those three losses were to Sydney (who finished above them in 1st), Geelong (who finished one place below them in 3rd) and 5th placed Port. Plus, they fell over the line to Essendon (who finished 7th) by 4 points in Round 2, and some of their wins were big wins to the likes of the new and young Suns, eventual wooden spooners St Kilda and struggling Brisbane who finished in the bottom 4. If that was our start, we'd have been saying all the same things. Oh, we can't beat the sides around us, our competitors, but we have no trouble beating up the lowly sides. We're flattrack bullies etc. Their 2014 finals campaign was better than their 2013 finals series, winning two finals easily, but winning their prelim against Oort on the MCG by 3 points. Again, nowhere near as good as our 2021 finals series. Moving on to 2015, and this time, they finished 3rd on 16 wins. They went the first 10 rounds 6-4. To Round 10, they lost to Essendon (who would finish 4th bottom), Port (who would finish 9th), GWS (who finished 11th) and one of their main competitors Sydney (who finished 4th, one place below Hawthorn that year). Meanwhile, they beat Geelong (who would miss the 8 that year), us (who were very ordinary in our second year under Roos - we finished 13th), 16th placed Suns and 14th placed St Kilda. Again, a season to Round 10, nothing to write home about. And their finals campaign in 2015 saw them lose their qualifying final and having to go the long way to win it. Why did I bother with all this? Well, perspective is a funny thing. And it's funny how quickly we forget things. We've forgotten how powerful our 2021 finals campaign was, and expecting us to replicate that is folly. As for it's all over by Round 10 or 11, well, history shows us that is simply not the case and that if you're in the hunt for the top 4 and injury-free come the last few rounds, that's the goal. Not being the clear premiership standout by Round 10, because we know how that goes, don't we Melbourne fans (*cough* 2022 *cough*).

People will hate it, but Selwyn Griffith said on the Demonland podcast, that by this stage, players are starting to fatigue badly. Layer on the possibility that we're targeting the Collingwood game to be blistering (think that St Kilda game in Round 8 last year), we could well be managing players that fatigues them in the Freo and Carlton games and causes 15-20 intercept mark spills, suddenly poor accuracy and poor disposal and decision making...