Little Goffy

Must have read the article during the week about how he was our best 'mid' going inside 50. Just trying to take the pressure off teammates. Captain's clangers.

Pre-game, the AFL website clearly saw something they liked about our Weideman.

I actually fully agree; I've seriously respected Ratten ever since he got the best out of our midfield waaaaaay back in a past era, and with a Carlton-supporting brother I'm very aware of how much he got out of a Blue's unit that was not as good as (ahem) Malthouse convinced the Blue's board it was. I would have preferred Ratten as the Roos successor and I think St Kilda are over-achieving with him at the helm at the moment. Although, I must confess I have long believed St Kilda has been right on the edge of being a total basket case and that Richardson did well to get even the couple of respectable seasons out of him that he did. Stagnated for 18 months is about as neat a summary of Goodwin/Melbourne as you can get. I hope I didn't come across as mocking the original comment - I was just having a laugh and enjoying the spectacle of what a fickle and unpredictable game our game can be, at it's best.

So did Fremantle, it seems. And I must say, Ratten is so overrated. We should be trying to recruit this Justin Longmuir guy. OMG how long was he available for and we missed him? {cuts wrists}

Going back to the Hawks game for a moment - their team out there for 3 goals in a game had an average age of 27 - more than a year older even than the team Collingwood sent out, and the Pies themselves are one of the oldest teams running around at present. I'm already dreaming of a win over Gold Coast followed by a thumping of Hawthorn to declare our return. I really hate Hawthorn. I really do.

Theory - Goodwin's ambition is to create a team so used to playing on and operating under massive amounts of self-inflicted pressure that they eventually start operating naturally at that level and become a completely unstoppable force - a level of tempo up to compare with going VFL to AFL, and then proceed to win a string of premierships to rival the Great One himself. I mean, that run in mid 2018 - if that is a taste of what the 'Goodwin plan working' looks like, I'm okay with that... If...

Wherever is left? But seriously, anywhere with an appropriate sized playing field and a secure health situation will be acceptable. If some fluke brings the situation to one where a crowd is possible then wherever can offer the best atmosphere, NOT necessarily the largest numbers. It'll be corporates and raffle winners and few others and they'll be going bananas after 14 days quarantine. Come to think of it, they might need to plan for that for any clubs playing finals. What a travel package that would be.

Jetta and Oscar completely change our defensive set-up, releasing May and Lever to be much more counter-attacking and in particular it should benefit Lever who can now be the smart interceptor and third-man up he is best at, without crapping his shorts all day about what hole is opening up behind him. In Jetta's case, I think his presence as a proper responsible adult will help things enormously. Weideman in will help T Mac operate with at least a little less than a 100% blanket on him, and doubles the chance of a tall person being under the fall of the ball from one of our random kicks forward. Bennell in is just an obvious one, even before what apparently was a very busy and effective scratch match effort. As far as I can see it, all four changes improve out structure and the outs, while being a little tough on a couple, are not diminishing our structure at all. I approve of these decisions, now I wait...

It is something that has been observed in the past, but also, a general rise in professionalism and leadership/culture is also quite common in the long term after a fairly short bleary-eyed period!

Am I mistaken - the trade was 2019 picks 26 and 50, plus 2020 first rounder, for pick 8 (which eventually became Pickett) The trade was sensible at the time and the 2020 draft is a total pot-luck mess. Also, we're just a few rounds in to the weirdest season ever. Yep, it's kick the Demons week, that's all to this story.

For a moment I thought it was Manly to Bankstown, which is almost a guide tour of every traffic snarl Sydney has to offer. Manly to Bankstown you still have to negotiate The Spit, North Sydney and Epping Road across Lane Cove, but after that you're on freeways most of the way. If it's 50km, the first 10km will take longer than the next 40! So, I think we can expect a lot of slow first quarters and fast finishes during this hub time.

I thought it was a bit rough making Langdon and Tomlinson stay on the wings.

https://www.icms.edu.au/contact-us/our-campuses/northern-beaches-campus My theory. Facilities all there and if it turns our season around get to make Hogwarts jokes forever. Right by the headland and you could even get down to Collins beach next to the Police College for recovery swims without too much concern of public interaction.

Melksham is supposed to be one of our key creative and clever players bringing the ball inside 50. Today he kicked two goals and a behind... and yet had one of the worst individual games possible. That was, apparently, all of his disposals. He also gave away at least one goal with a dumb free kick against. I gave him the benefit of the doubt last week, thinking he had been a bit unlucky, but the only gain from hsi performance this week is that we definitely have someone to drop when we bring in the second tall forward we so despetately need to make McDonald a little less predictable and to allow Fritsch to do what he is best at instead of being 'the' forward target.

Manly, hmm, I wonder if they'll be securely isolated up at that bizarre colonial folly building that got turned into a business management school near North head? Would be secure and convenient and they'd even be able to get to a little beach. Would actually be an ideal location, given it was already a premium boarding school and is almost certainly unused at present. In fact, it is probably the only suitable location I can think of out in Manly. Even the old quarantine huts wouldn't be secure enough, ironically. If so, I think we've been very lucky under the circumstances.

WLLLWLWWWLLLLWWWLLLL A very streaky record against Richmond. I choose to believe the tide is turning. I think our two 'gun' tall defenders are steadily improving, I think our radically different forward line solution is literal centimeters from beginning to work properly, and I think our clearance effectiveness will be helped by playing together in consecutive weeks for the first time at AFL level since last season! In fact, I'm going to rest my thoughts on that - this will be the first time this season that the team has played together in consecutive weeks, and we've implemented a whole lot of changes that need to be worked through. Calling it not - incremental improvement for the next five weeks and then brutal unstoppable dominance after that.

Mumford vs Nankervis Lycett/Vardy vs Grundy Jacobs v Nankervis Roughead/Boyd v Naismith/Tippet McEvoy v Naitanui Pike/Tippet v McEvoy/Hale Hale/Bailey v Sandilands Hale/Roughead vs Pike/Mumford Jolly v Ottens/West Jolly v McEvoy There is no definitive pattern there for what type of ruck 'wins premierships' or even tends to make it grand finals. Some of the winners there had dog days, others were among their teams best in a loss. My only concern with the ruck and with Gawn's contribution is that the communication is missing a beat and the hitouts which should be giving us great quality as well as quantity of clearances are instead giving us mixed results because players don't know where each other are going to be. On this particular matter, I'm willing to put some blame to the shutdown and not being able to train together, and I'm willing to watch the team play together and re-connect in the coming weeks. As for how this relates to the 'Goodwin boosting' thread... I would argue that this, and the dropped marks up forward, and the fact that we do not yet have a player with more than two contested marks for the season, are all things which Goodwin himself has only limited control over and our season is far too new and unclear at this point to be scratching at his scalp over a 3 point loss!

No cap is neeed for interchanges, just make it so they have to be done in a batch, all four switching at once. Boom. Not only do you have players out there for extended periods, and tactical use of resting forwards and players being held to position to minimize low-value running, and the fitness premium becomes about being able to sustain the effort in a way that will actually stand out (Robert Harvey style) instead of being managed to invisibility (87% Tog vs 83% what a star) , but also you add a whole new tactical element of who you 'deploy' in those batches. Bring all your left-footers out fresh and try to dominate their wing? Rotate your mids in pairs or groups, or have one super-fresh at each centre bounce? And think of it - the need for a bteak in play to allow the batch interchange would mean every time there was a goal the 'reset' would come with a meaningful tactical/structural change. I actually first thought of this as a joke suggestion but it is really growing on me.

Hmm, I recall the last time a highly respected premiership winning coach talked us up, they also nominated Goodwin as their successor! Conclusion - Goodwin is going to the Hawks.

The key here is that all of their opponents since the shutdown have also been stuck on the Gold Coast.

Casboult is a very different beast to the unreliable, occasionally impressive forward-ruck of the past. He's been really good for Carlton this season and his one fairly poor game against us probably made the difference. Unfortunately he's also now over 30 and has only once in his career gone a season injury free. Plus, as I understand it he is pretty deep 'Blue'. In-form Hogan is, tragically, the type of player we could use. But so would be in-form Weideman or in-form Tom McDonald.

Brayshaw was one of several 'senior' players I felt began to turn things around on the weekend. Still short of his best, just like Tmac, Lever, May and Hibberd, but there was enough from each of them to give realistic hope they are on their way back. I've had a lot of belief in Brayshaw for a long time and still feel like he could be a champion quality midfielder if he can stabilise his form at the higher end of his range. Our midfield strategy has for a long time been to assume dominance based on having the best ruck and tge best young ball winners in the game. It looks, and is, full of holes if we don't actually win that overwhelming load of clearances and contested posessions. It's also why our mids look like a bunch of front runners the moment things aren't favouring us. In form Brayshaw is a key piece of the puzzle. Having all of Petracca, Oliver, Viney, Harmes and Brayshaw on song together as the core of a midfield means we have A-graders ready at every bounce and throw-in for whole games. No other club could hope to keep up with that all day. It's why we got the regular six-goal surges and goal-centre-goal doubles in 2018.

Interesting signs of several underperforming players beginning to steady. I won't say turning it around just yet, but better signs from May, Lever, McDonald and Brayshaw.

That goal was especially weird because it was created by a chain of really quite neat kicking., which isn't Melbourne's way even when we are on!

Y'know, considering we're one fumbled mark (Fritsch) and a poster (Pickett) from even scores, it's interesting to note that was the WORST QUARTER EVER SACK EVERYONE. For that reason, when angry and frustrated during a game of football I try to restrict myself to only inarticulate grunts and wailing.