Age

Looking at the Roos today, I think we start thinking about who we are going to get with pick 1

This is exactly what I am expecting out of this year too! Gawn and Petracca (after fighting to get fit) both do their knees in the game and miss all of 2025

Whilst I respect people's thoughts that winning a flag and top 4 in the previous 2 years should give Goodwin the right to stay and fix the problems, I am completely the other way. We lose the same way every single time, we have no forward line and I know this is a first world problem, but even when we have won in the last few years, I doubt many of us would have been happy and excited with the win. When we were rubbish, we were consistently belted by the top teams, when we became a top team, I had hoped that we would give back some of these beltings but we very rarely ever did. A good coach will implement a plan that hopefully gets the best out of his players, ours has instead gone away from a plan that was at least somewhat working over the last few years to something that our list simply cannot do. For those reasons I cannot give him a pass to right things, he has to go.

We will kid ourselves. Goodwin will get his way and keep the team pretty much as is for the next year or so. We will then become completely uncompetitive, even more so than now and then Goodwin will walk away for ‘personal reasons’ and we will be at the bottom when tassie comes in, resulting in an even worse period in our history than the Neeld era

Why do we worry about suggesting change? We all know that nothing will happen, Goodwin will end up getting an extension out of this

Another issue we have is that since 2021, with our older players now having kids and being married and our coach now being single, their private lives aren’t on the same page hence the coach has lost the players. Who does Goodwin have to enjoy life with now??

Screwed over by the fixturing again , we only had a 7 day break. Can’t be expected to keep backing up like that.

Good fight back from the boys late

The issue now is that Goodwin will stick with his nothing game plan which will get a few wins based more on individual brilliance. We will then really bottom out when the retirements kick in. Tassie will be coming in at this time and get all the draft picks and free agent talent leaving us to maintain our status quo of a few years back. Goodwin will then get the sack but it will be 7 years too late.

Damn, that last goal may make it hard to get the win now, time is running out to come back.

The positioning of our midfielders is all wrong. So many times they go to the feet of Gawn and are then easily pushed under the ball so that when a tap goes only 1 metre or more from Gawn, their opponent is then free to run off them and with most of them being very slow, they cannot catch or even lay a hand on them. Don’t even get me started with the forward line…

We have gone downhill since our coach stopped partying with the players.

Why even bother with goal umpires anymore if they are too scared to make a decision. Save the wages of them and spend it on better goal line technology.

Head knock, concussion most likely

They have to use the centre of the ground as reference and aim at that hence why it goes on that angle. Otherwise if throwing in next to the point post, it would be thrown into the goal square.

Don’t worry everyone. Goodwin and the team will take their learnings from this game. The team surely has so much learnings that they should all be brain surgeons by now!!

Sounds like we will need an inside midfielder with good hands next year. Anyone available that meets that criteria?

I do find it funny that we, as a club seem to be so linked to Geelong's ground that even the women are being scheduled there, and probably will be for the next 20 years...

Decision about to be handed down. Maynard has been cleared although Gus has been given 3 weeks for recklessly hitting Maynard's shoulder, especially when he already has shoulder issues, it's quite lucky he was able to play on.

Will be interesting to see as the narrative on this has changed a little with it coming out that Gus is not in a good way and there is the chance of him never playing again. If all reports were that he was fine and good to go come the prelim (should we make it) I reckon they would be coming out even harder with it being an accident/football act etc etc On saying that, I have no doubt he will get off, be it tonight or on appeal.

They know that if they kick 6 goals it's probably more than enough to get the win...

Unfortunately our first half was foreshadowed by our pre-game warmup. I have never seen our players fumble, drop marks or stuff up as many kicks in that warm up in my time watching us, even when we were really rubbish! I get that it was still fairly greasy/wet at that stage but to me they just didn't seem switched on or thought it was 23c and sunny! Don't worry about our forward line issues. Goodwin and the team will take many learnings and work on their forward line connection. As I have heard the players say on multiple occasions, if we bring the contest and defence, the forward line will take care of itself. It's just a shame that Goodwin must have such a complicated forward line gameplan that it is taking the players the best part of 3 years now to try to understand it. Either that or his plan is to kick high to the pockets inside 50 so that we can get a stoppage. We then play 2 men back so we are undermanned in the forward line stoppage and wonder why the opposition gets it out so easy but then we get it back to do the same thing all over again. Unfortunately, we could have a forward line of Leigh Matthews, John Coleman and Tony Lockett, there is no way that plan would even let them kick goals, but hey, Goody knows best so get off his back everyone!

Why aren’t people seeing the positives of last night. With the cost of living and interest rate increases, when we lose the next two, finish 5th and go out in the first week, we will have saved a lot of money in finals tickets.

He is not playing as he goes against all the team rules. He leads at the ball and kicks straight. That will not get you a game in our forward line, will be lucky if we don't de-list him.

Confidence is an amazing thing. We have none at all at the moment, in 2021 we had it in spades. How we get it back, who knows, but I think gameplan contributes to it. Look at how we play now, defence/contested ball is everything and seemingly the sole focus. It is hard to gain confidence when our plan is to just grind out every game. Overwhelm the opposition with our contested ball and just try to beat a team into submission. This is not a 'fun' way to play. Any flair has been coached out of us as we are trying to exert full control over a game that cannot be controlled. We almost play the game with a rugby mentality, get it to position, get the scrum and go again. We do this to a point but as we have such a defensive mindset, when we go surge the ball into the forward line, we then sit back and get completely outnumbered and the ball comes straight back out unless there is some piece of brilliance to get us a goal. We kick to pockets so that if we are spoiled, it goes out of bounds to try and start the scrum again. The league is trying everything in their power to make the game offensive and high scoring. Clubs that embrace this attacking attitude are having fun, playing with confidence and winning. Look at pies and port as prime examples of this. When we won in 21, we didn't actually grind teams down in the finals and lock it down, we backed our defensive back 6 to stand up when mattered and attacked when we could and then blew the teams away in the last 2 finals. We also played Gawn a lot behind the ball so that when we did lose the ball, teams had to then go around him and we could set up for it. How do we fix it? We have a great back 6, stick Gawn in front of them and back that line's ability to stand up again. Move the ball quickly into the forward line, accept that we are not actually 'kicking to touch' and by moving it in quick, it gives space to the forwards to do their thing. Even if we turn it over at half forward, back our defenders to win it back. Our forward line doesn't need to be amazing, we are giving them ample opportunities to score and it will be easier chances to score if they have space. For what it is worth, I would have Smith and JVR as our taller forwards, both are mobile and can try to jump on players heads if it is bombed in (won't have to jump over 8 guys if moving it in their quicker). Have Kossi, Chandler, Spargo crumbing and ANB as a defensive forward if we need one. Let the players attack and play with a bit of flair, kick a few ar**y goals and watch them start having fun with it. I have jumped around a bit here as I am supposed to be working as I write this but those are just some of my thoughts. I haven't asked for Goodwin to be sacked either (even though I would like it!)