Dr. Gonzo

"I'd never join a club that wanted me as a member" wise move 😜

After what we went though 10-15 years ago with players wanting out, player retention under this regime has been exceptional. Windsor is a het, the goals he's kicked against Port, Essendon and Freo were sublime. Hard to think he's only in his first season, imagine him with a few preseasons under his belt. I'm imagining the running power of Langdon but with a bit more polish.

I also saw them at the HiFi bar but must have been circa 2002-04ish I reckon. Awesome gig but my ears were ringing for days afterwards

Securing Petty to 2027 is huge for our list management, I am pleasantly shocked at this news. He hasn't been great this year but I have full confidence he will bounce back with a full preseason under his belt next year.

But we we were still tackling, which requires effort. We were second to the ball because their two A grade ruckman were giving their mids silver service against our three pinch-hitters.

His early season games were poor, he's really hit some form the last 5 or 6 weeks though since being put back on the wing FT. Earlier in the year he was being played across half forward and went missing for long stretches.

We were +18 in tackles and -36 in contested possession. Not great but not what I would call a lack of effort. We got beaten by a better side, in better form.

Instead of dissenting and telling others not to post negative opinions, a futile pursuit, perhaps you should just post positive opinions and balance up the ledger.

So why trade him in? Give him a run and see. Some players do better when given a challenge. The other thing is having him in would settle our forward line and make their defence more accountable without needing to throw Petty/JVR in there.

And suppressing the negative sends people round the bend. You're really surprised at negative posting after a 50 point loss to a team who beat us by 15 goals about 8 weeks ago?? I get why people vent on here after a loss. I don't get why people want to lecture them for doing so. Life's too short, right?

Maybe, just maybe, they use it as an outlet to vent? Probably better than kicking the cat, right?

He may not have made a 10 goal difference but he would have competed and allowed out mids a chance to win at least some clearances. This would have then allowed our defence to have a breath in between the ball being hammered down their throats and would've given our forwards an opportunity to do something with the footy. We were a chance to be within 3 goals at half time but Kolt got caught holding the ball streaming forward and then Walters kicked a goal on the siren making it a 5 goal difference. Having an actual ruckman competing in the middle may have given us an opportunity.

I'm a supporter but he has had a poor year

We got belted, yeah, but I didn't think we were deplorable. Having no ruck killed us and our mids weren't able to win clearance to make up for it. From there our defenders were hammered and our forwards couldn't get near it. We had patches where we kicked some consecutive goals but never really threatened. Probably lucky not to lose by more to be honest but I didn't think it was through lack of effort, we were just outplayed/outclassed. Freo are a decent side who seem to have put it together after a few years of threatening and are printed to make a run for the flag. Today just showed we are more of a 6-10th side at the moment rather than a top 4 team.

Hubris. We got away with it in the wet against a B grade ruck combo but on a dry-ish deck against one of the best if not the best ruck combos in the league it was always going to bite us. You can say "oh yeah a VFL ruck is going to be the difference in a 10 goal loss" but it just gave us no chance, being on the back foot from the get go, unable to win a clearance and the ball locked in their forward line for a large portion of the game.