Dr. Gonzo

Weitering Marchbank Walsh Martin Kennedy Williams according to the caller on Lyon's SEN wrap-up

He will be an absolute star of the comp in a few years, let's hope we can hang onto him 🤞

Love Salem in the middle Sparrow in for a big year Windsor looks elite Goalkicking accuracy still an issue Lack of connection still an issue at times (players dropping the ball in the hotspot and no-one contesting) It's still February but that was a great warm up to the season, really whet the appetite for next week.

It's the nature of social media, "the medium is the message" etc. The medium determines the level of discourse and social media is designed to encourage binary arguments. You have made a number of points, most of which I agree with. You're 100% correct, the "shadow" side for lack of a better term of that feralness exhibited by Pies, Blues, Tigers is their instinct to act rashly or act on emotion - I was hoping like all hell the Blues did the dumb thing and sacked Voss halfway through last year but they did the mature thing and stayed the course and the decision was proved correct. I'm not asking for Goodwin to be sacked or the board to be overthrown but I do think it is healthy for the club to know supporters aren't happy with the straight sets exit two years running. First year, fine you can cop that coming off a flag and with the way we limped into finals but last year seems a really lost opportunity especially with the way we came out in the Qualifying Final (before the Maynard/Gus incident). I think our gameplan is stale, it is too conservative and works well against poorer opposition but against the top teams you have to be a bit more daring. We played far more free flowing footy at times in 2021 especially in the last 6 or so weeks which we haven't really seen since then. Teams have "worked us out" to an extent which doesn't mean our gameplan has crumbled but rather teams know now what to do to make life difficult for us and because we are quite stubborn in the way we play they know we are unlikely to shake things up, we are more likely to persevere and expect things to turn around which makes us easier to play against defensively and easier to frustrate us. There is certainly an element of luck in the injuries we copped to our forwards last year but overall the team just doesn't seem as sure of itself as it did in 2021 which for supporters is frustrating because after finally getting the monkey off the back and with such a young core of talented players we hoped that they would dominate the comp for 4 or 5 years. We are now into year 3 after the flag and the team hasn't really enjoyed the success that we think they are capable of - yes they have won plenty of games, yes they have sat in the top 4 for all but one or two weeks in that time but the way that they have played, sometimes only scraping past inferior opposition rather than putting them to the sword has been frustrating to watch as a supporter considering the talent in the team. I don't buy the commentary of some here that our list is overrated. Comparatively I still think we have one of the best most even lists in the comp. But while teams like Collingwood always seem to have a knack of playing "above themselves" (I know many hate this but you know what I mean) we seem to be the opposite where we don't seem to get the best out of our talent. I'm interested to see how this year plays out, my expectations are not high to be honest but I could see us finishing anywhere from top 2 to bottom 6. And I think you can make arguments either way. I still think it will be a shame not to get at least one more flag out of this group and for the supporters to witness a flag at the G because I think they certainly have had the talent/capacity to win the flag each of the last two years. Not winning the flag in those years doesn't make it a failure but not even making the Prelims does in my opinion.

There has absolutely been that narrative about Geelong, especially after so many Prelim failures. Scott was on his last legs in 2021. Pies, Blues and Tigers fans are feral, they also don't accept failure. Making excuses for this playing/coaching group isn't going to help. There should be accountability. Now that doesn't mean flag or failure, but straight sets two years running and a stale gameplan with cultural issues means supporters are within their rights to ask questions.

I think it also stems from having been stuck in our houses and unable to fully savour the flag at the G. Winning the flag was amazing but there's a hollowness to it that won't be erased until I see the Demons win a premiership at the G in the flesh.

Helmets don't do anything. It's the brain hitting the inside of the skull from the whiplash that causes the damage.

He won't, he'll wear the 2023 premiership medal around his neck for the remainder of his life though.

1 guess which club will have a player suspended as a result of the "new rule" to make an example....

AFL dictated Maynard must not be suspended and threatened media with their accreditation if they pushed against it too hard. They're a despicable organisation, I've had enough of them.

As opposed to our other mids who drop it on a dime for our forwards? At least he wins the clearance.

Windsor looked pretty good Kozzie must play greater midfield minutes Viney was dominating early Kicking/decision making going inside 50 still an issue Seems not much has changed, Richmond minus Dusty and Baker should not have troubled us

Typical pop, so if that's your thing.....

Sounds like they are trying to launch something to compete with AppleTV/Google TV. I'm assuming it won't effect the existing Kayo/Binge apps.

Agreed, that stuff usually comes with confidence, we did it earlier in the year notably against the Dogs and Swans but went into our shells later in the year trying to play too conservatively. With that comes hesitation and second guessing and then you just make a noose for yourself. I hope we take the game on a bit more next year, I'd rather win 22 goals to 20 than 12 goals to 9 like our late season win vs Richmond.

Richmond will be interesting under Yze but I agree they are in clear rebuilding mode and we should really account for them easily.

I would also add that I don't think forward entries is the sole problem - at the end of the day we created enough opportunities, particularly in that QF, to win the game despite the quality of forward entries. It was our accuracy in front of goal that lost the game and perhaps a flag. Was it just a bad night? Or did we get spooked by the 92k boisterously pro-Collingwood crowd?

I agree to an extent but we really are our own worst enemy at times. It's not always down to precision kicking, look at how Collingwood delivers the ball to Cox, they lob it up in front of him so he can run onto the ball and crash whoever is in front. We do this on occasion but generally our kicks sit on top of the forwards head making them sit under the footy and making it easy for the defenders to scrag and spoil by jumping over the top. We can fix some things up with our forward entries without getting a Nick Daicos who can laser kicks onto the chest.

I'm not saying Max has to play aggro but he does have to play smarter I feel.

I disagree, the way we came out against Collingwood showed that our endeavour was wanting. For a team that had a point to prove after 2022 it was extremely disappointing. We have allowed a 3rd rate hack in Cox to bully us for years and it happened again at the very first bounce where he ran straight into Max with his knee. Our endeavour in the Carlton game was much better and we came out breathing fire but we didn't capitalise. I'm not so fussed about the Carlton game to be honest because other than the ignominy of going out in straight sets our dash was done in the QF.

My analysis is that we are too predictable going forward, we just hack it in like banging our heads against a brick wall instead of taking time to be more creative with the footy. Is this coaches or players? A bit of both I think. We do need to change our style, and we didn't. That's where the whinge comes from. Kozzie needs to spend more time in the middle, he has speed and creativity which we sorely lack. The cultural issues need to be knocked on the head. The team seems either too complacent or they have a soft underbelly. They talk a lot about wanting to have a great culture and being ruthless but actions talk and they have floundered when it mattered two years running. Can we turn it around? Yes absolutely. Will we? I think that's yet to be proven especially with teams like Adeliade, GWS, Carlton and I think Freo pushing for a flag over the next couple of years.

Heartbreaking performance for Browns fans. They've been smashed with injuries this year but was hoping for a fairytale Flacco run and a Balt/E AFCCG, not to be. Texans very good and Singletary with a couple of good runs early opened the game up for them. Back to back pick 6s from Flacco and that's the ball game.

So the problem was that we didn't adapt our game style to suit our personnel. 69 inside 50s vs 37 to Collingwood. Besides that we clearly didn't turn up to play in the QF and/or were spooked. We allow ourselves to be bullied (and I'm not talking about the Maynard/Brayshaw incident). That is either down to complacency or a soft underbelly.

As opposed to Collingwoods formidable forward line 🙄 Hill Mihocek Elliott McCreery De Goey J Daicos Kozzie wasn't able to have stints on the ball because the coaches refused to play him there. After his round 1 suspension he spent very little time in the centre other than attending bounces at the start of quarters.