DeeSpencer

Hunter’s cooked and Grundy’s a headless chook so there goes our recruits from last year. Fritsch needs a wake up call. Chandler’s struggling with his leg, had no explosiveness in the second half. I thought Oliver had left behind these shocker games in 2020 but he’s had a few this year now. May and Lever madness bubbling along. Petty could help but he gives no offensive drive and that’s how the ball gets stuck at the wrong end. Disco was really coming in to the game late in the 3rd with some intercept marks, not sure they subbed the right guy. When a team turns up the pressure and speed and we can’t get the backline set we’re coughing up goals. And our ball movement just becomes gimmicky or bombing because too few of our players make quick accurate decisions.

Honestly would’ve preferred to lose, because last year showed Goodwin only responds to loses. The lack of leadership and composure out there all night is just hard to believe. That last May kick out was icing on a disgusting cake

No leadership at the stretcher, no surprise

A bit of leadership and bring the players in together FFS

He’s going to miss kicks at times but when he has days like this with his hands it’s a killer. Honestly think he plays scared of contact when he has the ball at times which is crazy given how brave he is when winning it, drive forward, give a clean handball, wear a hit.

Oliver’s decision making is just bizarre. He had Tracc running free. Goes backward to Hunter under pressure?

Why? He’s been patchy for 2 years now, needs the message sent

Fritsch to Casey next week please

Terrible inside 50 from Oliver but you’ll take it

Ben King’s second touch, not all May’s fault

Gus letting his man roam free at half forward as usual. Allows the deep inside 50 and you never know what they’ll create from there

Our forward pressure is a mess when he isn’t forward

Anyone who’s watched Disco at Casey knows he’s not a deep defender on big talls. That’s not a fair match up. No 3rd up from Lever either

You can see the hangover from the 90 point win with how many stationary handballs and Hollywood stuff. Pickett cleaning up a very bad decision from Chandler there

If Langdon is getting tagged we could send him forward and use Fritsch on a wing to get him in to the game. Otherwise I’d like to see Fritsch as a lead up half forward and the instruction to kick to the leads rather than bomb it

Terrible bounce but Grundy can’t just go running past the ball and jumping in to Witts. That’s exceptionally stupid. The underrated reason to why the Pies got rid of him is because he’s really dumb for an experienced player. Has no concept of playing the percentages

They move it so quick and directly they challenge a lot of sides at home if you turn it over or lose crucial contests We’re doing both

Looking like pus from the moment Gawn got Lippy after Grundy’s mark

So do you Hibberd or Petty back? I want a genuine key forward. that said, not sure Petty is stopping big Levi there

Bowser is better than that. Really bad defending.

Diabolical forward entries this quarter. It really can’t be this hard to get a decent contest

Hope that late goal doesn’t prevent Goody for giving a few of them (namely Tracc) a good spray

Petracca isn’t fair dinkum. Needs a month off the TikTok’s

In previous decades there were usually only 6 opponents in the backline, maybe a ruck or a hard working rover. These days teams almost always have a dedicated intercept defender dropping in to guard space from a half forward and then within about 15 seconds of the ball going from end to end they have 12-15 opponents inside the defensive 50. There are methods to create better inside 50’s. Excellent kicks like Spargo often just have that momentary pause before they deliver and weight a pass which allows a forward to time a lead. Someone like Hawkins is the master of taking his one on one in to the pocket, doing a couple of dummy leads and still getting a one on one. But largely speed of ball movement is so vital. If you don’t get it in quickly you’re in much more trouble than if you are quick but not precise. We could also plonk Ben Brown at full forward, tell him not to defend up the ground and stay deep to lead and load up with our better kicks like Melk, Hunter, Salem across half forward. Suddenly we’d find Benny’s chest on the lead a lot more than we do now. But we’d also not be the defensive side we are if we had a stack of forwards purely focussed on playing one way footy.

Of course not, but 21 games a side over 23 weeks, maybe (but hopefully not) a wildcard weekend for a 24th week plus finals is a stack of games. Making the players play 23 games plus finals a year is crazy to me. 22 was already the limit to what I thought was fair for health and safety. The big question to me is does 10 games a round increase the broadcast rights. Tassie won’t. WA might be opening up more Friday double headers. Not sure if more small audience sides really move the needle.