bing181

I don't see how we make the 8, we just don't have the cattle. Too many key players missing or down on form. Great to see the youngsters stepping up, but there's only so much they can do. Take the losses, focus on the draft/trade to bolster stocks. Big concern for me is the backline, May is a generational player and Tom Mac has done well this year as 2nd/3rd tall, but they're both approaching the end I would have thought. Jed Adams hasn't come on as perhaps we might have liked. Perhaps if Jefferson steps up Turner and/or Petty can go back, but it all looks a bit thin to me.

Back on the field, but I'd be surprised if he's back to his best. In the past, his form coming back from injuries has been OK at best.

I don't think people quite grasp what's involved in getting the kinds of loads into players that will set them up for a whole season. For starters, he would need a period of rest/unloading because unless you're fully fresh when you go into these periods, you can't complete the loads required. Then he would need at least, I don't know, 6 weeks of very high training loads for any meaningful outcomes. so that's ... 8 - 10 weeks I would have thought. If there was any way of overcoming his lack of pre-season the club would have done it. Same goes for Petty or any of the players with interrupted pre-seasons. The only players who can have a decent season on the back of a compromised pre-season are older players who already have multiple years of pre-season as a base.

Firstly because I suspect that he's "fit enough" albeit not at optimal fitness. But he can get through games. But I also suspect that one of the reasons he was brought straight in is because being part of the on-field team plus the routine of an AFL season is much better for his mental health. His mental/well-being demons started with that long period of rehab last year and the kind of isolation from the group it brought.

It doesn't work like that. In fact, the longer the season goes, the more players like Oliver (and Petty) will struggle. "Players were divided into three equal training load groups based on total distance accumulated during pre-season. Results: Players in the high training load (HTL) group performed more relative total and high-speed distance in matches compared with the moderate and low training load groups, with the differences becoming greater as the season progressed." https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326856433_The_influence_of_pre-season_training_loads_on_in-season_match_activities_in_professional_Australian_football_players

Then he needs a full pre-season. He can get through matches and his natural ability will get him enough disposals to justify his inclusion, but he doesn't have the depth of fitness to do more. He was never going to be the Clayton of old this year. He wasn't even the Clayton of old last year post-injury, he'd missed too much footy. Fingers crossed it comes together this off-season.

6 months managing/rehabbing a serious foot injury and missing the pre-season will do that to you.

Would be great going forward for the youngsters to get a taste of finals footy. On the other hand, part of me is all for finishing a gallant 10th so we have a better run at the draft. Also, if it's clear that we won't make finals they might be more willing to give players like Jefferson a game or two.

In 22 we were cooked after the efforts that 21 took, and in 23 we had the injury run from hell leading into the end of the season. Just losing Melksham was enough for the wheels to come off up forward.

In a nutshell. Also Petty down at a time when he was the Harry Petty Adelaide were falling over themselves to bring across. He's a shadow of himself this year, for obvious reasons, but people shouldn't forget what he was starting to show in those few games up forward.

He needs a full pre-season and 12 months without serious injury.

And that's one of the main reasons we fell out of the finals last year. No Melksham.

Not fitness. Inexperience and missing senior players/on-field leadership.

I'd love to see the Venn diagram of those who complained that Brown was selected last week vs those complaining about him being dropped this week.

Whose leadership and experience we won't be replacing in the short term at least ...

Especially the case with Petty. We have BB, Jefferson, Schache and arguably Fullarton all as KPF's , not sure how we even fit Petty into that group without compromising the others. Not to mention, Casey aren't exactly racking up enough I50's to give Petty a decent look at it. Unless they wanted to play him down back, but that's a different discussion.

At least someone gets it.

No. Because I understand that things happen beyond your control. We were completely cooked by the 22 finals, and in 23 were cut down by injury after injury leading into and across the finals. You need everything to go right to win a flag.

Believe it was 2 x 50m, the second one for giving lip to the umpire.

Nothing to do with Goodwin. Coaches have surprisingly little influence once the game is in play. Which is why you need on-field leadership and experience. Losing Brayshaw, Melksham, Petracca and Lever isn't helping.

Re Petty: No-one's saying the situation is ideal, but he keeps getting a game because we have no other options. Why is that so hard to grasp? He had a serious foot injury which meant that not only did he miss a lot of football/preseason, he's probably working through building confidence in his body again. Perhaps he'd be better off doing that at Casey, but then which big-bodied forward with a bit of aggression comes in? Crickets. No point, moving him down back either, who does he replace? In spite of everything, Tom Mac has been doing (very) well down there, and you start robbing Peter to pay Paul. But beyond all that and getting into the favourite Demonland pastime of speculating without any solid information to go on, I wonder if they don't keep playing him because they understand that if we are to have a realistic chance of going deep in finals we have to have an effective big-bodied forward alongside JVR. Petty isn't that guy at the moment, but he's the only person on the list who could be.

The old Demonland furphy. Ridiculous. Just because you don't understand why the FD are making the choices they are, that doesn't mean that Goodwin is "stubborn". It just means that he/they have access to information that you don't and/or see things differently to you.

Injuries or equivalent. I know you get bonus points on Demonland for far-flung conjecture, but in the vast majority of cases the obvious reason is the reason. As they apparently tell medical students "when you hear the sound of hooves, think horses not zebras". This coupled with the fact that injuries/lack of preseason etc are random events over which we have no control. Trouble is, our species deals very badly with randomness, we need order and control. So we look for patterns where none exist, but at least it reassures us by giving us a sense of agency, of being able to "do something". Even the question here, "who's responsible?" underscores this as it presupposes that someone is indeed responsible, when that's far from necessarily being the case. And I'm not even going to start on how bad we are at distinguishing causations from correlation. It's injuries, loss of players, etc. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

And watch our defence fall apart - and then come on here post-match complaining about Goody playing players out of position.

You're absolutely right. You're guessing.