binman

Very reasonable questions - particularly about the efficacy long term of a model that has players repeatedly saying variations of 'no club trains harder than we do'. Maybe the Burgess Griffith method and philosophy has a shelf life? Maybe every method does. There are so many variables (eg the impact of two byes, evolution of game plans) and mitigating factors (injury, interrupted preseasons, youth of the list) it's hard to fairly assess the high performance program. But as is my wont I like to lean into known facts. And one clear fact is the only part of the season where we were running out games to a level the game demands is in the first seven or so rounds- ie when you'd expect us to be in the best possible condition. And another fact is blind freddy can see that, as evidenced by a number of data points (eg our last quarter scoring)we are paddling atm. On the positive side of the ledger, we have once again had comparatively very few soft tissue injuries.

Spot on. And as much as i can't stand Morris, he, and his masters, are only responding to demand from consumers. One of the curious things about the discussion about social media platforms prioritizing hate and division in their algorithms is the one way criticism. That's to say its all reserved for the platforms and their owners and none for their consumers - us. The algorithm is simply responding to what consumers are attracted to - anger, car crashes, conflict. It's ever been thus - for example the wall to wall coverage Jack The Ripper received - sold a lot of newspapers at the time. If we feed the trolls we get what we deserve.

That's exactly right. Many in the media are agin the sort of long term contract the club offered tracc. Much of that revolves around a club being stuck with player who is not performing relative to their wage - gaff being one recent example - creating problems for the club in terms of their salary cap (eg can't bring in a gun they want). But one of the obvious advantages of long term contracts is in a scenario where a gun still playing great footy wants to leave. As i have noted i'm not going to let the stupid footy media pull my strings, but lets say hypothetically Tracc was adamant he wanted to go. There is very little chance we don't force him to honour his contract (unless we are offered deal that is too good to refuse - in which case we win from any deal). In days gone by the counter to that has been clubs won't keep players who want out. That may still be true of fringe best 22 players but less and less of club's best players. The dees have form in this space just last year in not countenancing Petty being traded to the Crows. But a more relevant example of keeping an elite, multiple AA, absolute gun player to their contract is the Lions flat out refusing to trade Neale back to Freo. Like the lions, we have the whip hand with Tracc. This all feels like the bog standard play of a player manager flexing for their client via the media. We're not there yet, but in American sports, particularly the NBA (with its small rosters and outsize impact of superstar players on teams' chances of success) the superstars often have an outsize influence (much to the chagrin of many) they can parlay into driving changes they think should happen. Tracc may well have strong views on what he thinks should change at the club. In fact i'd be very surprised if he didn't - he's a very smart bloke who is super driven and super competitive. He wants to win another flag. And as a genuine superstar he has influence. I have no issue with him wanting to use that influence, if that what's is happening - particularly if it helps address things we need to improve. But that doesn't mean fans need to buy into the chaos, there is problems at the dees narrative the media wants to drive for purely financial reason (ie clicks = advertising revenue). Again, rather than giving oxygen to innuendo, or using the media's classic unsubstantiated 'apparently' and/or 'sources tell me' ruse to bolster criticisms we might have of the club ('see i told ya the players hate the game plan!') i'd rather focus on known facts. One of which is multiple players have resigned - a clear vote of confidence in Goody, the club and it's direction. Take Windsor. Pick seven and clear to everyone he is a gun. There was no need for him to extend now. He could have waited until next year or the year after - and surely would have if he had any significant concerns about the club. A prototype player for the modern game - fast, smart, great runner, good tank and solid foot kills - after another AFL preseason and season under his belt he would have had multiple clubs clamoring after him next year, or the year after, including flag contenders. But unlike say Harley Reid, who apparently is 'happy at the Eagles, but is in no rush to sign a contract extension' , Windsor extended his contract in the first year of a three year contract, keeping him at the club at least 'till the end of the 2028 season. Caleb's vote of confidence in the club (and Petts, Kolt, Koz etc etc), which by the by came only three weeks ago, is not half whispered scuttlebutt - it is a cold hard, irrefutable fact. I'll take facts over fiction every single day of the week.

Not only accept it as fact, but it also magically becomes incontrovertible proof of all that is supposedley wrong with the club. It feels a bit like the one day stock market crash the other day that had maga so excited - finally proof of the inevitable biden/harris economic collapse they had long predicted! Nek minnit, stocks stabilise and it's crickets. I don't doubt tracc and his family are, or were, frustrated with how the club handled his injury. To be honest I think it was yet another example of our poor comms and crisis management, not dissimilar to the mismanagement on the comms front (my view) of clarrys hamstring and associated noise last year I'm hoping the new comms person sorts our issues in this space because for mine it is a recurring problem. But rather than allowing a tool like Morris pull my strings, I'll lean into known facts. Which include the fact that petty, kolt, Windsor, koz, mcvee, turner, jvr, Jefferson and langers have all signed new contracts recently. That fact suggests it's a pretty good environment. Perfect? Of course not. Footy clubs never are. And another fact is there was similar noise and hand wringing (both in the media and ondemonland), in fact much louder, about clarry leaving after our crappy 2020 season. Ditto viney to the cats and koz to the crows. Every season there is such noise - particularly during down years. Where there's smoke there's rarely fire. I gave up worrying about losing players after Gerard Healy left. Of course I'd be gutted if we lost tracc, but I'm not going to waste a scintilla of energy worrying about it.

A vomit emoji would have been more fit for purpose!

@WheeloRatings - the x scores don't look right

That's my take too, ie the routine of training and playing is important in terms of his well being and his efforts to address his off field issues. I actually though they should have subbed him but wondered if not doing so was related to above (or perhaps JVR was even sicker).

Agree, I watched Clarry closely when he came to the bench. (i sit behind and above it). He looked absolutely cooked - more so than normal. So did Maxy

Talk is a number of players were crook, including JVR, Tracks with Bowey being an out due to illness. If true (it's unsubstantiated), it makes the performance of the team and Goody even more meritorious. BUT BEFORE THE FACE PALM POSSE JUMP ALL OVER ME, IF IT IS TRUE THAT SEVERAL PLAYERS WERE ILL, IT IS A FACTOR TO CONSIDER IN ANY ASSESSMENT OF THE PERFORMANCE NOT AN EXCUSE!

Yes, that's the team I'm talking about. The same one, bar Georgiades, that beat the Swans the previous week by, checks notes, 136 points. Not quite sure of your point? I said we were undermanned and did very well against the side sitting second on the ladder. I didn't say they had their very best side available - though it's a stretch to compare their outs to ours - no AAs in that lot, let alone one of the best players of the last 30 years. And arguably, of those five only Georgiades and SSP are in their best team. And only SPP has a case for being one of their top six players, whereas we have three such players out. Am i right to assume you don't agree we did well? Before the game, did you think we were a realistic chance of winning on Saturday night? That's to say, did we perform above or below your pregame expectations? Do you think we did a better job against port than the Swans, the favourite to win the flag, did the previous week? Some might argue we did 134 points better.

What does it matter we knew before the season started they couldn't play? We couldn't replace them, so no different to losing two best 23 players to injury for the whole season. Bowey is definitely in our best team. I'd argue smith and spargo are too. But for the sake of argument let's say they're not. So Tracc, May, Gus, Bowey and Windsor from our best team - all starters. Nearly a quarter of our very best team we could field with no injury. Four premiership players, May and Tracc multiple AA, three top 10 draft picks (2, 3 and 7!), 600 odd games of AFL footy and I'd argue three of our best six players. As young blood notes, it's semantic siliness to debate if that equals severely undermanned. But surely there's no debate any team missing a comparable number of their best, no injury 23 would struggle. Collingwood for instance. Isn't the key point that we did very well against, almost beat in fact, the team sitting second on the ladder with an undermanned team?

There was also bowey. And gus and smith. So six best 23 players not in the side. A quarter of the best team available. Seven if you include Spargo. Take six or seven best 23 players from any team and they'd struggle. Even more so if you add two or three key senior players carrying injury.

I'm not sure I agree about jvr, but clarry back def hurt us. Forward would have been a better option That said, Goody was trying something different. It's not always going to work. His choice of sub has been a worry for mine in the last three weeks. I'm guessing Turner was cover for Max, but still. And Melksham didn't make sense, if for no other reason than we could have done with a player with his skills, particularly a senior player.

I think our kicking skills have been poor for a decade or more. And that's definitely true of the Goodwin era and the current list - Even our very best players can be hit or miss by foot. Take multiple best 23 players out and our skills are really exposed. Fatigue, like wind and rain, impacts skill execution, particularly for players with average skills. No doubt it was factor in our poor skill execution last night.

Spot on. On the board they show the players at the quarter time break, in the reinforcements/solutions section they had the word corridor at quarter time (along with the pressure rating 1.83, conquest and contest). Presumably that was to reinforce the strategy to deny port the corridor. I'm not sure exactly what some posters expect - particularly those who don't rate the playing list or coach A bit of perspective wouldn't go astray sometimes. Many posters expected we'd get flogged. As did the punters - we started @ $3. We are clearly cooked. Multiple players are clearly carrying injuries, including 4 of our best 6 players (Lever, gawn, viney and clarry - whose hand is causing him obvious issues). Including smith and gus (and it makes zero sense not to),we were missing six of our best 23 (7 if you include Spargs) - one of whom is arguably the best player in the AFL (tracc) and another is arguably the best KPD in the AFL. Therefore we were missing more than a quarter of our best 23 and half our best six players (gus is/was in my top 6). Those players are replaced by, as tou suggest, vfl level players. And we are having to play a bunch of kids who are clearly paddling Our elite midfield is missing tracc and Gus, maxy is labouring and clarry struggling What would have been the point trying to take on the corridor and try and go fast? We didn't have enough players with the skills to execute the sort of high risk kicking and split second elite decision making that method demands. And more crucially, we also lack the all team running power and speed that method demands. Port would have demolished us if we tried to play any other way. Opposition teams have been looking to run us of our legs and spread us wide Port are one the hardest running teams in the AFL from their back half. For pete's sake they scored 148 points against last week doing exactly that to the team on top of the ladder. 148 points. We kept port to almost a third of that score on a perfect night for footy, with as you say plenty of VFL standard players running around, a bunch of kids, multiple players who'll need post season surgery and a team who are collectively gassed. And we almost beat them. Top work goody.

Yeah, how crazy to sub a kid who was clearly gassed,and had - a player rating bested only by hore and the sub - 25 supercoach points - 8 disposals at 25% efficiency (meaning only 2 of his disposals were effective) - only three marks on a perfect night for footy - no hit outs - one score involvement - only 5 pressure acts - zero tackles on a night where we had 18 tackles inside our 50 (probably our season high) - and as our key forward had one shot at goal for the grand total of no goals and no points. But sure, let's sack the coach for subbing him.

What I find annoying is it always goes around in circles.

How about: Dan stick with the plan and be a Dee. If you don't, Houston, we have a problem.

Or at the very least his ankle.

I think the last para is spot on. No doubt conditioning is a big issue, so it's hard to judge our method. But there is no doubt that out relative lack of foot skill (and handball skills?) hurts us big time with the turnover game. We give it back too often and players like salo and bowey have dropped off in terms of their ability to hit high risk kicks coming out of our back half. In our back 7, or mid for that matter, who would you trust to hit a high risk kick to the corridor? For me, probably only mcvee and tmac now. That ain't gonna cut it. Which is why i think our greatest need is flankers who are elite kicks and elite runners not mids.

No, is the short answer. Contest and defence are still fundamental Particularly if contest includes pressure. Teams that can't apply elite pressure are not going to win a flag. Sure fast ball movement from the back half is now more important, but pressure is what creates turnovers. And it's really all about turnover now. The pies are a great example. Last year they combined pressure, contest and speed (though they often lost the pressure count in the first two thirds of the season- that changed come finals). It's this combination of needing quick players with decent foot skills and applying crazy heat in the contest that makes the game so taxing now. My feeling is this is a big factor in why performance had been so variable this season acrrosd the competition. I can never remember a season so volatile and unpredictable in terms of results and margins. Take Sydney's loss on the weekend gone. Ten years ago they would have been written off as a flag chance. But does anyone seriously think they're not still a red hot chance of winning the flag? That said our high performance program no doubt reflected our playing style and personele in the last few years- anaerobic power athletes like Jack, trac and clarry crashing into packs. Perhaps the greater emphasis, and need for aerobic athletes like nibbler, langers and Windsor has created a challenge for our program. And found us out as perhaps we don't have enough such players. As layzie notes, come finals contest, defence and pressure becomes king again.

Euphemism?

At the top of my list of dees I'd love to have dinner with. Good on ya langers.

I 100% agree In fact I'd say they are the the two key reasons. Won't stop Selwyn getting some heat but.

Agree. And both teams really looked to exploit that when they played us.