binman

Good call. The other key was BB not allowing an intercept mark or clearing punch.

I thought she was suggesting the blues replace Voss as coach with Rutten.

Indiscriminate kick by Lever Daisy Thomas reckons. Yeah, nah.

We need a new recruiting push. Smashing the lions in the second half will help.

Me:

I look forward to smiling wryly to myself as we swarm all game and power away from a tiring lions in the last 15 minutes of the game. Oh and i'm going to love the post match review of the game as the Fox 'analysts' fall over themselves to say the dees are back, and do their their level best to walk back their grim predictions of our demise. Might even get Andy to clip it up and play on next week's show.

Because they had covid

Jezus - how did the cats get that draw? Three games in tbe second half of the seaon against top 3 sides, at least one of which was at home (us). And they played North twice!

I thought at the game that we played the last two minutes really well, and the kick inside to the corridor by Lever was super smart - great vison is what i thought live. It was great vison, however I listened to Kozzie and Melk being interviewed in the way home and both said they had specifically trained for that scenario during the week after the last two minutes of the pies game. Ad noted, Lever was waving at players to get in their, and when he collected the ball he barely looked in board, just kicked it on a weird angle accross his body. I assume they set up that exact play ie multiple players into the corridor and then a lateral inboard kick. Great coaching, great work by the players to execute. That said we got a pretty lucky bounce

I thought at the game that we played the last two minutes really well, and the kick inside to the corridor by Lever was super smart - great vison is what i thought live. It was great vison, however I listened to Kozzie and Melk being interviewed in the way home and both said they had specifically trained for that scenario during the week after the last two minutes of the pies game. Ad noted, Lever was waving at players to get in their, and when he collected the ball he barely looked in board, just kicked it on a weird angle accross his body. I assume they set up that exact play ie multiple players into the corridor and then a lateral inboard kick. Great coaching, great work by the players to execute. That said we got a pretty lucky bounce

I reckon the bombers should try another succession plan. Get Jobe 'the wordsmith' Watson in as senior assistant, with rutten as the seasoned mentor type. Watson to take the reins after two more years treading water.

Went back and found a post coach put up on this topic. From that post, I've got it wrong in terms of being too specific about peaking on prelim day and maintaining that through to Grand Final day. In this post, -coach- notes that such specificity is possible in an elite individual sport (eg Olympic swimming) but not in a team sport like the AFL (which is complex, Australia only, has lots of variables and involves so many participants). From the post (my highlight): 'The standard of refinement in yearly team sports (competing weekly) and AFL (a one country sport) is miles lower and not designed for a one one event peak. Rather its designed to have the majority of your group in season best readiness for a block of around 4-5 weeks depending on what your final goal is. For example, for us, it would be to be hitting our straps before and throughout finals, whereas Collingwood will be in peak fitness now in a bid to make finals and then hold on as best they can (Kinda like us in 2018, when we just ran out of legs before the GF).' From that i take we will aim to be close to our peak at the start of finals then do our best to maintain that through to GF day, should we make it. Or even close to our peak this Friday night. Friday night is 4 weeks out from the prelim and 5 weeks out from the GF. The last 15 minutes of the game quarter will tell the tale. If we are near our peak we should be running out this game powerfully. As should the lions for that matter as they would have pretty similar program to us in terms of timing of readiness.

No offence meant, but I think your assumption is wrong. Tbe point of any periodisation program is to peak at a particular point in time, not maintain peak fitness for a block of time, which in this case would mean 7 odd weeks. Which if I understand what I have researched on this topic and what coach and others have posted it is not possible to maintain peak fitness for that long.

To be clear I'm not working from the assumption that we are at ~75% fitness. It could be 95%. But of course there is no exact number. Let's say for the sake of argument, in a game of such margins, a 5% increase in power ans abilty to keep up the running right to the end of the game might be the difference between getting rolled in the prelim and winning a premiership. It's tbat extra percentage that scott has made clear the cats need to find to go all the way.

I actually disagree with this. The game style Goody has developed is for one thing and for one thing only - to win a flag. And it is a game style that to work optimally needs optimal physical readiness. This can be really frustrating because Goody sticks to the game style (albeit there have been some tweaks of late) even when we are not at optimal physical readiness. And therefore the game plan can look creaky or ineffective at times. Many of the issues people are highlighting are the very same ones that were highlighted last season at this point in time. They were not issues come finals, and i would contend that was in large part due to being close to, or at, optimal physical readiness. Just one example - your point about kicking out to the one spot. That was super predictable to oppo teams last year too, so they all would have had plans to combat it - yet we continued to do it right through the finals. In the home and away season that conservative repetition may have contributed to some difficulty in say going coast to coast, but come finals players were fitter and stronger. Meaning we could get more players to the fall of the ball, win a higher percentage of those ground ball contests and then have the all team energy to run the ball in waves up the ground. Suddenly a tactic that look boring and predictable becomes an offensive threat - doubly so because when we run in waves and create overlap, we move the ball super fast and get it inside 50 before the defence has set up so there are more one on ones, and indeed more free players inside 50 as those involved in the wave push up inside 50. And suddenly we look as if we have more players on the ground. And our issues with forward connection have disappeared. We can't get that wave going at the moment late in games, so it is very frustrating to watch them repeat the kicking to the one spot over and over - doubly so when we are needing quick goals and switching seem the logical way to generate scoring opportunities (but of course represent a significant risk in terms of potentially conceding a turnover goal). But if they have got the periodization program right we will be getting that wave going and be able to maintain it right to the end of the match when hopefully the other team is starting to flag. Stronger for longer No one mentioned how predictable kicking to the one spot was in the post grand final reviews, despite the fact we did so all game.

Yep, will be a fascinating game. I have been looking at looking to last year for some parallels that could be drawn to this year to help me make sense of where we are at ,and where we might be heading. In this corresponding match last year we were the team that ran over the top of the opposition, and a very strong one that at. We came from 41 points down with 8 mins to go in the third and completely dominated the rest of the match. Make of that what you will. I'm not saying that it will definitely happen this week - and yes i get you cant neatly draw a line between the two seasons. But it is interesting info to consider and i'm certainly hoping that we will be stronger for longer this week than we have been in the last two games.

I thought that was the definition of a realist

Question: Harry Petty does a brilliant job one on one one against Curnow to spoil and not infringe, only just hitting Curnow's outstretched arms as happens in 50 aerial contests a match. Yet the umpire pays a free. Ok, that's the benchmark for a marking infringement. Brown and Gawn get scragged and their arms held and/or smashed at every aerial contest they are engaged in in and yet receive barely a single free between them. What up with that? P.S - asking for a friend.

Agree. We are definitely struggling to run our games relative to our opposition at the moment. In the last half of q4 the blues and the pies were winning the critical contests and looked the stronger sides. And the real tell was our inability to get overlap run and waves of players to transition the ball and create scoring chains Which is one reason I thought our win against the blues was so meritorious. But if you support the concept of the dees having implemented a carefully calibrated periodisation program, then we are still on the upward trajectory physically and weeks away from our peak. Whereas the pies and the blues are probably close to their peak. Which was helpful for them against us as both games were at finals like intensity levels. A couple of contextual things to consider in comparing this year's physical readiness compared to last year. The lighting was no doubt a factor in the Eagles game, but the fact remains the eagles ran out the 2021 round 21 game better. And the crows came back from a sizeable deficit in the second half of the round 22 game, to get within four goals, before three very late goals by us padded the margin. And that game was little more than a run around compared to the intensity of the blues game. The lions game is fascinating in terms of the parallels with last year's round 23 game. We are playing a top 4 team, on their home deck where they have a huge home ground advantage and a win could help ensure a top 2 finish for us. Geelong has a huge amount riding on that game last year as a win would mean they didn't have to play port at home in the qualifying final. The lions have even more riding on it than the cats did. They lose and they drop to 6th, as might we. That scenario has a curious echo of last year too, in that the lions were the beneficiary of the dog's stumble against Port, and luckily scrapped into the top 4 at the dog's expense.

When it comes to the chances of us winning the flag, one advantage the pessimists have over the optimists is that the are more likely to be proven correct.

I don't think i'll be collecting on that preseason bet!

And what does it mean for he relative strength of the opposition? For a team that nearly finished top of the ladder last season and made a prelim, the Cats have had incredibly soft draw, made easer by nearly half their games at a ground that arguably gives them the biggest home ground advantage of any in the AFL (perhaps line ball with the Gabba) The pies had a soft draw courtesy of not making final's last year, which is fair enough under the AFL's stupid equalization 'fixture' system. Brisbane have had a pretty tough draw, but have an amazing record at the Gabba and so get a, deserved, leg up there. And the Swans draw was not super strong. By contrast we have had arguably the hardest draw of any team with a ridiculous schedule and multiple short breaks. In our last three games we have beaten two other top 8 teams - a knock some had on us prior to the freo game (ie our record against top 8 teams). And we almost beat another in the pies, in arguably our best performance of the year. The home and away season is almost done, all teams have played each other at least once, and therefore the ladder is a pretty good representation of the relative strength of every team. We are currently second on the ladder, which makes for a good argument for the dees being one of the two best teams in the AFL - better than 16 other teams, six of which will be possible finals opponents. The punters, not coincidentally, have us clear second favorites to win the flag behind ladder leader, Geelong.

Close. Apparently he got hit by the Karma bus.

The abductor strain is bulltish. i have it on good authority cera is out is for an entirely unrelated injury and an incident the blues are apparently desperate to keep under wraps. Good luck with that.

Yep fair enough. I suspect once the season is done we will hear that quite few plyer have been carrying things this year. Maxy has never looked right all season to my eye, nor May since his out with concussion. You can add Salo, Rivers, Jordon and Lever as well i reckon.