binman

Obviously I don't know what personal factors might be part of his decision, but on the face of it it seems a strange choice by Jackson if you ask me. To add to your point about the fish bowl he is about to jump into, Jackson is going to have to make one of the longest internal national flights in the world every second week ie Perth to the east coast. Five hour round trip in a plane would be hard core for a player his size. I remember hearing pavlich say that was the toughest part of his career (amazing he played 300 plus games). Surely the smart play was a two year contract, eek out whatever success he could at the dees, learn the craft under maxy, and then head home if still keen.

Go redlegs

Andy, i promise Ever Dee is not me! ED you took the words right out of my mouth.

I see what you are saying, but one rider i'd add is that if we had more players with above average kicking skills, and less players with below average kicking skills, we likely would have won four or more of the games we lost, including our two finals. We have too many players with absolutely terrible kicking techniques and that chicken really came home to roost this year, both in terms of missing shots that shouldn't be missed at AFL level and gifting opposition teams goals through woeful turnovers. And the issue was exacerbated by: Tmac, one of our most accurate kicks for goals, and an excellent field kick being out of the side Salem missing a big chunk of the year, and never getting back close to his best The decision to drop arguably one of our top 3 most skilled kicks in Bowey The pressure opposition teams brought - nothing exploits the cracks n technique more than pressure

Yep. And whilst the club put a positive spin on having to play three games at finals intensity in the last three games, of the home and away season, they no doubt had an impact physically - particularly the pies and blues games, which were as brutal as i can ever recall for h&a games, The lions game was also super physical And then we ran into the Swans in the q final and they were even more brutal than the Pies or Blues. No wonder we were banged up.

I reckon this an excellent, and perhaps over looked point. I don't think it is fair to put our fitness issues at Griffith's feet, as there are just so many variables that must come into play into terms of things that disrupt a physical training program. Last year we had a dream run. this year we didn't, so its bit unfair on him to compare his results with that of Burgess - who by the by was our fitness guy in 2020 when we failed to make the finals. Be that as it may it was evident that, for whatever reason, we were not as fit as we were last year come finals, But the pies and swans fitness teams, and it would appear also the cats, have done a brilliant job preparing their teams - and we lost our comparative advantage in terms of fitness. I had fully expected the Swans and pies to come off the boil a bit, but both remain incredibly fit. At least one of them have two games to play, so their fitness may still drop off but hats off to both teams. In my opinion, the two biggest determinants of success in footy are (in order) injuries and fitness. We struggled on both fronts this year.

Good questions - to which I will respond (assuming Andy asks me!)

Yep, very much so. I've been pondering the reason for the significant change to the way we normally play since the dogs game. My theories revolved around Goody looking to add another layer to our method because: we were looking to take advantage of our predictability (by being unpredictable) goody has said a number of times that tactics evolve in season the quick ball movement method of the pies and the swans was proving effective other teams had found ways to mitigate our strengths and expose our weakness the changes would increase our chances of winning the flag But to be honest I didn't apply Occam's razor to the conundrum, perhaps because my confidence in winning the flag was predicated on the training program having us in optimal shape to attack the finals If i had applied Occam's razor, whilst the above dot points all might have some validity, i would have arrived at the more logical conclusion as to why we went out so hard to get a match winning lead and then look to hang on - goody, who of course has access to all the injury and fitness related data and metrics, knew we were too banged up/lacking in fitness to play 4 quarters.

Great post. The game plan and method we came into to the finals with was significantly different to that used in 2021 and the first half of 2022. The last third of the season really only the freo game 'looked' like a Melbourne game. I suspect that change was equal part a response to what the opposition were doing better (both in terms of negating us and their model) and mitigation against our issues. We played much more aggressively, particularly in first halves and as you suggest leaked goals as a result. In simple terms, the approach seemed to be get a big enough lead by half time and then hang on for dear life. I reckon the biggest change was that we stopped using tempo control.

Spot on. Everything flows from there.

I'm confident we will win this game. Not as confident as i was last week, or for the round 23 game. But confident nonetheless. If we win, I'm confident we will beat the cats too. That said, i feel sick in the guts at the thought of the season ending tonight (and i worry the players might too - which is one reason I'm not as confident about tonight as i was for the round 23 game)

You might be right. But i was thinking they might drop him, not for form related reasons, but because we so obviously need a second a tall forward and if Tmac is not ready, Weed is not even in the frame, they don't want to try JVR then Smith is the only other option.

Smith in for melksham is my guess as the only change.

They are nor mutually exclusive.

There's a specific form that needs to be completed when making an apology to you? A touch beauracratic I would have thought.

Better than a Pagan Fagan moment!

I am more concerned we lose this match than i was before round 23. I reckon now that they have won a final they'll view this match, on our home deck and at long odds to win, as a free hit and play more relaxed. And I feel like we are under more pressure.

That makes more sense. To the eye the swans were on top in the post clearance cps - a stat that is one of kpis. Almost as if the Swans focus is on winning those contests as opposed to winning g cps at the stoppage

Ta. I half expected that the pies and swans might have had more post clearance cps. It reinforces in my mind that the swans and pies are both doing something different.

Well done cats.

Does anyone know the post clearance contested possession numbers for our game and the pies cats game?

All good points. I predicted a damp squib for these finals, with the lions tigers game being the only close one. Could not have been more wrong. The pressure the swans and pies brought is almost like a new style. I mean pressure is fundamental to finals footy obviously, but the pressure both teams bring to disrupt exit from stoppages is something different. Curiously both teams had significantly less contested possessions than their opponents - the swans minus 25 and pies minus 21. On our sytem, I can't get my head around why we have changed it so much. I had expected us to go hard and fast against the swans, which we did. We didn't get ant score board seperation in the first half, so cam out and played fast in the third. But we never tried to control the tempo, which is a key part of our system. Well, it used to be. Yes, that was in large part due to the smart way the swans stopped us doing so, for example by tagging langdon and Salem (who we use a lot to control tempo) and denying us time and space. But we also fed into the pace of the game by going for high risk kicks into the corridor. Made more high risk by gawn and may trying them - and giving up three goals in doing so. So weird for us to be play such high risk, high reward footy. And we paid the price we normally make other teams pay. I don't know what the numbers were at games end, but at half time I think I saw on the scoreboard we had scored maybe one goal from turnover and they had scored 4 or 5. Such a perplexing game tactically. Yes, a big part of that was the great tactical work by the swans, but nonetheless we contributed to the tactical weirdness.

It looked terrible live. Poor bugger was in absolute agony. On the slo mo replay tou could almost see it happen. I hate to see players get injured like that.

I reckon maxy was also carrying.g something. I was in the Olympic stand and at one point in, I think, the third, maxy was running directly toward me as the ball headed to the boundar line. His running action was so awkward and said to my mate that he had done his hammy. He obviously hadn't, because he stayed on, but something was not right with his movement.

Sure, but trac gave us zero run