binman

Thanks KC. You are a gem, and seriously your contributions are one of the best things about Demonland. Those numbers for Jed Adams are a horror show given how much time the ball spent in our defensive 50. I watched the first 2 and half quarters, and I'm pretty sure he didn't come off injured. Did he after that point? Where do you see Adams at? Of the dees listed players, Howes was the only one giving me pick me vibes. Do you think he'll come back into the ones at some point?

I wish some of our players had the same level of OCD when it game to kicking for goal. Or kicking full stop for that matter. The anecdote highlights how driven, myopic and selfish elite athletes often are, perhaps have to be (the same is true I think of many brilliant surgeons, musicians, artist, writers etc). I would nor be surprised if there is a correlation between being an elite athlete and neurodiversity, for example conditions like adhd or being on the spectrum that have 'symptoms' like an ability to hyper focus on specific activities, OCD, preparedness to train solo for hours, self absorbed and self sufficient and not caring what others think of you (eg in the hockey players example, he could probably care less that many would suggest he is over-sensitive about his weight). @Engorged Onion - what say you, am i barking up the wrong tree here?

C'mon roos.

Pay that.

Jeffo nice mark and goal. The caller says its 'fitting for his rewards'. He could replace BT or Derm

McAdam has been good. Some excellent marks.

Schache the unstoppable drops a sitter

The kid on camera duties must have had a bong hit at half time.

I know you are a muso Mel. Am I right to assume you are a drummer?

'The dream has started' the caller bellows after jeffo snags the first in the ladt quarter.

Almost does an awful lot of work in that sentence.

Not a brain fade, but was in the supermarket yesterday wirh my dees beanie on. A little kid, maybe 5 or 6 points at me and says very loudly x 2: Demons? Boo demons.

Funniest call I've heard for a while. On Schache - when he's on 'he's almost unstoppable'.

Captains run?

Fair point. Rubbish team was too strong. Though we did finish 11th with a percentage of only 97%- 8 points and 8% behind the roos in 8th spot. And it's a bit of a stretch to imply 'if we won our last 2 games' is evidence of being an ok team. I mean, if my aunty had a beard and all that. We could only manage 58 points in a 20 point loss in our second to last game. It was against the blues - who won 3 less games than us and finished 14th. And in our last game, we could only manage 44 points, the cats scored 155 and flogged us by 111. So, sure rubbish is unfair, and yes we had potential, but we were certainly no world beaters. And certainly a long way behind say the cats and swan teams Scott and Longmire, with whom goody has a very comparable record, took over. Both took over far superior teams at clubs who were settled off field, had recently won a flag and have big home ground advantages. Both are respected coaches and i don't hear many talking them down But the relative strength of the side goody took over doesn't change my central argument - goody has a fantastic coaching record.

Farris White doing ok

Brilliant forward pressure from pup sets up a Schache shot on goal

Who took that strong pack mark? (And then proceeded to turn it over)

It's weird watching a game without replays

A beauty.

Sort of. Commentator very loud

When you say goody sticks with his structure, do you mean in terms of his selection policy? One of the criticisms he's faced is playing favourites with selection. And sticking with players who are out of form. From my perspective, assessing selection decisions is a bit like assessing the high performance program - there are so many variables and unknowns it's hard to make a balanced assessment. That said, there have been plenty of head scratchers over the journey. For example I was amazed laurie was selected ahead of spargo late last year. And selecting tmac was also baffling given he was clearly not fit and was still impacted by his foot issue. But like I said, there are unknowns- was Grundy invested, was spargo perhaps not meeting internal benchmarks, etc etc. One thing I do know about goody's selection policy is playing an assigned role is key to being selected week in week out. If a player in poor form stats wise keeps getting selected, fans can be pretty confident they are playing their assigned role and meeting the related KPIs (which could include indicators fans are unaware of, such as distance run, maintaing structure, following team rules, halving contests stc). All of which is a function of goody's coaching philosophy of being system focused. His critics often knock him for his game day coaching, the no blan b or c stuff. Go up to the box some say. Personally, I think those critisisms are unfair, and yet another Goodwin myth. I mean just this season he gave Mitchell and Scott, two coaches who are lauded for their game day coaching and tactical smarts, a tactical bath. But be that as it may, goody, like hardwick, longmuire, mcrae and longmire is a systems coach. Which is why he coaches from the bench (I know longmuire and Longmure dont) He does much of tactical work ahead of the game and relies on his players to follow and execute his pre game plans. He has his senior assistant in the box to give him in game tactical advice. Which doesn't mean he is inert. When watching our games on tv watch how often when showing a shot of goody how often he is getting info from the stats analyst who sits on the bench. It's constant. The idea that goody is stubborn, inflexible or predictable doesn't hold up to scrutiny. To be honest, if anything I think he can be too experimental. Just look at this year. He selected tmac and bbb at the start of the on the back of interrupted preseasons, and in tmacs case two weeks after surgery. BBB was probably a bust, but we did win games with him in the team. And tmac hasn't missed a game - or a beat. On tmac, despite us being desperate for key forwards, they instead play him as a defender (perhaps recognising how important having elite kicks down back is) - and almost a hb flanker at that. It's been a genius move as tmac has been terrific. After his out of the box selection of mvvee down back in 2023 and bowey in 2021 (few would argue both calls were winners) he selected another in Howes. Out of the side now, he was terrific in the first third of the season and will come back in I reckon. Amd this season he has selected a young defender, Turner, as a forward. Put Windsor straight into the ones from the get go. Blooded the kolt, woey, amw and pup. He has experimented with our centre square rotations (River, anb, salo and koz all getting a run) and used clarry in a defensive mid role. After largely eschewing using taggers, he tagged Stewart in our win over the cats, had nibbler shut down daicos and neale and used fritter to do the same to Andrews. He's played our best winger, Langdon, at half forward flank and not used sparrow as a mid until the last 2 weeks. And he's brought back players off long injury breaks straight back into the side - melk being the latest example All of that whilst experimenting with a game plan that has won us the flag and mutiple top 4 finishes. Predictable? Hardly. Far from being predicatable, you could mount a stronger case for goody being too UNPREDICTABLE.

Both play tall at least.

Fair points HD. I apologise for my snideness and any implication you don't turn up for games and support the club. At the risk of negating that apology, a frustration that informed the sentiment in that post is what I perceive, to be blunt, as a lack of perspective by many of goody's many critics on here. By that I mean, by any reasonable measure, goody's tenure as senior coach has been incredibly successful. It just has. Dees fans know better than most how hard it is to be successful in AFL footy - as a coach and for a team. But leaving aside our incredibly long, sustained period of being wildly unsuccessfully, goody's numbers stack up against the best coaches in AFL/VFL history. How many coaches in the 166 year history of the game that have coached more than a 150 games have a win loss % above 50% and have won a flag? I'd be guessing, but it can't be much more than 20 or 30 in 166 years. That's rarefied air. We were still rubbish when goody took over. In his first season we missed out on finals by 0.5 percent. In 2018, playing an exciting, unpredictable back half transition game with his flying v strategy (that was a major factor in the introduction of the 666 rule) we had an incredible run in the back half of the season, had probably the two greatest wins I've seen live in the finals and made it to a preliminary final, getting beaten by the flag winner. He took the opportunity mass injury afforded in 2019 to retool his method, introducing the contest and all team defence model. We stalled in 2020, but it was the covid year and we were unlucky that the shorter quarters negated our fitness advantage. We won the flag in 2021, playing a finals series that some described as the greatest ever. Our grand final win was ridiculously good. Exhilarating football. Bang. Bang. Bang. Starting with our incredible win over the cats in round 23 to secure top spot, that was the greatest 6 weeks of my football supporting life. We finished top 4 in 2022. Sure we went out in straight sets, but come finals we were completely banged up and were never in the hunt. In 2023 we again finished top 4, a remarkable performance given our injuries up forward, but unfortunately we also again went out in straight sets. How you see the loss to the pies depends a bit on your perspective. We came our a bit flat - cross. But soon after we lost gus and the first quarter was a write off - mitigating factor (as was nor having him foe basically an entire game) so a tick. We played brilliantly for the rest of the game, and really should have won. Tick. Again, remarkable given no Gus and really only playing 3 quarters. Why did we lose? Because we didn't take our chances. That's 100% on the players, not goody. His method and game day coaching stood up. We went into the blues game down our last surviving specialist KPF in JVR, and still reeling from Gus. Be that as it may, forever and a day, fans and the club will rue that loss. I think we win and we are a huge flag chance. We were by far the better team that day. We should have won. Why did we lose? Because we didn't take our chances. And, I also think we didn't handle the pressure - so many unforced errors. Many of which from our senior players, for example maxy x 3. And we handled the last 5 minutes woefully. Again, that's on the players, not goody. Sure, the non use of Schache as a sub, not selecting Grundy and Laurie's selection could all be questioned. But wouldn't have been if the players had sealed the deal like they should have. Goody's method and game day coaching stood up. Again. The players didn't. 2024? We already had a young list, but started the season down two of our starting 22, two fit, seasoned players in Smith and Gus. We could not replace either, so effectively the list is 42. Other senior players in Petty, bb, tmac, hunter, McAdam and clarry all have very interrupted preseasons. And another best 22 senior player in melk is out till well past the half way point of the season. The first third of the season we are given an insane schedule with lots of travel, two byes and two 5 day breaks. We lost more senior games when bb is a bust fitness wise, Hunter ditto, may gets his ribs broken, salo out for 5 weeks, clarry had hand surgery and Lever out for 5 weeks. We lose our best, most dynamic player for the rest of the season after another sickening contact injury. We are regularly forced to select very young inexperienced teams, teams more akin to teams who are a rebuilding phase. All the while trying to implement a new method. Which is ironic given the inane OP accusing goody of being too predictable. We had the off season from hell, mutiple senior players injured, down two of our starting 22 and down 2 on our list. And with a two thirds of the season gone we are only 2 points out of the top 8 and still in the hunt. Objectively that is bloody impressive. As is goody's overall coachimg record. Facts are facts.

The other thing I'd add, is the calls for Jeffo to be selected are in stark contrast to what seemed to be the consensus on this thread only a couple of months ago thst he wasn't going to make it at AFL level. And I'd also note that selecting melk, a senior, seasoned AFL player, first up after nearly 12 months out, rather than Jefferson cuts against the idea that goody had given up on this years and planning for 2025 (eg by 'playing the kids').