binman

Like all dees fans - a life long learner! How to endure, how to build resilience, learning to understand the pain of life.....

Perhaps. I blame my misspent youth and all the late nights at the Punters club, Seaview ballroom, The Tote, The Corner, The GB, the Espy, The Prince, The Old Greek Theatre etc etc. That and the fact my misspent youth lasted until i had my first child at 35! I need to give him a nickname that takes hold. Given i will watch him closely, maybe Orni? As in Ornithology.

Awesome caller and top questions. I love the fact Terrance is in Belgium listening to an obscure podcast, not on delay but live and calls in and brings some really thoughtful questions and comments. Brilliant I hope he calls in again. My first question will be what is he studying?

It was only long becuase I spent so losing correcting myself about number 32. Sorry Tom, i am never going to mention your name again.

Exactly. And perhaps an extension of what has happened over the 6 years since goody has come to the club. The narrative that there has been some silver bullet, or the penny has dropped, or the other shoe has dropped, or any other silly metaphor is complete and utter bollocks. As is any narrative that yze and Williams are the puppets masters. We have not magically arrived at this point. Sure there have been some changes. But that occurs every year for every club. But all are incremental. Even the biggest one - the total buy in, selflessness, team first, enough is enough time to deliver focus of ALL the players. As many here have pointed out - and the players have been at pains to say (see traccs terrific sen interview on the mfc site) - this all a function of maturity. Think back to goody's first pressers as senior coach. He made clear what his philosophy is and what he planned to build. A game plan built on the fundamentals of contest and pressure. Territory. Strong in all three phases. Tough, uncompromising And above all two key elements: - An idenfiable 'brand' that dees' fans recognised and loved to watch - A game plan built for finals - not winning home and away games, not getting to finals winning finals. A game plan that would set us up for a sustained period of success And here we are. We have yet to achieve anything so lets see about the sustained period of success. But all the other planks are all in place. And goody deserves all the credit in the world for that.

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That is the first interview I've heard with him. Very impressive. I reckon they do try to mix things up. Look at the different spots Max hits it to. But it was a slippery night and as ooze noted like most teams the swans were simply trying to negate Max and rove to him. And they had some guns doing so. And the centre square stoppages are pretty random. On smahing it forward to space Max does that quite a bit around the ground, and occasionally in the centre. But I reckon they avoid it in the centre as a rule because it is so risky. If one of their half backs or wingers come off the square there is a good chance that if they (or one of the mids) win it, they are in space and so can kick under no pressure.. A tap down to one of our players who then looks to handball out to one of our players in space is far more controlled and less risky. If the opposition win the ball from the tap it is in traffic so we can apply pressure.

Jackson is not really a key forward as such. More a floating half forward, albeit a tall one. And of course he is taking serious minutes in the ruck So Daw is really more a like for like replacement. And I reckon he would be a terrific option. But surely they will go with weed from a player management perspective. Now really a senior player who has worked super hard and by all accounts has handled being in the twos very maturely. Lots of comments from teamates about his team first approach. And Weed rucked a bit in 2019, both at Casey and in the seniors. And I thought he looked quite a natural ruck. Improved quite a bit through the year and improved his ruck craft. I thought it strange he didn't ruck st all last season (other than in the forward line). But that may well have been because of his hip issue that he apparently was struggling with. All that said a forward line of Brown, melksham, friiter and weed really worries me in terms of their collective lack of forward pressure. Sure weed can lay a hard tackle. But he barely laid any in the second half of last year. And when the ball hits the ground often ball watches and doesn't apply referred pressure. Both issues were evident in the Casey v roos game. He better bring the heat.

And why we recruited preuss and had him on our list for two years, used our first pick (that we traded up for) in 2019 on a ruckman and are developing bradkte. Not sure where CA is but perhaps it somewhere where it is not possible to keep up with what the dees are up to.

I don't reckon they will want rest anyone late in tbe season. They will want their best 22 playing together coming into the finals. Round 12 in the nt is in that group of round 11-14 and base so maybe for that one.

Agree. Missed one important example. The forward who has been down on form, thst we play back into form and he kicks a bag. I'm gonna be nervous if they start cripps forward!

yze is interviewed on the talking points video that was loaded up today. The first 3 mina or so all about the centre square clearnce differential. Interesting discussion. In fact the whole interview is good. I didn't realise he hadn't been a mid field coach before (or perhaps I misunderstood the question and reply) https://www.melbournefc.com.au/video/934386/the-talking-points-adem-yze?videoId=934386&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1620721799001

What he said.

I'm confused. What's your point?

Day before. Which is crazy. So ours don't come out till Saturday at 6pm. Pre covid (which IIRC was the pretext for the change) my memory is that final teams would come out for Friday night and Saturday games on Thursday just after 6pm. And 25 man squads came out on Thursday just after 6pm for Sunday games. And i thought, but might well be wrong, that last year the squads for a Sunday game out on Friday.

Is there anything stopping the dees announcing their team tomorrow night? It would be great publicity for sponsors and cost nothing. And then on Saturday they could change it! More publicity

To be perfectly frank i reckon much of this post is load of old cobblers. And it feels a bit disingenuous to boot. The title of the thread is Goody's five big changes. But that is not what it is about. It feels like these so called 'five big changes' that have supposedly 'helped our team' are really a pretext to create a conversation/discussion about this question: 'who was responsible? Should Goody get all the credit?'. And not credit in general sense, but credit for a list of arbitrary 'changes' that are are presented as facts, when they are all highly contestable (and for what its worth i disagree with almost all of the assumptions in them. If i were to pick 6 things that have been key factors in our success this year they would be completely different). Perhaps this is unfair, but the opening post seems more about creating another opportunity to knock Goody and diminish his contribution. As opposed to generating the discussion implied in the thread title about what changes have been factors in our success. But what those factors might be is a different discussion than one related to the question 'who was responsible? Should Goody get all the credit?' Which to be honest is a much less interesting discussion, because really, as It's Time points out why does it matter? Is anyone debating how much credit Hardwick should get compared to say Leppa or Williams? Of course not. Does anyone talk about Clarkson's assistants other than in broad terms. No What about Longmire - how much credit for Cox? Or when Roos coached how much credit should Longmire have got. Or Goodwin under Roos for that matter. Perhaps goody was the mastermind and Roos a puppet (joking)? As JG rightly notes it is a team performance. The best coaching groups work in harmony with each person playing their role and to their strengths. They seem to have got that synergy right this year. As an example, i love Goody coaching from the bench as it seems to really play to his strengths. And yze in the box seems smart move too. And choco as pre game motivator seems to be working. But at the end of the day the head coach is the captain of that team. Besides the conversation about which coach or football department employee should get credit misses a key point. Surely the people who deserve most credit for our incredible performance and level this season is the players.

Excellent point. I had not registered that spread. Perfect opportunity to optimise recovery. For example, rivers is running out of gas and needs a freshen up. Don't pick him for the lions or pies game. Tbst would give him a four week break. Probably too much I guess for most. So even resting a player for the pies game gives them a 3 week break

Both very good points, particularly the first one

And he is still out of competition i assume? If so, no issue. The courts will deal with it. Or not. he might just have to pay a fine. Club would be annoyed but really it is nothing.

Who has suggested our turn around is mainly thanks to Goody? I never venture into the is goodwin the right coach thread anymore, but the prevailing thinking in other threads on DL seems to be that Yze and Choco should be getting most of the credit for our 'turn around'. Goody seems to get precious little credit. And Richardson none I agree JG that it is a team effort and all current, and previous assistants etc, for that matter deserves credit for where we are at. Impossible, not to mention futile, to assign percentage to their contribution, including that of goody. That said I am more than happy to say Goodwin deserves the lions share of the credit of where are we at. All of it? Of course not. As you say that would be silly. But it is equally silly to suggest our coach since 2017 (who had key responsibilities as an assistant coach for the two previous years) is not the key architect of where we now sit as a club. He would certainly take the lion's share of the criticism and blame if we were going poorly, as was the case in 2019 and 2020 with many here on Demonland. Speaking of silly, i reckon there are more than a few silly posts in the is goodwin the right coach thread. When we win a flag, I will enjoy revisiting it for some light entertainment.

Yep, fair slice of backhanded compliment in the phrase: Person responsible for making Goody see the light If that is the starting point not much room to credit goody for anything.

Am i right in thinking cannabis has been, or will be taken off the WADA banned list of drugs?

That is so true. The soldier out, soldier in, injuries are not blame palaver is one of the enduring myths of football. Of course a robust structure and system help mitigate the impact of losing players, even key ones but as you say you cant replace a Gawn, Petracca, May, Kossie with a player anywhere near their ability. One would hurt. Any more and we are in trouble With Tomlinson we are lucky we had Petty becuase he will do as good a job i reckon (though perhaps not as good on the really big forwards thommo took, like Hawkins). Just look at the impact on the tigers of having Vlasutin and Cotchin out. And Dusty being not 100% for that matter too.

Short answer: all things considered it reasonably likely we will drop off at some point, but if we do lets hope it is not at finals time. Long answer: As is always the case for any contender, much will depend on injury. And luck (eg who gets injured, when they get injured, opposition issues) We have had an ok run with injuries thus far (though that should not be overstated - we have lost thommo, our two first pick forwards were unavailable until recently, our small defender back up has been out, we lost a very handy defensive back up in Hore for the season, Viney is out for a bit). But we can expect some more. Our game plan has pressure as its absolute foundation. It is a very taxing style to play for a full season. Physically and mentally. It is likely intensity will drop in some games and we will lose a handful of them. So I think we will definitely dip a bit. Which is no bad thing. Gone are the days of teams going through seasons undefeated (how insane does that sound in reference to a discussion about the dees!) The key is to replicate what the Tigers have been so brilliant at: banking enough wins to make top 4, not being overly fussed if they are scratchy wins and peaking at finals time. As Hardwick and Goody have noted (perhaps taking a cue from the NFL) there are two seasons: Home and Away. And Finals. Get through the first in good shape and with a strong ladder position. Peak in the second Our system and game plan is robust and I am super confident it will stand up in finals. And our list is in the perfect stage of its development. Make no mistake we are legitimate contenders for the flag this year, as evidenced by the fact we are currently EQUAL FAVOURITES (with the Dogs, Tigers and Port - all $5.50) for the flag with the bookies. I hope they go all chips in in the next two games (was four games when i made this comment previously, so we have the first two pieces of the puzzle) and do all they can to win the them both. That includes picking the very best side they can. And not resting players unless really necessary. If we go 10 zip we are a top four lock as 15 win gets us top four, meaning we 'only' need to win half of our remaining games. Do that and we can plan around the bye to rest players. So rest players between rounds 11 and say 15. That includes possibly not having our best team against the dogs, port and/or lions. All three games are not as important at they might have been without our brilliant start to the season. If we happen to lose any, those clubs will know we were not at full strength. And dees fans we will be the ones who can smugly say premierships are not won in July. Give Gawn a chop out, manage Tracc and Oliver for a game or two, perhaps Jackson, Rivers and Jordan too (but not not kozzie - he would hate it too much!). Get some experienced players like Jones and maybe Jetts in for the tough mid winter games. And give the Bowey, Swallows, Chandlers and Bedfords, maybe even Rosman and of course Weed their shots. Fresh, motivated players will bring an energy just when we need it. And actually might help us win some games we might otherwise lose. Our flying start has created this opportunity. But we need to win to next two to get get full value from it.