binman

The Oscar wars have recommenced! Just with the coach. Jones, Brayshaw and Tomlinson. Speed to burn

Listening to goody's presser I get the vibe he is taking the swing the axe approach. Im tipping a couple more outs and I reckon it will be Jones and......drum roll.....brayshaw

I wasn't being critical of roos (though to be honest i am not in the roos as savior camp - i'm not convinced he was all in). Agree on your second para, but still wonder if decision making on selection might sub consciously influenced by a close relationship with player. On the third para, not for the first time you are ahead of the pack and spot on the money. Let's get Balme (sorry Josh - you want to be CEO anyway)

Fact or opinion?

That may be true of Goody, ie more coaching per se than others. But if you listen to him he puts a huge emphasis on building relationships with 'his' players. Which is all well and good, but it takes a hell of a lot of time to first build, and then maintain relationships with more than 40 men. I remember a fascinating exchange of posts years ago involving Drunkn reflecting on his brother's experience at the dees. IIRC correctly he said Roos almost never spoke to Dec or any of other fringe players for that matter, and this was matter of some consternation to those players (and again my memory is a bit hazy but i think there was suggestion it was the cause of some division between the A team players, so to speak and those like Dec who struggled to break into the team) There was a fair bit of discussion about it, a theme of which being that if true it seemed a bit of a contradiction given Roos had a very strong emphasis on relationships with players. But perhaps he didn't have enough time to build relationship with the whole lists (particularly give all his other commitments)? Hearing goody speak he is 24/7 coach and i wonder if he tries to make sure he gets to every player regularly. I don't meant to sound flippant but maybe he'd be better spending some of that time on selection and game day tactics. You hear players from the cats and tigers talk super positively of Neil Balme, almost like a father figure. Maybe it would be better for someone in his role and with his high EQ and management skills to be the key relationship builder. Of course relationships are always gong to be important for a coach, but i do wonder if in some ways it might negatively impact their judgement - pretty hard for instance to drop a player, who should be dropped, if for example you know they are struggling with personal issues and don't won't to make things worse for them.

Don't google that at work. I'm sure there is some fetish group out there involving WD40

You might have thought that perhaps because a poster was stating that as fact earlier this season (the name escapes me but i don;t recall them posting for a bit) ie they got him to stack on the weight as they wanted him big to play the gorilla role and would be played deep forward out of the square. Which never happened (playing out of the square) - though given his lack of mobility that is the only spot i would have played him. Instead they played him up the ground, to the teams detriment. Crazy. In any case there is no way an AFL club would ask any player Tmac's size to get bigger and heavier given how important athleticism in footy these days. All the key forwards (eg hawkins) have gone the opposite direction

Makes an awful lot of sense. Top call. As you say the coaches role has become ridiculously broad (in the last 15 years or so i reckon). Spread too thin and too much responsibility for man management, so to speak. On game day a NBA coach has one, two max assistants. Too much going on for multiple voices. I reckon AFL is the same. Too many voices. Get a coach whose expertise is tactics, strategy and game day expertise. Get a gun GM who do all the man management required a list of 40 odd young men demands. I reckon it is no coincidence Geelong and Richmond's recent success coincides with Neil Balme being at those clubs and heading their football department.

Insert not sure if serious giph. For one thing he is not fit or mobile enough to play down back. And for another thing the last time his spot in the team was under an threat was when he was a defender. His kicking out of defence made Frost look like Jordon Lewis. Moving him forward was n act of desperation, which if it didn't work Tmac was gonski And even if fit and suddenly could hit target why on god's good earth would they have four bigs down back.

This. Something must be wrong with him i reckon. Must be carrying an injury still. In terms of condition he has never got close to his best since his foot issues. Funnily enough i thought he looked in better shape in the Suns game than he did after a three week block of uninterrupted training and not having to recover from games.

Better than what?

Tmac out, AVB in. Both confirmed.

A key player when right nd gives me zero pleasure to say it, but they simply had to drop Tmac. But i said it after the port debacle i am completely bewildered by the decision to pick him for that game. He was nowhere near ready physically and they simply had to know that. One of the strangest selection decisions i can recall from a MFC coach. Ever. Made stranger still when you consider this comment:from Goodwin: “[Three talls] just didn’t look like it was going to function in the right manner,” Goodwin said. “Clearly, it was a slightly dewy night, but those are the sort of games we’re playing in at the moment.” Perhaps Goody read his fixture wrong and though we were playing mid afternoon and didn't want to fess up.

Did you stop reading half way through my post OD. That's exactly what i meant by: 'Make no mistake the doggies should have won. Which is where the no comes in. Port were mentally tough enough to hang in the match in the first half and last quarter. And were able to raise an effort in in the third. More mentally than physically. It won them the game I couldn't help but be impressed. I thought they were a bit flakey.'

Yes and no. Yes because their fatigue was evident throughout the game particularly in the first half. Dogs do a Melbourne and wasted so much of their dominance in the first half and last quarter. Bruce was tmac like and they kept going to him. Only a dees supporter could understand how they were only 3 points up at half time. It barely went inside the port 50 in the second quarter. Make no mistake the doggies should have won. Which is where the no comes in. Port were mentally tough enough to hang in the match in the first half and last quarter. And were able to raise an effort in in the third. More mentally than physically. It won them the game I couldn't help but be impressed. I thought they were a bit flakey. By the by had a good win on the doggies at the line. The difference in gaps between games will play a big role in the next two weeks.

Agree we need players who impact games. And agree Watts never impacted games nearly enough. And he was certainly not a competitive beast. But even the best teams will have no more than handful of players who can really impact a game, in terms of being the difference between winning and losing. The key is you have mix of players, with a mix of attributes and a mix of positions they can play. Competitive ball winners, outside runners, marking targets, crumbing forwards etc etc. Watts influence was underrated i reckon as he regularly led our goal assists and by far our best inside 50 kick. That influence has been evident more in his absence. The key thing is he was our only elite kick (lewis had dropped off by then). And we so desperately need one now. Many said fritter was a like for like but as we have seen heis kicking is fr from elite. The ridiculous focus on competitive ball winners who love a contest (nd presumably a fierce will to win) has lead to alist that has way too many similar players and saw us take Sparrow at 29 and Jordon at 33 in the same draft. And for that matter saw Brayshaw get less time in his best position when sparrow got big minutes in the guts, forcing brayshaw play more mintes where his lack of pace was exposed. Compare the mix of players port have drafted - roze, georgiades, butters, marshall, dursmaa. All different, with a range of attributes, and all playing in different positions (having done so in juniors)

True. And i have to think that this was in part a driver of Bartletts comments - our sponsors would have been livid.

Has a link to the RSN article with the audio from him this morning on their inner sanctum thing they do. About 15 minutes of max. First media i reckon since last weeks game

Except when he did.

No. We need players who are able to hit a target by foot at least 70% of the time under pressure. [censored] their will to win. Viney has a fantastic will to win. Kicking it to a player on your team helps to win

I suspect that will be pretty close. I doubt brown plays. Time to bring rivers back. Jackson stays in I hope.

I reckon Taylor has done a good job. But recruiters select the type of players the coach is looking for. You want a contested beast, who wins his own ball here's oliver. You want a neat kick to play forward to replace your elite kick who played forward, but likes a party, here's fritter.

fumble jumble made me laugh

This is so spot on. Our lack of skills, in particular our foot skills is at the core of our issues. Agree with some the critiques of the game plans, particularly the focus on contest ball at the expense of outside spread, and not looking to stretch the ground (made more difficult without good kicks). But iust doesn't matter what game plan you favor if you turn the ball over as often as we do, or fail to kick to a teammates advantage for that matter (a huge bug bear of mine) then it wont work. And i reckon the game has gone past us in that the model worked ok in 2018 (until it didn't) but the use of zone has gone to whole other level and good kicking is even more important that ever (and besides almost every team now goes as hard as us - just look at how freo smashed pies, so we have lost that comparative advantage). It comes down to recruitment. And i blame both Roos and Goodwin for their failure to put an emphasis on recruiting elite kicks. Just watching the dogs since their flag they have recruited lapinski, crozier, , vandemeer and smith - all who are all good to above average kicks. And they already had Suckling, Daniels (who doesn't kick long but rarely misses a target), the Bont and one of the best kicks in the league Macrae. Those last four are all elite kicks (though suckling has gone off the ball a bit).

All good. He did pair up with Georgiades straight after that goal and most (but not all) other goals. But once the ball was in motion, because we play a triangle zone defence the defender's swap opponents depending on where that player moves to. So Georgiades was never his man, as such. At least not in the way Dixon was mas (as May stayed on him almost all game) Omac's role in that zone is to play the deepest of our 3 big defenders (as occurred in that instance with him going to hoff in the goal square) and Lever (or any other defender) taking the forward who leads into space. in that zone system it is the job of the small defenders, mids and anyone else who can get there to cover and block space. If they don't it is a sure sign we are being slack and not working hard enough, as was the case right from the start of that game (hence that too easy gola) to the very end (hence any number of other too easy goals). Turnovers don't help either!