binman

Yes and no. Yes for game rust and taking time to pick up the speed of the game. No for missing targets less than 30 metres away under no pressure as result of a woeful kicking technique. Aan issue that by the by was evident in his first 10 or so underwhelming games for the dees before his injury (coming off his best season).

Sorry, did you make a typo. I assume you mean Twiggy Lever. His turn overs directly cost us 4 goals. Pathetic. What was the losing margin? Our highest paid player can't hit a target 25 metres away. Gets a free pass.

Yes, no doubt. But that is evidence in favor of Webber's completely valid argument, not refuting it. Thanks Webber. Good to see some people can see sense through the red and blue mist.

Yes it does. And has. If people can't accept that then that's their problem

Good question. My reposen would be to keep bot the kick in rule and 666. One because neither rule has changed much, and not impacted on the 'spirit' of the game as such ie don't really represent a major change to how the game has always been played. Two because i don't mind the main impact of the 66 rule - which is in those relatively rar occasion when scores are very close in the last couple of minutes, And i don't mind the kick in rule and think it could create some interesting tactical responses (although it hasn't yet). But please no more changes

Excellent post. Agree that if i'm right about their approach it was more than justified. If you have any shot at a flag you go for it. The only point i'm not sure about is the impact of the 666 rule. Personally i think its impact has been marginal at best, for us and for the AFL as a whole.

Totally agree on those needs. I'd add we need some small defenders too. I'm a bit concerned Jetts might not get back to his best, whilst i like Jones back it's a stretch to say he's a natural defender and neither Hibbo and Salem are attacking rather than shut down defenders. Small and medium forwards have killed us this year and i'm not convinced we have the player's to shut them down.

Of course it does rjay and of course it is not working as well this year. But it certainly was last year. Better in the last third of the season when our defence was the best in the season and we were applying manic all ground pressure and smashing opposition in contested ball. We were trapping it in our forward half, getting rpeat entries, applying forward 50 tackles, running in waves and playing forward half pressure game. Just likes the Tigers. And just like the tigers this year we were utilsing a key forward who was grabbing everything and kicking goals. The Hawks tried their spread style in the semi and we smashed them the same way the tigers smashed the pies last night. As i said their game plan is the closest in style to ours. Not the same but close, particularly in terms of philosophy, which is contested ball is king and the swarm will beat the spread. You watch, from tomorrow the footy talking heads will be all over the the tigers game and how effective it is - kryptonite to the pies and west coast style. But it is game style, just like the Pies game style, like any game style that relies on having your best players playing. Which the tigers are close to having and the pies don't. And nor do we. Our list is built for our style. When we had our best players playing we showed last year we can be brutally effective. And Goody obviously has faith in it. Contest out. Swarming, smashing in and hard at it. The Melbourne way. Tweak, and adjust sure but he's not going to throw it away now and try new one. So what choice is there but to get on board and trust he is right? If worried ask a Tigers fan about game style. They're pretty happy right about now i suspect. And the Cats, Pies and Eagles fans are suddenly worried their game plan doesn't score enough points to win big games.

Yep, and with a game plan that is closest in style to ours of any team. But hold on, i thought the pies, cats, west coast slow, chip it around, cross to the fat side and maintain possession model is unbeatable and where the game is heading and Goody has failed to keep up with premiership winning trend in footy. I'm confused. Perhaps that's the not the case after all.

Earlier this year the booing of ablett for being a homophobic sniper was used by some as evidence that the booing of goodes wasn't racist. Leaving aside the mind boggling ridiculousness of such an argument the booing stopped after only a few weeks. Some argued continuing to boo goodes became a statement protesting being told to stop. People came out and said don't boo a champion when ablett was being booed. Where was the free speech outrage. Why did people not continue to boo in protest. Why are they not still booing ablett?

i wonder if Burgess shares Saty's ambivalence about the impact of interrupted preseasons?

An excellent point. Aligns with the two ladders someone (apologies for not recalling who), one with experience and the other age which both closely reflected the current AFL ladder. I reckon you could add the doggies to the hawks as an example and GWS have struggled with their young list to get up each year.

Not having a shot at ypu pitmaster but I'm not sure it is possible, or fair, to categorically say our prep has been poor this year (unless you have both inside knowledge and the relevant expertise). You might be right of course or our fitness issues might be down to bad luck but personally I'd hate to see misso's reputation get tarnished and for him to cop unwarranted, ill informed criticism.

Is it too early to start the 'It's all burgoes fault and we need to sack him ASAP' thread?

All of the players i listed, with the possible exception of kk are best 22 locks and melk is not available i dont think

Sorry. How do you figure that?. From our nominal best 22 we have the following players not available though injury: jeffy, Joel Smith, tmac, melk, kk, vdb, hore and weed a test. That's a third of our best 22.

Sorry LF you were wrong. 7No other club is in the same predicament injury wise as us. Not even close. We have by far the worse run. Top 22 players. Top 10 Top 5. Total number. Timing. Whatever metric you want to use we have had by far the worse run with injury.

Now that is a more interesting discussion and one that is worth exploring. Very hard to do so however in the absence of both inside knowledge and a strong understanding of what best practice is in that space. For example I wonder if they actually had to do all the surgeries preseason. Could have some waited to say the bye. Could have they done some during the 2018 season or even ended some seasons early? But of course i'm in no position to have an informed opinion on such questions. That said my gut feeling is they thought they had a shot at the flag last year and, not unreasonably put their eggs in that basket. I think they rolled the dice and hoped they would avoid major injuries and start hitting peak fitness by the bye. Rolled the dice and came up snake eyes.

As I and others have been at pains to point out this is plain wrong and to be honest is a really unhelpful narrative to be pushing as a dees fan. Why? Because it is wrong. You made that assertion a fee weeks ago and I posted the link of the article from may with the games missed by best 22 through injury ladder. I'm not sure if you read it but it showed we were hit hardest at that stage by a big, big margin. And things have got much worse since then. If that ladder was done now we would be so far ahead of second it is not funny. And as noted by wrecker45 the injury issue has to be seen in context of our shocking preseason and resulting lack of a strong fitness base (by the by the tigers had a great preseason, as did not coincendally all the teams in the top 5. Saints didn't and have struggled all season. Go figure). Caro should stick to footy politics if she doesn't understand that. Sure, debate the actuall impact of a poor preseason and injury. But please don't misrepresent how bad both have been for the dees. As I say it is an unhelpful narrative and just feeds all those lazy footy media people who love to reinforce such myths.

I simply don't understand why people (fans, media people and a high proportion of dl posters) can't understand that simple fact. Leaving aside that it is well documented having a high percentage of your list completing a high percentage of preseason sessions is critical to having a successful year it is plain as day we are strugglong to run out quarters ans games.

I could care less about the Neeld thing. And i don't mind his criticism of the club. All power to him. A terrific servant for the club and he has more that earned the right to knock us. What i mind is that he is a paid professional analyst who is rubbish at that job. I don't care how he 'feels' about the dees. Not in that role anyway. Maybe down the pub over a few beers, but not on a show that is supposed to offer some level of professional analysis, requiring some level of professional detachment. His comments sounded like a fan boy whose feelings had been hurt, who had been let down. If he truly believes last year was an aberration, do some basic research and back up that opinion with some facts. Do some work rather than waffle on. He's supposedly 'thought about it long and hard' and gives no substance to his argument. At all. Not single rational argument to back his opinion. That's the best he can do after thinking long and hard? I mean c'mon. Browny tried hard to get him to expand on his thoughts, for example asked him about the quality of the midfield. But got nothing from Gary. Embarrassing stuff. In all seriousness he sounded like many posters on Demonland. The difference is he is getting paid to have an informed view and make rational, well argued assertions. Cold, hard criticism? You are pretty easily pleased Steve. Personally i prefer a bit more rigor in my analysis. Each to their own i suppose.

The dees would kill for that injury list.

Agree with most if not all of the above. With one exception. Fair dinkum surely a TV show like On the Couch, which is supposed to be all analysis, should be able to express the points you make in the post above an hour of TV. But i agree they can't. or more accurately choose not to. And that is largely because the footy media in Australia is simply woefiul. Embarrassingly so. And a big reason is that is predominately made up of ex footballers who are 'stars' and seemingly have no interest in doing any meaningful research to inform their views or don't have the skills to do so or both. So lazy. And Gary is one of the worst in this regard. Not the worst though. BT takes that honor. Follweed by Cameron Ling. They do have producers though. But they have no interest either it would seem. They are happy enough to serve up ill informed pa wrapped up in the occasion interesting stat they but of champion data and a nice graphic or two.

Those 2 have been injured. When they went they improved. You won't give gawn? Oliver has improved, no question. And you don't count Hore just because he was a draft pick? He was dropped early in the season, came back into the team and steadily improved, until the injury God's took their pound of flesh.

Gawn has become an all Australian lock. Tmac had a stellar 2018. Hannan also had a great 2018. Oliver has improved. Jetts had his best year in 2018. Hore has improved out of sight this year. Frost has had his best year this year.