binman

2 hours ago, Garbo said:

Lots of injured but only 1 longer term, whether this is bad or not will be decided by if these niggles keep happening or if they clear up over the next month

Yep.

Another factor is how many of the players who have had short term injuries have still been able to do cardio work.

For example, it's not great Max broke a finger, but at least he can maintain his aerobic fitness, eg on the bike or running laps.

1 hour ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

It’s an atrocious injury list at this time of year considering they’ve just had a 3 week break and we haven’t had any serious practice matches yet.

Hopefully things settle down and we’ll only have Bowey missing for round 1.

Yep, a lot depends on the next 2 months.

Last season we had a dream run up 'til xmas, then a horror run in January and February.

Fingers crossed the opposite is true this season.

21 minutes ago, adonski said:

https://archive.md/FIiBg

Be still my beating heart:

'Kysaiah looked sharp as he spent most of Wednesday’s pre-season session at Gosch’s Paddock working with the midfield group, while cousin Latrelle is showing some great early signs since being selected at pick 12 in November’s national draft.

Latrelle put some genuine tricks on display during drills, while also setting up Bailey Fritsch for a goal during match simulation.

Latrelle looms as a round 1 chance alongside No. 11 draft pick Xavier Taylor, who has also impressed over summer with his ability to play tall or small in defence and his willingness to take on the play when he wins the ball back.'

1 hour ago, george_on_the_outer said:

Indeed.....the old heads on this site will remember what happened......

Players dropping out before the game with all manner of "injuries", as clubs rightly didn't want to risk their major talent in meaningless games.

There are more than enough which occur during normal pre-season training in this the professional era of AFL. It's not the 1960's any more.

Then the injuries happened in those games, and the clubs became even more disinterested, leading to its abandonment.

History will repeat.

Yep.

27 minutes ago, Pennant St Dee said:

I have zero interest IAH, like the Indigenous Allstars vs Freo last year no accountability just an exhibition game which allows players to shine yet doesn’t expose weaknesses many have.

I loved the concept in the past when those games meant everything to the players involved.

I’m all for each state selecting a Best 23 at the end of the season and presenting a jumper AA style but this concept not for me

Ditto.

As a kid i liked State of Origin because Robbie would always get selected and always seemed to be one of the best players in any given match.

21 minutes ago, Demons11 said:

Cmon mate, they are not going to highlight a marriage breakdown.

Not sure about that - the last season of the F1 Drive to Survive certainly highlighted Christian Horner's personal trials and turbulations

3 hours ago, Lord Travis said:

It's true. Statistically, we were the second fastest ball movement team on rebound for most of the season according to Champion Data. That measures how quickly we played on from a mark or free kick, and how quickly we moved the ball from the defensive 50 into the middle third of the ground.

Fast doesn't mean effective or good though. The players would often get the ball and immediately bomb it long with little effect. In the games we won, we were hand balling more to create more effective chains of possessions.

Speed isn't necessarily a good thing. IMO the best teams control the tempo of the footy and rarely let the other teams get effective possession. If you can't control the ball, you can't control the game and the game's result is therefore beyond your control and will require luck or your opponent blowing their chances (see us 2022-2023 when we were dominant).

Based on seeing that training footage and what we've heard from King about wanting to move the ball fast and be high scoring, I'd expect a few patches of really exciting play this season mixed amongst mostly getting burnt on turnover by disciplined teams. I'm expecting a bottom four-six finish again. A pass mark is finishing 8th-12th.

Agree with much of the above, except for the notion that our players would often bomb it long. We def turned it over a lot but we were not a bomb it long team.

There are plenty of stats that can be misleading - one such oft cited example is disposal efficiency (eg inside mids dispose of the ball under more pressure than say a half back flanker who get the opportunity to chip kick the ball around the back half under little pressure).

But some stats are less misleading, one being metres gained from kicks.

If in 2025 we were a team that often resorted to long bombs, you'd expect to see that reflected in the data - we'd be near the top of the table for metres gained from kick.

But we're not - in fact we were 12th in the AFL for metres gained per kick (26.2 metres gained per kick).

By way of contrast teams there are number of teams above us on that table that many would imagine don't bomb it long (eg Freo is second for most metres gained per kick, the Pies 5th, the Hawks 6th and the Crows 7th).

The premiers were 17th for metres gained per kick (25 metres - only 1.2 less metres gained per kick than us).

Interestingly, i think I'm right in saying that last season the average metres gained per kicks increased across the board from 2024 as teams started kicking longer to get over the top of zones, look to win the contest head of the ball and mitigate the impact of turnovers (ie better to turn it over in your forward half than miss a short kick at HB) - so perhaps we needed to bomb it long more often!

13 minutes ago, Roost it far said:

Goodwin the tactician was up against it with our lumbering, bomb it long midfield who so often seemed to ignore everyone including possibly the coach.

Yep.

With Viney, tracc and Oliver we arguably had the worst kicking midfield in the AFL.

5 hours ago, Bombay Airconditioning said:

I commented last season about Collingwood (was using them purely as an example not the benchmark) their players make a lot of mistakes when they play fast footy, some due to player skill error and some due to the pressure applied by the opposition. But at times a teams defence succumbs to the pressure themselves of the constant bombardment of quick and at times unpredictable entries.

Spot on about Collingwood's defensive issues.

The fast, transition footy Mcrae implemented at the pies (designed to counteract the zone defence, contest heavy method that was in vogue) is now the template for how AFL is played.

The method requires the back seven to push up the ground, making it super hard to maintain an effective zone defence whilst also putting a huge emphasis on defenders (and mids, wings and HHFs) needing leg speed to get back on turnover.

Given they won flag with a so so defence, and didn't have super quick back seven, somewhat surprisingly the Pies actually had the best defence in the AFL for most of last season. They mitigated their lack of defensive leg speed by being the slowest in the AFL to play on after a mark or free kick, allowing their defence to get set behind the ball.

But late in the season, injury age and their lack of speed all compounded and their defence fell apart, and they got opened up on turnover.

We had exactly the same issues, though ours were season long. And unlike the Pies our defensive structures were all over the shop. Which meant, that for all the noise about our forward line, our biggest issue was our chronic inability to defend on turnover.

Given Basset was our defensive coach he was bloody lucky to escape any real scrutiny as were a mess defensively.

Goody could have mitigated those issues by setting the defence deep and not playing fast. But instead, we went fast - in fact we were one of the fastest teams in terms of ball movement from the back half and were the quickest at playing on from a mark or free kick.

Obviously, King's method will be more of the same. But King won't have to worry about having our two best mids being butchers, which will mean fewer turnovers to defend. And i really like the mix of defenders with real leg speed he has at his disposal, in particular Disco (who is sneaky quick and zones off aggressively), Xavier Taylor, CJ, and AMW (who, if fit, will be a key for us).

And having Taylor and CJ means King won't have to use Windsor as transition defender, which is great because he never looked comfortable as a defender.

9 hours ago, FarNorthernD said:

You believe we should have kept Goody?

#Goodwin myths

3 hours ago, beelzebub said:

Wonderful stuff.

Listed here are all the things in common with recent game style

1)

2)

3)

Hope we have the fitness over the journey to carry it off as it looks a very watchable style of play.

Lots to like 👍

#Goodwin myths

20 hours ago, rjay said:

I suppose this is going back in time...and maybe I'm getting old but I don't really care.

Can you imagine being at the Mathew Flinders Hotel in 1975, one of the great pub rock venues.

Then these guys show up...I loved them then and still do.

The look on the faces of the su...more p..s bogan brigade was priceless.

They thought they (Enz) were a Bunch of po...ters.

The clothes, the hair, the makeup, the dance, the music (kind of prog at this stage).

It's probably the first time I had seen a Mellotron in Australia...to think a few years later some good Aussie lads would invent the Fairlight and that changed the face of music in the 80's.

It was such a revelation and it still amazes me to think of it every time I here these songs.

Split Enz pre Neil

https://youtu.be/t_WmsRKoeRw?si=yQ4QC0hXltTftHCX

An incredible band. Brilliant songwriters, the Finn brothers both. Great hooks and melodies.

I was too young to see them live. But i can only imagine the response at the Matthew Flinders hotel in in the mid seventies given the first time I went there in 1985 it was well and truly bogan central.

1 hour ago, rjay said:

I wasn't trying to be smart before 'bin'.

I didn't know you could listen to Spotify for free, I thought it was a paid model like Apple Music which I do have.

"In any case, I didn't create a playlist for rjay alone. So not sure why it's an issue rjay doesn't have a Spotify account, or why it was nessesary to make that point."

I was actually interested in listening and not saying you had to create a playlist for me or anything like that.

My point was it's a pity I can't hear it.

Apologies for my overreaction rjay.

5 minutes ago, binman said:

No you don’t.

You can listen to Spotify for free on both mobile and desktop (i assume you have to create an account).

But like youtube, the free version includes ads and has reduced functionality (eg limited skips and shuffle-only playback on mobile).

The sound quality is not as good on free either (it's now 'lossless' on premium subscriptions, meaning Spotify no longer lags behind Tidal for sound quality - lossless is better sound quality than both vinyl and cd).

In any case, I didn't create a playlist for rjay alone. So not sure why it's an issue rjay doesn't have a Spotify account, or why it was nessesary to make that point.

By the by having to endure ads means, like 'free to air' TV, YouTube and free spotify is not actually free.

2 minutes ago, Demonstone said:

But you have to pay if you wish to download from the site.

No you don’t.

5 minutes ago, Demonstone said:

Stop being naughty, binny! Youtube is free for anybody to view, whereas Spotify requires payment.

No it doesn't.

On 28/12/2025 at 10:26, rjay said:

Dolly with Steve Cooney...

https://youtu.be/Y3ardckySYY?si=h7C8o_OYmkQlzPaN

I'm not on youtube 'rjay'...

I predominantly listen to recently released music - music by recent/new bands, or new music from bands that have been around for a while.

One of my go to sources for new music, particularly from new artists, or artists I don't know, is the line-up at Golden Plains each year.

It's announced in aprox mid November, and I do a deep dive on all acts for aprox 5 months (GP is in March, on the Labor day weekend).

Those i really dig stay on my listening rota post GP.

I've been to all but one Golden Plains and IMHO next year's line-up is one of, if not the best, ever.

If interested in hearing some new music, the line-up includes some terrific newish international and local acts.

This sequnced playlist has a track from each of the 28 acts playing at GP 2026*.

Each track, bar 2 or 3, was released in the last year or so.

(* as a card carrying pedant, I'll note that i couldn't find a track by two of the DJs playing, Ok Williams and Pacquito Gordon, so i selected a deep track for each from a set list from one of their gigs).

17 minutes ago, Little Goffy said:

Just watched an ecological sciences video about a 'dead' forest which had been abandoned as a forestry zone but never actually given any work to restore a functioning ecosystem, so it was just a mass of the monoculture harvest trees left to go feral, blocking all light to the understory and stifling new growth. There was no birdlife, no small animals or even bugs, no mushrooms, and it was consuming groundwater to the extent of diminishing streams and agricultural water lower in the catchment.

A key part of the restoration strategy was to cut down some of the most established trees which were dominating the ecosystem without contributing to it, so that a more complex and resilient network could take hold.

The transformation happened surprisingly quickly. So, cheer up, Ox, our situation has solid metaphors.

The ox is slow.

2 hours ago, Hellfire Dub said:

IIt might be the best and funniest Kris Kindle present I've ever received. My Hawks colleague trolled me with a 40cm bobble head of 2021 Norm Smith medalist Petracca #5.

It's still too soon.

Bastad colleague and Bastad traitor.

Apparently it was reduced from $100 to $10. At $15 dollars postage it cost more to ship than to purchase; plus a packet of crisps.

Pay that.

29 minutes ago, Cranky Franky said:

You may well be correct Binman but remember Clubs & players love to put a positive PR spin on injuries.

Jake has to let the surgery heal then get his fitness back then find form.

Doubt he can contribute in 2026 but would be happy to be proved wrong.

Yep, you're right about needing to find fitness.

Even if he does come back by mid-season, he'll be miles off optimal condition given he's now lost half the preseason.

2 hours ago, Roost it far said:

He likely won’t wash his Endone down with a nice glass of red wine.

Good combo, or so i've heard........

1 hour ago, Cranky Franky said:

Well I did speak in detail to the surgeon about lis franc & he advised me that the injuries are nearly all similar & so is the surgery & recovery - ie repair of the ligaments holding the metatarsal bones in place. A bit like most ACL's are similar as is the recovery period.

I may well be wrong Cranky, and apologies if I am, but I'm guessing you and your wife are not currently elite athletes plying your trade in a billion dollar competition.

And if that's the case your experience dealing with your lis franc injury, whilst certainly giving you real insight into what Bowser will go thru, is of limited value in terms of estimating the length of his recovery period.

That's to say a young elite athlete in prime condition with access to cutting edge, expensive medical treatmwnt support and a full time medical team guiding his rehabilitation is likely to recover more quickly than Jo and Joanne public who have had the same injury.

1 minute ago, FTB said:

Pickett midfield.

Petty defence.

Yep.

On 21/11/2025 at 14:13, Little Goffy said:

Gold Coast are going to get very nervous anytime he says he's going to head home and go fishing in a tinny loaded with

• His best mate

• His junior coach

• A million dollars

I'd pay the club a bonus if they set up that photo.

Perhaps a dees jumper with his name on the back draped over the players race at the G all season?