binman

Not sure why our mids are copping it so bad. The top rated player from either team was tracc. Yes he played forward too, but still played through the middle. Crazy metres gained. Our next highest rated was jack (3rd behind cirpps). Nibbla, who had some time on bsll, next (4th for us and both teams) Clarry, who was terrific in the first half, but faded was still our 8th highest rated player. And Max was 6th. The blues are the best clearance team in the AFL. They only had 2 more clearances in total. And only scored 5 more points from clearances (-18 from centre bounces and +13 from around the ground stoppages). All while Max had his lowest rating in a match since being sick with the flu in the OR.

Agree with all comments. An interesting factor re: their centre clearance goals in the first is how aggressive we were with our set up. We seemed to roll the dice to try and win some clean centre clearances. If so, we lost that particular craps game.

Personnel helps that's for sure. But I agree with hoyne their system is flawed. I mean they gave up 17 scoring shots in the second half (by way of contrast the cats only had 14 in their second half in their high scoring win over the blues). They had a 38 point lead halfway through the third quarter and on a slippery night almost got run down. And a big factor in that was they were all over the place marking tracc. I was sitting at the punt road end (the end we were kickimg to in the last q) and had blues fans around me screaming at them in the last to man tracc up and stop leaving him all alone so often. It was bizarre. Their structure was all over the place. Blokes on fire and they were frequently letting him to sit out the back free. And we got ot to him multiple times. Almost cost them the game.

I have to check on the replay, but I think we might have evened up at stoppages after half time. Can anyone confirm or refute that?

So when the rain arrived we adapted.

#Demon myths

Fair call. Kicking 5 straight is certainly a good start.

Voss noted on his presser that they were really focused on a fast start to try and exploit the 5 day break factor. Fatigue may have impacted some individual players more than others (fritter is usually much better one on one for example) but I think the impact was more mental than physical. Not switched on early and we paid the price. Wevl had clearly planned to be ready and the way we dominated the last quarter and a half, and crazy good pressure numbers tells me fatigue wasn't an issue. In fact it appeared to be more of an issue for the blues, who were paddling in the last. We had set ourselves for a win and you could tell from goodys presser he was very frustrated we didn't get the job done.

By the by, I've been critical of the blues defence this season. But credit where it is due - they were excellent defensively last night, particularly in the first half, won some critical one on one battles and were a huge factor in the win - perhaps the biggest.

Goody DID adapt our game plan for the wet weather. Goody gets bagged all the time for not 'adapting' to the conditions when it rains. Wet weather footy is traditionally territory first, get it forward and deep inside 50. Which is exactly what we did. So, on this occasion we did adapt (though we did keep trying high risk quick handballs, many of which came unstuck). The numbers reflected that, winning the inside 50 count and the territory battle as evidenced by the anomalous (this season) time in forward half numbers: Quarter For Against 1 53% 47% 2 50% 50% 3 51% 49% 4 76% 24% Match 59% 41% And there's the rub. A key reason goody doesn't like to make big changes to method week to week is we are a system based team. It' no small thing to suddenly use another method- even if it is one that was previously our primary method, particularly given we are trying to implement and bed down a new system this season. Another factor was the forecast was for no rain. I doubt they would have planned for it to be so wet, and likely not trained for it. I was shocked when it started raining at the ground an hour before the game. So they may have had to change their tactics on game day (after possibly training for a different method during the week). It dried out considerably after half time - there was no rain, or at least not in the last. And we bounced off half back and spread the ground much more and reverted to the style we have been using tgis season - one more suited to dry weather.

Yeah, of course. I wasn't suggesting that he only would have focused on the x score and given them a pass. He would make clear what they were doing wrong and what they need to address. But the days of a coach tearing strip's off players and only focusing on what the team had done poorly are well and truly history. So he would have made clear what they are doing poorly, identified issues (eg kicks inside 50, defensive issues - i tgought tmac had his worst game this season and Martin worried us early) and provided solutions (something goody has said is what game day coaching is about). AND he would have pointed out what we are doing right, using the x score (and other metrics) as evidence of that - and that the gap between the two performances wasn't as big as the scoreboard suggested. He would have also pointed out our efforts wasn't miles off in the first - 186 to 200 in the first quarter and after getting smashed early for cp we turned it around. We were def on our back foot early in the contest- down 10 cp after 15 mins, but after that we were +2 for cps for the rest of the match. So they fought back. And we were up in tackles, and other key metrics, eg inside 50s. And he would have pointed out at half time, boys you are still in tgis. Keep grinding. And he was proven correct. This was the pressure ratings for the match, suggesting we doubled down and really got to work: Quarter For Against 1 186 200 2 189 163 3 217 209 4 221 201 Match 202 194 Improve what needs to be improved. Stick to your roles, keep the contest and pressure up. Trust the system You're in this. The wheel will turn. And it did. I have heard maxy say that is precisely what goody's message was at quarter and half time of the pies final. You could visibly see the blues wilting, and us wresting the momentum. I said as much to my mate at the game - predicting even after we went 38 points down we were still a chance to win. I think a key factor in the loss was when we did start wresting momentum they got a couple of goals straight after a goal from us. Those sort of goals really hurt. But ultimately, as goody said straight up in his presser, the game was lost going 6 goals down. I'd be guessing in the history of footy it would be no better than i in 30 for teams winning after being 6 goals down at any point in a game.

Fair play to I think cotteral. That was great defensive pressure.

Of course. Particularly the point in the match those misses occurred. Petty's miss wa a heartbreaker. But players miss a high percentage of such shots. Against that, we kicked some clutch goals. Tracc was unbelievable, discos nailed a long set sho on an angle and maxys long range bomb, after barely taking any time, was elite.

This is where x score is useful. I have zero doubt goody would have used it at quarter and half time to reinforce that the scoreboard didn't reflect the relative performance levels, and certainly not the effort levels. It shows their kicking for goal, particularly early was brilliant- but anomalous. Their set shots from say 40 are 50-50 chances. Credit to them for kicking them, but once kicking for goal there's nothing we can do about their chances of kicking the goal. In most circumstances they are something like 3.2 or 2.3 at quarter time and the game looks very different. And our accuracy was bang on average. Like the lions game, it wasn't a game we threw away because of innacracy. The lions and blues won because of their accuracy Yes, we could point to bad misses, Petty comes to mind. But take that miss. On average that goal is still only kicked perhaps 70-75% of the time. For me the issue in terms of our kicking was the last kick inside 50, for most of the match, but particularly the first. The game was actually pretty evenly balanced performance wise in the first 10 mins, but we butchered the ball going inside 50 - and credit to their defence, they were excellent- so had nothing to show for our efforts. A couple of decent inside 50s and we get an early goal or two and the game looks different.

No change.

In the pre match thread I said I was not bullish about the match because of a huge number of variables, including: - what, if any, impact will the umpires have on the game?

Um. Really? Best tell pies to give their flag back

Too right. I could not be prouder of the players and my club.

A player is going to get seriously hurt doing exactly that.

Light misty rain here at the g.

At most clubs you might get a new watch, or some such. At Carlton they get a paper bag with a silhouette of John Elliot and his bulbous nose.

Steve albini died? You're kidding. He can't have been that old. That's a shock. Legend is thrown around too easily in my humble, but there's no debating his status as one of the all time great producers, particularly in the rock space. Righteous fella too. Vale Steve.

JNR, why do you think they have reverted to the territory front half, trap it inside 50 game (basically much the same as our 2021 to 2023 model)? I mean, they used that model for the first half of last year and were woeful. They turned things around by implementing a turnover game, making a prelim after looking certain to miss the finals at the half way point of the season.

Good point about the strength of our team compared to our last game against them. I mean, in addition to losing melk and Petty late in the season, having no bbb and a half fit tmac, we had lost both Gus (injury) and JVR (suspension) from the previous game. Gus was a massive loss because he was one of our most reliable big game players. And losing him the week before made it hard for someone to come in, get up to speed, and play his key mid - defensive role. And jvr was also a huge out, one because he was really the last man standing in terms of key forwards, and two he was our key back up ruck. It's remarkable really that we dominated most of that game. On the team running out tonight, it's arguably very close to our best 23 (salo is the obvious one missing and Melk and McAdam are both in the mix too i guess). As for your blues mates, I'd be getting into them abour their [censored] weak defence. When they start bleating about Marchbank, saad and McGovern tell them great defences are built on sytem not personell (and remind them we have had three kids down back). If they still bleat, remind them the cats put 20 goals past them two weeks back, but could only manage half that against us a week later (let them worry about innacurate goal tallies- if they are quibbling about how bad they are defensively you have made your point and are in their head).

Funnily enough I'm the exact opposite.