Pates

Oliver ?‍♂️

What the actual F was Salem doing with that kick in?

Ridiculous decision against Frost there.

Depends on the situation, get him for nothing and he could add value. For me though I think we should be looking elsewhere, maybe try drafting in (maybe a slightly mature player).

I like Frost and when May/Lever are both fit there's no doubt in my mind he gets the leftover spot in defence. But at their best May and Lever have him covered by a country mile.

The most important thing that HAS to come from this year is that the match committee, coaching department, and players learn from it. I agree with Duck that we have a midfield that is very capable and we haven't been blown off the park many times this year, for me the two biggest issues this year has been low confidence and a game plan that is either super messy or the players aren't working to. We'll have a softer draw next year, that is a certainty. We will hopefully have players that have been struggling given the opportunity at a full pre-season. We will also have pick 2/3 to play with whether we go to the draft or we use it to trade with. It's been an awful year, I just want to move on from it.

Since we’re dredging up the past let’s look back to see if the tanking debacle is still affecting players that we’re around since then, or if we’re still mentally scarred from when Neeld was coaching. I see no reason to look further back than 12 months ago and fact is 12 months ago we had ingredients that many considered to have us competing at the top for a while. The camp got cancelled and we went on the make finales, for me that’s where that narrative ends.

Win, just effing win. Resting our future on playing (or not playing) for picks left a stain on our club that will never be removed. Couldn’t care less where we finish in the picks order. Call that dumb if you want but I’d rather us finish the year with the boys singing the song than us debating what pick we’ll get from losing.

Don’t see how Hore doesn’t come in for either Wagner or OMac. With May, Lever, and Frost in the line up Oscar not only feels like we’re going in with poor match ups but two turnover merchants in Frost and Oscar. Hore may also have those issues but at least he’s able to take a defensive mark. OMac and Frost should not be in the same team unless absolutely necessary.

I feel it should be either at the end of the first round or perhaps at the end of the bottom 8. Throwing picks at them isn’t going to solve the problem, they need to get senior players that will help build a strong culture. They haven’t had that at all, they got star power through Ablett but he isn’t a culture leader. The AFL could instead look at an underage mini-draft that can get them 3-4 gun underage youngsters that can go through their system before the usual draft. But if culture is an issue than those kids will just be learning bad habits from an earlier age.

I swear I thought I heard somewhere that despite him having played more games for Freo by the end he considers himself closer aligned to the Dees. If his son is a gun in the making hopefully the likes of Neita, Schwartz and co will get in his ear to pry him away from Perth.

Sometimes you have to take a risk on getting a player that appears to be “damaged goods” but with potential upside. I’m not entirely convinced of Bennell but the big thing would be if we’re getting him for nothing the risk/reward factor could be quite high. Of course due diligence would be important on hit fitness and other issues.

This year has been complete garbage, how year back it up next year could define us for the next decade. If 2020 is another disappointing year then we could slip back to being a permanent fixture in the bottom 5, if we're able to bounce back strongly and learn from the mistakes of 2019 it could set us up for a strong 5-10 years. As for being relevant, actually couldn't care less about that right now. By the way, was she seriously being critical for has having 52,000 members?

Probably the most frustrating thing about this year is that it's almost the same story every week. Getting scored against too easily on poor turnovers. The most concerning thing is that the poor skills seem to almost be infectious. Salem, Hibberd, Melksham, and Lever, all usually good users of the ball but all of them did poor turnovers that resulted in Richmond forward entries. We really need to tidy things up for 2020, work on our skills and work on our two way running. We still get way too caught on the hop and fail to get back into positions quick enough. Tigers should've won by more, we were soundly beaten in the second half.

Turnovers turnovers turnovers!!!

We have no idea how to play the conditions, don’t look like scoring a goal.

Fair dinkum we aren’t getting the most basic free kicks while they are plucking bizarre ones for the Tigers.

Turnovers again, we’re our own worst enemy.

Can this season please just bloody end. It’s almost worse that all those years we were preparing ourselves to be tripe.

What was frost hand-balling to???

That free kick for Long could be the game defining moment.

Big time of the game here, dogs can take it away from us if we don't dig in.

So the thread seems to be mostly negative but I think there are some positives in there. For one this it's one point the margin and anyone's game, it's been swinging in momentum but both teams are stifling each other, which is a surprise given both teams styles of play. I wonder if our match committee felt to try to match the dogs in outside run this year would be a mistake as we are getting caught out too much with two way running. We are winning at clearances, Gawn and Pruess are giving our players silver service (Gawn moreso obviously), we just need to start taking better advantage of it. If both rucks are on the ground then they need to be more separated, a few times they were right near each other and it eliminates the advantage of having the tall timbre rather down the line. To sum up for me, we aren't playing well but we're not playing great. We are still getting done with sub par forward entries and basic skills. Zero doubt in my mind that we can win from here and stuff up my tipping.

Gold Coast teams don't work, that place is cursed! It's almost like they need to build the team from scratch again.