Pates

If there are any other leagues being created for SuperCoach I’ll gladly join. I should be fairly easy beat to be honest, so always good to have them topping up numbers!

That’s a very big an interesting point particularly as we were clearly beaten in there, why not use Gus there more particularly with Viney out? I’ve just finished watching the replay myself so here are my thoughts. POSITIVES - we beat them through our ability to slow their advances forward though great interception marking. May, Lever, Gawn, with a little bit of Rivers, Hunt, and Salem being in the right spaces was massive. Yes they were undermanned in the forward area but our defenders did their job - our pressure was back to a standard I’d expect to be the minimum standard. It could still be better but that has to be the standard week in week out - TMac was back to close to his best, goal kicking (another point to come) needs to be better as he could’ve had 3.1 or better. Ironically he nailed the hardest while missing the easy ones. This could be huge for his confidence and was so important for the win. If he continues this then headaches could come when both Brown and Weid are available - Jackson was fairly quiet but good in moments for the first three quarters, but jeez his 4th term had me salivating. Someone teach the bloke to kick for goal though - Kozzie was up for a fight, his pressure was immense and gave the team a lift. He was also all over the ground which shows he isn’t just a one trick pony. Boy he got high for his mark attempt! - I also thought that there were many role players today, I couldn’t see a hell of a lot of passengers. I think we beat them by having a team performance NEGATIVES - it’s been said by many including myself but sort the effing clearances out. To be so thoroughly beat all day in an area where we should have an advantage is so frustrating. If Brayshaw wasn’t being played there you have to ask the question of why? - the two old warriors had different days, Jetta looked solid and back to his best, while Jones seemed to be genuinely plodding along. He did some good moments but he just doesn’t seem to have the pace of the game. Is he being nursed to 300? Is that what a professional club does? He’d be one of the first question marks at team selection for me - goal kicking and general composure when in that position was atrocious at times. Almost everyone was a culprit, it didn’t cost us today but it might later in the year. We should’ve won by 35+ points with the late chances we had, percentage has cost before - still a little bit of bees to the honeypot and getting caught on the outside - I also think on this form we will not beat the Saints so while the effort was good, we need to go to another level if we’re to go two in a row Ultimately we got the win, the quality wasn’t worthy of third 3rd place we currently occupy but who cares.

Early thoughts from the early stages of the last quarter, we really need to become more clinical (which was Freo’s issue as well). While Freo have had better clear shots on goal we’ve had several chances where we’ve stuffed up the inside 50s (which sounds way too familiar). I was really hoping that Yze and Williams would improve that but jeez it’s the same issue every bloody year. I haven’t said it much because it’s been said a lot, but May and Lever were absolutely sensational and exactly the reason we’ve paid such a high price for them. We paid star prices for them and we got match winning performances.

Midway through the 3rd quarter something I'm surprised to say, Jetta has played a good game and looks back to his older self. Still not quite what he was at the best, but rarely beaten all day. The other thing I’ve felt about the game is that Freo had plenty of periods where they were better but they didn’t make the most of it, overall though we’ve been the more polished team throughout the day. Both teams missed kicks/opportunities that really should’ve been goals, we got the scoreboard pressure early which got us out to the advantage we ended up having all day.

Early thoughts second quarter, I’ll echo the sentiments of Spargo and I think he could be an unexpected cog in the machine. Despite the differences in height he could actually be what Melksham was in 2018. Not high possession but making every possie count. Another positive thought is that I feel the tackling effort is there, they’re keeping the pressure on and making it hard for Freo to get easy kicks. A negative was there was a very clear tap win from Max in a centre bounce I just watched and it went nowhere near any of our midfielders. That’s bad communication and them clearly being on different pages. We’ve got enough smart people at the club, work it out!!!

Finally sitting down to watch the replay, early thoughts are Tommy Mac, Lever, and May were important early. May in particular was so important, he saved at least a couple of goals by choosing to mark instead of spoiling. Second thing was it’s incredibly frustrating watching us have very clear ruck dominance but it takes until 10min in before we win our first clearance. We have Clarry, Brayshaw, and Petracca who are all very good in the clinches, we can’t keep losing the clearances like that. If we’re not going to use Max’s ruck dominance then perhaps we need to rethink how we use him. Ultimately we should be finding a way to win or break even on the clearance count.

I haven’t watched the game so this comes with no idea of what happened today. We got the 4 points and sometimes it’s not about looking like the classiest outfit, it’s just about hearing the teams song after the final siren. I said as I went to bed last night I couldn’t care less about the quality of the game as long as we come away with the win. We’ve done that, round one ✔️. Meanwhile last years Grand Final runners up have lost to the wooden spooners. Take the 4 points.

Across the other side of the world I’d give anything to go to the footy again so if is a little mystifying that we only got 21000 after so long without seeing the team play in front of crowds at the G. Even with the poor/average performances of the last two years you would’ve thought people would be rushing to get out there for a taste of footy and normal life. That said I definitely understand the fear factor with COVID, plus it did sound like organising tickets wasn’t a smooth ride. It’s a far cry from just having your membership to scan and walking in. Dissapointing though, I would’ve expected minimum 25k.

About to go the sleep here in the UK, it’s a bloody shocking time slot for me (2:45am) so I wake up nervously to check my phone tomorrow morning ?.

Our midfield can match/beat theirs, our backline can definitely beat their forward line, it’s down to two things for me: Firstly will our midfield and forward line actually work together to put the ball inside 50 in the way the both lines are expecting it? What will our attitude be? This is our first game in front of home fans for 18 months, if that isn’t enough motivation for our players to want to play, tackle, run etc then I don’t know what could possibly be. My concerns are that for one we have gone in with two old warriors (Jones and Jetta) that won’t be able to keep up with their respective opponents and provide enough. I also am just so worried that our players are going to come out sluggish and not ready for a fight (we have seen it before).

I feel like people get obsessed with the “oh he’s great now we should have kept him”. Dunn is a great example of a player who had run his race with us but a change of location gave his career new life. Delisting Oscar was the right decision, it didn’t mean he was useless or unworthy of being an AFL player it just meant for us he wasn’t going to fill our needs and make us better. We all should chill and forget about trying to compare him with Daw, they’re different players.

I believe the regular comment by a few of the Oscar haters was “not AFL standard”. Sometimes it takes a change of club to reinvigorate players. Good luck to him (though I hope he barely gets a kick against us!).

One part of that statement is telling, we’re the 6th oldest and 6th most experienced. It’s time those we considered “kids” not long ago stepped up to being men and put their talent to use.

I think those three will be ok, Oliver was very sharp vs the tigers and as far as I know his missing of the doggies game was management. May’s done a large body of work over the summer and only copped a knock. His concussion symptoms were very minor so he’ll be fine (he’s definitely allowed to play???). Gus is potentially underdone so I’d see him playing parts in the half forward line but is a gun and will come into the game. Having the Box Hill game was important. Melk and Petty shouldn’t play. Salem has been managed but did a decent amount over the summer, so of that list Hibbo (also played v Box Hill) and Kozzie are the only two that I’m massively worried about. Koz needs to be kept simple, pressure, pressure, and more pressure. Sounded like Hibbo did a lot of normal Hibbo things vs Box Hill so hopefully so minutes under his belt will help.

Listening to the podcast I’d say Hibberd and Gus are almost a lock assuming no setbacks. Salem should be available it’s just a question of whether we’d like some match fitness into him first. Melksham shouldn’t come straight in even if fit, he had a poor 2020 and is coming behind with fitness. I know Gus and Gawn like to joke around but Majak as a round one bolter is a possibility (personally I’d be looking for a couple of strong performances first). Questions about where goals will come, for me I think we will need a spread of players on the board. We know Petracca’s more than capable, Fritsch can kick a few, and I’m praying to the footy gods that they give TMac the confidence to get back to his old self. 7+ goals from those three, Jackson and Gawn can bob up for a snag or two, and then we just need contributions from others around the ground. Here’s the important thing that I think somewhere along the lines they’ve forgotten: they need to back themselves. That goal by Oliver vs Tigers in the practice match is the exact thing I want to see, confidence to own the situation and nail the goal. It’s what made Petracca the player he was last season (hopefully into the future).

Really glad we’ve got him, he doesn’t strike me as someone who would put up with the usual soft efforts that our team seems to consistently put up. I’d be wanting him him on the bench talking directly to the players with Goodwin up in the box working with Yze on tactics.

I’m 50/50 on it, I think a month ago I was more confident but as it get nearer and knowing the importance of a strong start to the season I’m getting worried. The concerning part for me is I see very few signs of actually addressing the issues that have plagued us for the last couple of seasons. I want to see us return to the manic pressure we had in 2018, if we do that we will win more games than we lose.

Totally agree, I feel like one of the issues is we’ve confused his role. Play him out of the square, look for the lead not just plonk it on his head. I don’t think our coaches do the players any favours sometimes, play him as our FF.

Presumably it would come from the pool of emergencies that weren’t going to play for the 2nds anyway. They usually carry over at least one player who just sits in the stands, that guy can sit on the pine and warm up with everyone else. I had thought of late that the AFL were basically taking away the responsibility of the player and saying if there are even the slightest of symptoms then they come under concussion rules. So if that’s the case then why is that any different to a player pulling a hammy? I can understand the theory and I think it’s an ok idea, I can just see it being exploited if a player pulls a hamstring then why don’t they just say, “oh and I’m also feeling really dizzy”.

If anger gets us to a premiership I could give a crap whether we’re on the light or dark side! ?

I try to take what’s said with a pinch of salt at this time of year, the players need to sell the club a bit. But I really sometimes wish they’d just shut up and get on with showing it on the field. I’d frankly be angry if they weren’t angry with how they did last season. Forget limping into 8th, they should be aiming for top 4 and anything less is disappointing. If not then what the hell are they doing with themselves.

So just for fun I thought I'd watch the Hawthorn final again because it's great fun to watch but I also wanted to see how we played and see how "soft" we were back then. I tell ya what, we were anything but soft, and this is only a couple of years ago with MANY of the key players that night still playing. When we tackled, we tackled HARD. We went at EVERY contest with courage and ferocity. We may not have been clean but when we weren't the players heads didn't slump they got on with it and went for the second effort (great example of that was in the middle Weids spilled a mark and followed up with a big tackle). Another really interesting thing about it was Spargo was very important, his tackles stuck really well, and he worked hard to get into dangerous positions. I wouldn't say our forward line was functioning incredible that night but we spread well to create space and goals either over the back or within 25-30m of goal, there was a clear connection of where the forward were expecting the kicks were going to be. We got some luck with the Hawks being more with their efficiency going forward whether that was kicks for goal or the final kick inside 50 but we had periods where we did the same. The bottom line is that effort is rewarded, and I honestly feel like the effort hasn't been there in the last 12-18 months (on the field). Get that back and we play finals.

If ever there was proof of how we're rated within the footy world this is it. These are the guys that play each other and we are not feared or rated at all. I hope the players use it to drive them further. EDIT: in 2017 not one captain rated the Tigers to make the finals, so while it's an interesting indicator it's obviously not gospel.

So far Lever is probably only a pass for his time with us. A lot of that is because of his injury issues and he had periods last season he was showing his worth, but we need him to get back to being a damaging interception marker. Having someone take a grab in defence and be able to rebound is absolutely massive in the modern game. May is a gun, early days this year but I think he’s annoyed he got overlooked for AA last season and his gunning for it big time. If those two have big seasons we look good down back, we just need someone to really step in to own the small defender position (I love Jetta but he shouldn’t play many games this year).

Something that during and after games (particularly losses) consistently is the attitude of the players. I can handle losing if I look at the players and think, “they genuinely had a dip, leaving everything out there” I don’t feel like I’ve seen that enough in the last two seasons. Attitude is nothing to do with how well you kick, handball, mark, and ruck-tap. It’s all down to putting your body into contests, working harder than your direct opponent, being in two on one situations and breaking even, supporting your players with shepherds, tapping the ball on instead of trying to mark it etc. These are team acts that rarely get a clear statistic but they inspire teammates, they’re also things that coaches can tell players to do but it’s down to them out on the field.