Jaded No More

This happens every season when we don’t win a flag. Everyone wants to get rid of the coach, the players, the CEO, the president, the cleaner and the lady who makes the sandwiches.

It’s a bad move because Salem is a much loved teammate and giving him away for a draft pick we probably won’t use, is going to have a net negative effect. I don’t think he can ever be best 22 again given where his body is at, but likewise I don’t think a third round pick is going to make a bigger difference to our overall list. Of course if we could get a good second rounder or he can become part of a trade for a player we need like a big bodied ruck, then I’d be very open to trading him.

Ok so who do you think could come in and give us that whole new game plan and rejuvenate our list? Simpson? Should we take a risk on an untried assistant? By the way, what game plan do you think suits our strengths? Because our strengths up until this season have been contest and defense, and that game plan got us a flag and two top 4 finishes, where we all agree we got very unlucky last year to not go further. By the way, why is McRae not under fire? Pies won a flag and won’t even make finals the following year. How’s Fagan going? So many top 4 finishes and zero flags. It is always easier to think the grass is greener elsewhere. Sometimes it is, but a lot of the time it’s just a knee jerk reaction to a disappointing result. As long as Goodwin has the ear of the players and their support, and I have not seen anyone prove otherwise, everything else can be fixed. Strategy, game plan, fitness, list management etc is easier to change than finding a new coach and hoping he will have the same support that Goody currently has from our players. I will bet my bottom dollar that a large chunk of our list would be very very unhappy if Goody left. I don’t think any of them believe he is the reason that we are where we are.

Thank goodness he’s a good guy who’s brother played for Collingwood

Incorrect, it was pick 13 plus Freo’s first and second round picks the following year. We got pick 6 from Freo as well in the end and picked up Windsor. A big win given Jackson was out of contract and adamant to go home.

You might want to look at Sydney’s list and review how many of their best players were gifted to them via academy picks for the low low price of SFA. They are not winning a flag because of JJ or Adams or even Grundy. We managed to get May, Lever and Langdon under Goody and they delivered us a flag. Let’s also not forget that we got Grundy too. It didn’t work out, but clearly Grundy was impressed enough to come to us over a host of other clubs who were interested. As for JT, given the draft picks we’ve had at our disposal since 2021, he’s done pretty damn well. JVR, McVee, Disco, Windsor, just to name a few are all best or close to best 22. Not bad considering of those only one was a top 10 pick.

Because we rarely lose any player we want to keep, and that includes players who have strong family connections interstate. Every man and his dog would have lost their mind if Kosi left. He stayed categorically because of Goodwin. Longmire has been at Sydney a lot longer than Goody has been at Melbourne. He also inherited a premiership list, not cellar dwellers. Under Longmire Sydney won one singular flag and been smashed in more than one grand final. Yet he’s universally considered one of the best coaches in the game. Scott won a flag the year he became coach with virtually the same list that won two flags already. It then took him a decade to get another one. Again he’s considered one of the very best. How often did Geelong get done in prelims? And let’s not forget the insane advantages that both Scott and Longmire have at their disposal, from home ground advantage to academy picks. If we got to play at Casey every week and had access to the best Victorian talent for peanuts every year, we too would be constantly pushing for flags under Goodwin. History will show that Goodwin has won a flag and got us two top 4 finishes in a 3 year period. For a variety of reasons this season has gone pear shaped. So of course we need to make changes and review both the list and the FD. But to suggest Goodwin needs to be thrown out is simply idiotic. For anyone who wants him gone, please can you tell us who is available that will come in and do better?

How long has Longmire been at Sydney and how many flags have they won under him?

Those calling for Goody to be sacked have absolutely no idea about modern football. It is because of Goodwin that Kosi resisted the urge to go home. Likewise Petty. The role of a senior coach first and foremost is to be a people manager. Nobody does that better than Goodwin. I would seriously look at both our conditioning team and our assistants. The bottom line is that we won a flag with Goody at the helm. The big changes made since 2021 off field have been the loss of Burgess and Yze.

Disco looked good in there. I would play him instead of May (who needs to rest!), Howes can play the Rivers role as he’s a good user and AMW and Bowey can play on the smalls. The reality is that the midfield is the number one priority to fix in the off season. If it continues to stink it up then we won’t compete again. We need to generate more midfield power, and we will undoubtedly do that via the draft, but it’s not enough. Rivers and McVee are absolutely both good enough to become seriously great midfielders. It’s time to make it happen. Viney is 31, Trac is an unknown and may find himself more forward when he returns, Gus is gone, Salem can’t get on the field. We have to regenerate the midfield and the quickest way to do that, is to use what we already have at our disposal.

All I ask is for McVee Rivers and Kosi to get more midfield minutes between now and the end of the season.

You completely missed my point. Anyway, I am sure having one of Gus or Trac or a fit Clarry in any of the 3 games you mentioned above would have made a difference to the margin.

I said for weeks that we won’t make finals, but I also said that what I think shouldn’t matter as I want our club to do everything in their power to try and make finals. I’m not sure what is so hard to comprehend about that? I also NEVER wanted Gus traded. As for my Gus comment, let me clarify further for those hard of understanding. Losing Gus in isolation is absolutely not why we are where we are. Losing him on the eve of the season however started a chain of events which really compromised our entire season. Firstly it meant that we had to rush an underdone Clarry into the team, instead of giving him the time he needed to build his fitness after an interrupted off season. It also meant that once we lost Salem to injury we had no experienced player to cover the role. We then lost Trac, which meant we pushed Rivers into the midfield, but we lost that drive off half back because you guessed it, no Gus. Same can be said for losing Bowey for 8 weeks in round 0. Gus had the versatility to slot in a multitude of roles, roles that have been hit hard by injuries this season. And finally, you speak to anyone in the inner sanctum and they’ll tell you that Gus was as much a leader as Gawn and Viney and Lever. Gawn and Gus spent a lot of time bouncing ideas off one another. Losing that spiritual leadership has really hurt the side. Losing a player and teammate they loved so much so suddenly, hurt equally as much. So no, Gus alone is not the reason we are where we are. But his sudden loss not only left us an A grader short on the list, it started a chain of events which is very much part of why we are where we are. I will challenge any club to go into a season losing a key player without cover, then losing their best midfielder to injury while their other best midfielder is battling with injury. Take Cripps and Walsh out of Carlton, Bont and Libba out of the Dogs etc etc and they would struggle. The reality is that in a competition this close, everything matters. If instead of us losing Gus the Pies lost Hill 10 minutes into finals, and Brisbane don’t lose Ashcroft to an ACL, well I reckon the premiership history book is written differently.

Demonland is nothing if not predicable. Death, taxes, and “sack Goodwin” posts every time we lose.

When we lost Gus we lost our season.

Turner is gonna be a player

The devil works hard, but the ARC works harder. FFS there’s an umpire standing RIGHT THERE

He’s awful. Every week I watch him call for really obvious goals to be reviewed. Just make a bloody decision you gutless [censored].

Everything Kosi touches turns to gold

Well done Woey Jnr

The ARC is the real winner tonight

Kolt’s lack of pace worries me. Lever without May = 🫠

To be fair while the umpires are horrible, we are losing because we are completely terrible and being dominated all over the ground.

So we dominated clearances this quarter without Clarry or Viney doing anything. Interesting.

Going by his goal kicking, possibly 😂