Demon Dynasty

I would not have Bowey or Kolt down as speedsters. They go ok but not up there with the likes of Moniz & Caleb imo. Should've gone harder to keep Bedford and personally felt we should've retained Hunt who played a strong part in us winning silverware in 2021 during the H&A segment.

You don't gift games to mediocre players based on how many games they've played DZ. Not at the top level. They need to earn their call up. This year has been a horror fest in terms of selection integrity for SG & the SC imho. We are also picking three emergencies to travel interstate which is killing the chances of two players to show case their wares or get into some form at Casey. We then pick two of them to play the next week based on track form alone? While K Brown racks up 173 dream team points vs the Dolphins (pretty rare at VFL level) and can't get a gig? As i mentioned a few months ago, Simon is allover the shop this season with selection integrity. Plenty of good players out impacting on results too that we are well aware of which hasn't helped. But he hasn't handled things very well at the selection table imv.

He is named as an emergency so no game at either level this week i assume? Same with K Brown & Howes.

We're picking severely out-of-form players on sentimental value now? Has been horrid most weeks at Casey. Hope not!

Can also be a bit of a panic merchant turnover king at times MF. And that's playing in the middle (when he does) at Casey. Fingers and toes crossed if he goes into the middle. Might be better to just leave him rolling through as a HF off the bench for now with minimal time through the middle?

Its the elephant in the room about his game. When he's in form there's a fair chunk more of the latter. At the moment he rarely drives out of / away from stoppage. Mind you he's had so many amazing up years playing at such a high level he was probably always due to come off at some point. We can only hope he'll have a bumper pre-season and we see the return of ye olde King Clarry in 2025 🤞🏼

We will never know Rjay as Goody refuses to trial anyone else. As a result SG will never know either. 2 meters Fullo may have given a better edge and won or neutralised a few more contests plus allowed JVR to remain mostly up forward vs Petty. Emphasis on 'may have'. Same with Verrall. Even if you only got 2 quarters of neutralising and a few wins before being subbed (for Petty!?). We still get well beaten but maybe not as embarrassingly pantsed as we did. Also remembering we trialled Petty as a back up last time against Freo which was also a monumental fail. Goodwin's obsession with attempting to get Petty back into some form over the last three months via constant AFL games, regardless of atrocious form in most of those games, has resulted in us playing a man down for most of that time. SG finally got his wish (but not in a ruck sense) on Sunday, which was always going to happen if given anough chances, but at what cost to the team in season 2024?

He was not a ruckman at the Lions when recruited. He was a forward who was occasionaly asked to pinch hit in the ruck.

Around ground marking is important but that wasn't Petty's main role on the day. He started off as the 1st ruck and failed miserably. We then had to throw JVR in in the hope he might offer more resistance. That didn't work either. Same happened the week before with JVR coming in to replace Petty early after Petty got wacked in the first Q but luckily the whole day become a contested shiite fest where we were able to wrestle the game back on our terms at ground level with the rain largely making much of any attempted ruck work / craft by Draper ineffectual.

Not sure how much more Simon can get out of the regular group he sticks with anymore DZ. I reckon alot are pretty much done mentally and physically. Our engine room's done and dusted for 2024. My take is, we aren't going to worry anyone even if we made finals. So it's best to take anyone who needs some end of season surgery or fix ups out and do it now. Put em under the knife if needed eg; potentially Vines. Replace with anyone from Casey be it Laurie, Sesto or brown Dog or just alternate over the weeks and may the best man win. Not that i'm placing much faith in any of those bar Brown. Manage the older fellas like May and T-Mac (IF he's continuing on into 25) by utilising the likes of Tommo and Marty as replacements. Roll any other youngsters through that you want to trial further like Jeffo for Turner to see where he's at. It's time to manage those we need to look after to prep them into next season, trial the youngsters and review all the off season crew including everyone in the FD. A few changes might be needed there also. We look as stale as a year old croissant and highly unskilled with our ball use in general against the better rated sides. It's pretty obvious the present list is not going to take us to the promised land again so we may as well reset and prep for 2025 and beyond now. Our recruiting needs to raise the bar on who we go after in terms of skill set as we have way too many hackers by hand & foot. And / or it might also have something to do with training methods? The gulf between us and the Dockers, especially by hand and their spread was immense yesterday and if anything it's gotten worse each time we play them. Imagine getting into the top four and meeting a team like this, or even GWS on a good day in finals. We are a long way off highly skilled teams with leg speed when they're putting up something near their best 22 atm.

Round 19, 2024 Optus Stadium - Dockers vs Demons Not much to get excited about in this one. May and McVee held up well in defence under the most extreme pressure, probably not seen since the last time we played this lot. Following on from last week's uptick, Petty posted his best rating for the season coming in in 2nd place behind May. His prior best against the Lions in Rnd 16 with a 3.12 Our team rating was a long way off the 2023 team rating, with Freo posting a team rating that matched our average last season. Effectively a 21% gap between the two team's ratings. Player Rating Rank 2023 Season Rating % Change vs 2023 S May 4.525 1 3.213 40.8 H Petty 4.050 2 2.718 49.0 J McVee 3.675 3 2.320 58.4 T McDonald 3.375 4 2.054 64.3 T Rivers 3.225 5 3.696 -12.7 J Bowey 3.000 6 2.820 6.4 C Oliver 2.950 7 5.002 -41.0 Ed Langdon 2.925 8 3.057 -4.3 Jack Viney 2.900 9 3.707 -21.8 J Billings > 41% 2.775 10 2.993 -7.3 J V Rooyen 2.375 11 2.170 9.4 C Windsor 2.275 12 - - K Chandler 2.275 13 2.265 0.4 J Lever 2.250 14 3.131 -28.1 A N-Bullen 2.100 15 2.532 -17.1 T Sparrow 1.950 16 2.811 -30.6 J Melksham 1.875 17 1.599 17.3 A M-Wakefield 1.850 18 - - C Salem 1.700 19 2.993 -43.2 B Fritsch 1.675 20 2.324 -27.9 K Pickett 1.125 21 2.101 -46.5 D Turner 0.475 22 1.825 -74.0 K Tholstrup < 43% 0.350 23 - - Team Score 55.33 69.86 -20.8 Top 6 21.85 24.43 -10.6 Bottom 6 8.70 15.17 -42.6 < Subbed out TOG % > Subbed in TOG % Dockers Player Rating Rank A Brayshaw 6.400 1 C Serong 5.925 2 J Clark 4.975 3 Luke Ryan 4.750 4 H Young 4.325 5 J O'Meara 4.125 6 N Fyfe 3.450 7 S Darcy 3.125 8 C Wagner 3.050 9 M Walters 3.050 9 S Switkowski 3.000 11 J Treacy 2.950 12 Sam Sturt 2.425 13 Jye Amiss 2.350 14 B Walker 2.325 15 H Chapman 2.300 16 B Cox 2.050 17 B Banfield 2.025 18 A Pearce < 61% 1.925 19 J Sharp 1.725 20 M Frederick 1.600 21 L Jackson 1.575 22 J Aish > 32% 1.225 23 Team Rating 69.43 Top 6 30.50 Bottom 6 10.90 Combined Ratings Player Rating Rank A Brayshaw 6.400 1 C Serong 5.925 2 J Clark 4.975 3 Luke Ryan 4.750 4 S May 4.525 5 H Young 4.325 6 J O'Meara 4.125 7 H Petty 4.050 8 J McVee 3.675 9 N Fyfe 3.450 10 T McDonald 3.375 11 T Rivers 3.225 12 S Darcy 3.125 13 C Wagner 3.050 14 M Walters 3.050 14 J Bowey 3.000 16 S Switkowski 3.000 16 C Oliver 2.950 18 J Treacy 2.950 18 Ed Langdon 2.925 20 Jack Viney 2.900 21 J Billings > 41% 2.775 22 Sam Sturt 2.425 23 J V Rooyen 2.375 24 Jye Amiss 2.350 25 B Walker 2.325 26 H Chapman 2.300 27 C Windsor 2.275 28 K Chandler 2.275 28 J Lever 2.250 30 A N-Bullen 2.100 31 B Cox 2.050 32 B Banfield 2.025 33 T Sparrow 1.950 34 A Pearce < 61% 1.925 35 J Melksham 1.875 36 A M-Wakefield 1.850 37 J Sharp 1.725 38 C Salem 1.700 39 B Fritsch 1.675 40 M Frederick 1.600 41 L Jackson 1.575 42 J Aish > 32% 1.225 43 K Pickett 1.125 44 D Turner 0.475 45 K Tholstrup < 43% 0.350 46 Stats courtesy of footwire.com & wheeloratings.com

Regardless of set ups you need to neutralise a few and win a few hit outs to advantage Watson. You could orchestrate a plus 2 all day at stoppages and still get pantsed giving them that much of an advantage. We got absolutely trounced at the source due to having no one in the ruck that could compete a little. It also doesn't help that players like Kozzy and Salem are seemingly giving up the outside and leaving their opponents to burst away too easily with the service they were being given. Double wammy. We play like an amature team every other match it seems. There's a discipline / coaching / tactical issue in our side at the moment that's hanging around like a very bad fart that lingers and the windows still haven't been opened. Pretty much ever since Freo stopped our 10 game winning streak in 2022. Other sides are working us over tactically and in many other aspects far too easily. On top of that we failed to ensure we maintained our structure up forward yesterday purely via selection which is a cardinal sin and also allowed the boys to be sucked up the field too high for pretty much the entire match. If you can't win the ball at the source and getting pantsed, at least get big numbers behind the footy. Defend there, seek the turnover and look to run it out by hand and foot. Oh wait, we are one of the worst HB teams in the AFL and don't have many line breaking runners bar Windsor and occasionally Moniz (still building AFL tank) ... forget that idea! I seriously fail to see where we are improving as a team this season and what assets / weapons we are a bringing to the table. We play up one week then a hot mess the next. Yes there are many youngens and they'll have off days but yesterday wasn't a result of just that.