Demon Dynasty

When the heat's turned up we can rarely find a target forward. And on cue Fritschkreig marks lol

Goody the game is almost done. Make a change or two FCS

It's time to play a big body ( May?) at CHF and try and clunk some marks to at least keep the ball in there for more than 20 seconds or so. Tommo to Lynch pls.

Fritta ...Clarry ....2 shocking turnovers under little pressure

Disgracefull decision...[censored] off

Doing well. Tracc on fire. We dont ALWAYS have to take the game straight through the middle. Yes if its there....bit if outlets are closed you are allowed to go laterally or backwards to maintain possession / hold the play up. Some cleaner / smarter ball use in the clinches and we're a chance here.

MFM we are in dire need of quality / class ball users and finishers with a bit of run. Especially near the arc and coming inside 50. We don't have Casey and i would fear the likelihood of a rolls royce like Bennell being played in to form at that level anyway. In other words if he is to be played, scratch match or AFL, there's only one level of footy he should be being played into form at. He finished in our top 10 players statistically with only 50% game time in his only match and Goody & the FD don't think he's up to it vs some who obviously came in even more under done like AVB who played a shocker. As LH highlighted in an earlier post, the FD's reasoning for not including him is totally inconsistent and differs depending on who's being asked / interviewed. We have heard at least 3 different versions of why he isn't being played now. Either the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing inside the FD and it is still amature hour down there OR they know exactly what they're doing and will prove me wrong over the next 4 to 5 weeks. The W/L ratio will tell the tale.

Absolutely ridiculous statement Ox. What are you thinking? The Tigers are much better keepings off outfit vs the Cats, especially when gifted the defensive half of the ground like we did last week and Rnd 6 vs the Tigers in 2019. Uncle will be pleased. We are in for a mild lashing me thinks (expecting roughly 4 goals or more)

That's about all we have left now CB

Spargo

Up there with some of the worst selection decisions in AFL history. Goody, FD, it's time to pack your bags...

I would argue that's a good thing playing from CHF WW. He can run his opponent ragged, away from the hot zones and / or double back on occasions into the hot zones. I know many of those meters might be delivery / long kicking etc but a decent chunk is also probably the run and carry. Also play higher when the team needs to offer the contested or leading link man between HB and CHF. With Hannan back we don't need Tommo on the wing and Hannan offers a potentially more dangerous option on the opposite wing to Langdon. Those two will at least pose a speed of transition challange to the opp. Probably a neutral outcome but frees up Tommo to go forward or back into the "General" role. Too powerful / tall and rangy to waste on a wing imv. Im not saying this will work but it might work. Alternatively as the general at CHB using the same roaming / meters gained strengths. That was me putting up the No-Mac option for May moving forward. Probably not this week given the twin KFs for the Tiges but pick the right group of 3 matches against somewhat lessor forward lines and i don't see why we can't trial that as a one off experiment. This issue is not three matches old WW. This was there for the entire 2019 season other than one match where T-Mac happened to fire (then injured just as quickly). Another reason to try and find another genuine KF solution to our forward scoring / conversion % woes imv.

Yes dont mind that either. He looks lost out on the wings imo. Fairly mobile for a big man. Clunks the odd mark. Play Tonmy deep and groom Tommo into a permanent CHF role. Failing that... maybe CHB.

Never thought i would say this but i would bring in No-Mac for Melk. Melk is totally ineffective up forward at the moment. If i was Goody i would play him through the middle to get him involved and try and find some touch/confidence. But i dont think we have the luxury this week given our 1-2 record. No-Mac replaces May who goes forward for an experimental stint over the next 3 weeks as a surprise packet / foil, or maybe better, for T-Mac. See TomaHawk & Pods during Geelong's latter golden era. Unlikely but i'd like to see this trialled for a few weeks just to see what those two (T-Mac & May) might bring playing up forward. May has been super solid down back but i reckon No-Mac could be given one more go to try and cover off the usual May role / go to opponent for the sake of the team in an attempt to solve our forward issues. Not convinced either of Weid or Brown will bring it at this point. They could come in if the May experiment fails. Feel free to commence rants and hammering of this zany idea....now...

Yes my footy strategy knowledge is limited but i have to agree Buck, what is this method / strat where we start protecting space inside our 50 and up to the centre early in a match? Would much rather see one on one early in a match to try and force the turnovers in the most dangerous parts of the ground and improve our chances of putting a decent score / lead on the board early off the turnover. Under Goodwin's strat yesterday It felt like we were conceding the match early and just looking to limit the damage. This against a very ordinary / sluggish (by foot...in general) Cats line up who IMHO we could have cracked open by half time had we brought the heat on early AND obviously taken our chances and converted. The method we saw yesterday was always going to see us chasing a score as we allowed the Cats so much room off HB to control tempo and momentum and most importantly, work their way with ease to very dangerous launching spots nearing our 50 time and time again until they had built up a very handy lead. And in hindsight a winning lead. I thought our backline held up very well and can hold their heads up high given the awful way we played this out defensively in the forward half. And it's not like this was a one off. Goody has pulled this horribilis on a number of occasions, one of which was another absolute shocker result vs an out of form Tigers last year in Rnd 6, 2019. Very similar "Conceding the front half" / Protect Space strat. Funnily enough that was our worst team score in 2019 at 41.825 Only slightly above yesterday's result! Although one could argue the Tiger's match was worse as we played 20% more game time meaning the 41 figure is inflated vs yesterday's 37. I would argue, playing that style of football in the first half of a match is pretty much a losing strat against almost any team other than maybe the bottom 4. It's no surprise we are one of those bottom 4 at present (ok we are one match behind others but we aren't exactly in a strong position no matter which way you slice it).

Salem appears to have taken a few backward steps since the back end of 2019 imv. No spark, flat footed far too often and kicking lacks penetration. Off the mark he's turned into a tortoise. Was never a big burst player but gee he just looks to have lost half a yard on top if that's possible. He might come out and put in a blinder next week and i'll look like a goose but his recent form isn't great.

He took way too long to get that in and dumped it on their heads LN. Salem is a worry for mine and appears to have gone backwards ever since the last few rounds of last season.

Hibb had a real dip today HB. If he brings that more often from here we just might see a bit of a resurgence to somewhere near his best. Fingers crossed.

I also thought Goody's gameplan was to press and lock. Unfortunately our forward pressure/defence has more holes in it than a swiss cheese. If we don't start playing competitive footy from next week im afraid our season might be over well before the end of the season approaches defuture.

Player Score Rank Angus Brayshaw 3.300 1 Max Gawn # 3.225 2 Clayton Oliver 2.875 3 James Harmes 2.825 4 Ed Langdon 2.425 5 Adam Tomlinson 2.225 6 Jack Viney 2.200 7 Michael Hibberd 2.150 8 Mitchell Hannan 1.725 9 Jake Lever 1.700 10 Christian Petracca 1.675 11 Steven May 1.525 12 Joel Smith 1.525 13 Tom McDonald 1.425 14 Christian Salem 1.275 15 Aaron Vandenberg 1.025 16 Jay Lockhart 1.000 17 Bayley Fritsch 0.975 18 Kysaiah Pickett 0.950 19 Jayden Hunt 0.850 20 Trent Rivers 0.500 21 Jake Melksham -0.325 22 Team Score 37.050 Top 6 16.875 Bottom 6 3.950 # Hit outs to advantage not accounted for Ok not exactly a game for the ages and certainly as poor an effort as i've seen from this club, aside from a few individual efforts, for some time. That team score! Let's not try and chocolate coat this. Even after accounting for 20% less game time vs 2019, the team's performance today was.....wait for it.... statistically 17.8% worse than the drivel we produced in 2019. The 2019 season average team score was 59.623. Compare that to 2018 which was 69.528 This team performance was 26.7% below that season's average (yes accounting for the 20% less game time in 2020)! Individually, only two players scored above 3. The only game that's come close to that was our Rnd 21 match vs the Pies last season where we only had three players score above 3. The worst result since i started tallying these stats in 2018. A couple of other horrors.... AFL DE% averages roughly 73%. We were at 62% for the match. The bottom 5 disposers of the ball (accuracy wise)..... Melksham @ 27.3% with only 3 effectives Lockhart @ 37.5% with 3 Hunt @ 40% with 2. Fritsch ditto. Tracc @ 50% with 9. The top 5 most accurate disposers... Langdon @ 87.5% with 14 effectives. Smith @ 83.3% with 5 Hibb @ 81.8% with 9 Harmes @ 77.8 with 14 (i must have been watching a different player....didn't see half of those and thought he was average at best!) Gawn @ 76.50 with 13. Not bad from the big fella. The most meters gained (FWIW) Tomlinson with 503. Next was Viney with 433 On the reverse .... Vanders with 45 and Smith with 55 The top two intercept players Rivers with 6! Great work son, albeit offset below a little unfortunately. Equal 2nd Gawn, Gus & Lever with 5 a piece. Top five turnover kings Rivers with 7. Equal 2nd Clarry, Melk & Viney with 6. Kozzy in 5th place with 5 but a nice game from the kid nonetheless. Heading the clearance count Clarry with 7 and Viney with 5. Not one player racked up more than 1 contested mark for the entire match!

By playing to Goody's game style Swooper. Worked to a tee. For one side anyway.

Is he out of contract at year's end? Would he want to? Add Clarkson and a genuine KF plus one more classy outside winger who can hit targets with toe (ie., who we should have looked for, not Tomlinson) and we would be playing regular finals. Might even snag one.

Win4 i think we both know the answer to that

Some individual commendable efforts but that's about where it begins and ends for this poorly coached rabble of potential amd known/proven talent. The confidence and spirit of this team is very sad to watch. Zero method. Just too much chaos for far too long in matches. No one playing to their strengths other than a few and a few too many to make the difference. Coach simply has to go. He just can't get them firing from the get go often enough. Almost always chasing tail during his tenure. Last week an anomaly? All that space coming out of our forward line in the first half was unforgiveable. No pressure anywhere up to the middle of the ground. They were able to work it there at will and launch inside 50 with ease. Some hard decisions need to be made to ensure careers aren't wasted and we make finals in 2021 or even this year if the axe is brought down early enough to give the players a chance to learn a new system / style, adjust and come home with a wet sail.