Demon Dynasty

We have one wing covered with Ed. Still waiting with crickets nip nipping on the other. Was hoping it might end up being Bennell in 2021 but who knows. Unlikely but hopeful. Rivers will be critical on one HBF and we might get another year or so from Hibb on the other. That's reasonable speed off HB. We need a class running winger on the opposite Ed wing who can impact forward and hit the scoreboard from 50ish a la Burgoyne. Ok so that sort of quality / class doesn't grow on trees. Find someone who goes close pls. Need a big KF to clunk marks and kick the odd goal at CHF. Weid the 2nd go to looks ok from here. That big KF may well be LJ next season or two. Fingers crossed. Two of Kozzy, Bedford and / or Spargo need to start hitting the scoreboard regular or we go find the other two. Very confident Kozzy will get there given a season or two. We still have too many contested inside ball winners in Viney, Clarry & Sparrow (ok so he is now injured but when he's in) or ex/part time ones in Jones & AVB. We have three potential break away inside / outside mids in Clarry, Gus & Tracc and there is another under those that can also chip in in Harmes but he's not in Goody's black book. All three of those should be rotating through the middle and part time up forward. Harmes also but just less time unless needed to play a tagging role where he replaces Viney. Viney plays forward for Spargo. We are badly overweight contested mid types when all three or even two of Jones, Sparrow & AVB are playing together. The first two are handy and AVB is a great competitor but they aren't what we need. Neither is sparrow imv. Replace those three with a class winger and two speedy inside / outside mids who can run both ways, push forward and kick goals. Add Viney to that significant time forward mix or trade for the two classy outsiders, both of whom should be capable of also playing on the wing a little. Gus, Tracc, Clarry (the latter two pushing forward at times) & Big M as the starting four.

A super duper long shot but how about a premiership or two with Kozzie starring and winning the NS in one of them LH

There's no G'tee we'll beat GWS or the Bombers if they get a bit of a roll going now that Joe's back. Personally i think any chance of a finals appearance hangs on tonight's result.

Is there any chance Port might play an away game anytime soon?

Some conjecture over the "so much" part Jnr but that is certainly the million $$ question right there mate. I come back to my gut feel re motivational aspects. Apparantly the players love Goody (most/all/some?), not that they all have to and in the real world such fairy tales rarely exist. But, for arguments sake, let's say/assume most of them do. This love part however doesn't necessarily correspond to player's excelling or performing on the day imv. Maybe he is just a tad 'too nice/pally' and the fear component required to get message = response (ie motivation) ain't quite there or to the level one might require for AFL match day performance. Could be wrong but that's been my concern all along.

I'm in as well!

I think Uncle deserves a little more credit than that LN! Ask his maid ?

My bad. The old No B$ thread stuff!? I might need too after tonight. Hopefully not

Bit of a cryptic message there coach?

Pretty hot off the press Uncle...Tobasco?

But you still need enough players with half decent leg speed / pace to shut/close down that switch (ball movement) as much as possible AF. Without that there is little doubt in the kicker's mind that they'll make most of their switch or 45 kicks. As a result, there's little perceived pressure, let alone real pressure, which must make life a dream for an opp's defence as witnessed last week.

Great point Buzzy. Once this happens regularly you can pretty much break up and ruin any team's defensive plans and with enough speed just run riot from one end to the other as the Dogs did on multiple occasions. People on here saying foot speed doesn't matter. Maybe not as much in the normal format but in this shortened one it's probably even more crucial. A team with a number of speedy players will benefit from even more recuperation / rest and shorter quarters (even less need for somewhat slower players who might excel on the stamina side).

So the Saints will be switching, kicking out to that side and running in waves through there most of the night then?

Not necessarily dimmy. I would think it's a foot race when it's kicked or handballed out wide to a fellow player or to his advantage into open space under pressure. Or forward into space to your player's favoured side / or even over his head on the sling/shot break off HB for a joe-the-goose attempt. The Saints will look to exploit this advantage as the game opens up at some point. Aside from Rivers, i think Goody has gone for defensive / contested capability, height and experience over foot speed, skills and finish. The tipping point for me (taking us from sluggish to turtle like vs the speedy Saints) is Jones. I would consider him coming in for AVB but that's about it. I don't see what purpose / role he plays in this side other than AVB's (vs the Saints) and we certainly can't afford to play both. I would have kept Harmes in to play a part time mid / mostly forward role instead of Jones and played him back into his 2019 top 3 form. Goody has potentially ruined a solid career (at the MFC anyway) here which is a real travesty and one of the poorest pieces of player management i've seen since he tried Fritta down back last season. The majority of our mid field will have to play out of their skins to win this one as well as most forwards. Two or three players go missing from both of those groups and the Saints will exercise our Demons comfortably. Might have to win with the last kick of the night from "that's ruck craft big boy" Maxy!

Pickett-on- the -Fence2?

Aside from Rivers.... so much for the "bringing in some pace/speed" call. Lost two players with a bit of toe for one. Saints will be licking their chops here and while we are always a chance, they 'should' win this one with relative ease me thinks.

other than a direct replacement for AVB, and imo he deserves it given his better form in general, i agree (vs the Saints). Against similarly sluggish sides i think he still is...just, for now.

Agree with the first two LN but Hannan, albeit not setting the world on fire in this regard (actually no one is...with our young rookie Kozzie just leading the way here), isn't so bad as the former sitting in equal 3rd place for average tackles inside 50. The other two running at about half his rate here. We will need to ramp things up as you say and given our lack of pressure in general, the more the merrier. Can't see us beating the big boys very often until that begins to happen along with importing a genuine KF plus some outside run & class / finish to cover the non-langdon wing. Hoping that might become Bennell at some point but i'll believe that when / if it happens.

Seriously! Surely Fritta was just following standard modes of N.T. transport to training!?

Sounds like Pruess, T-Mac and Maxy are likely to be all named then.

Good discussion LH. Following on from this re your last two points above... I believe May is probably the ideal leader to be making such instant / mid quarter change ups as you say, assuming he has that authority. He's in the ideal position to see the game unfolding to the betterment or worse of the team and he would no doubt have a feel for the ease / regularity with which the opp is entering 50. Almost a Hodge type captain down back. Now that doesn't mean he HAS to be named as a deputy capt or capt etc. It just means he is given the licence (and authority) to make change up calls in defensive styles/methods/tweaks (in game only), before the coach is able to address the troops under certain 'qualified' scenarios, probably scoreboard related. And nothing extraordinary, just methods which the entire group are savvy to and fully trained to handle so it's not a major move away from standard trained playing methods. Eg; simply one option from two or three standard methods of team defending for example. Or it might even be attacking as in the last 2 min of a match and coming from behind eg; pushing a defender into the middle etc. Protecting a lead with X number of forwards moved back to stack the defence in the last two min etc. All set plays/structures that are known to the group and if someone isn't quite getting the set play / method and/or structure (eg; a rookie or new to the club) then of course a senior leader steps in and directs player/s accordingly. Now your last para. And this is one of my bug bears with this club. Has been for a while. Ideally you would need to be at ground level to fully know this so i'm just speculating. But with this season's iso games and lack of crowds. There isn't alot of noise about and you can often hear the players voices on the field. Im not saying we are more or less vocal as there's no way of truly measuring. However, i wonder, do we have 'enough' vocal leaders who get up and about 'in game' in an attempt to rally the boys when the opp's on a roll on the scoreboard? Or do we, in the main, tend to have a few too many introverted types that tend to go into their shell a little too much when up against it? Again this is one of the reasons i would love to see May as VC or even joint Capt at some stage. The bloke seems to HATE losing and he loves to direct and/or occasionally dish it out where he feels it's warranted. We need this given the 'general quietness' that seems apparent within this group when under the pump and to rally them before they come out after half time etc, knowing the opp is going to come at us. Try and prep/steel the boys, particularly the younger blokes, mentally and set them for a big 3rd & 4th quarter effort. I reckon this last part is lacking somewhat within our group. I recall watching us re-enter Metricon after half time last week and look, there's probably very little to this but... There were one or two blokes joking a little and having a bit of a giggle about something in the race (i recall Tracc was one of them) just as they were about to run back on and i thought to myself (probably just MFCSS) "wow i hope these blokes don't take the Dogs lightly here or we are on trouble". Probably means nothing but i always like to see game face on well before the start of each quarter. I'm certainly no expert in such matters. Who knows, relaxed might be better and i could be barking up the wrong tree!

I think in a major way (significant change up of style) i would agree LH but i do think a few minor tweaks are possible, depending on the amount of change and the degree of difficulty required. However like any 'way' of playing, the coach would need to show them the how, why along with the manner/techniques... and then they train it. I heard a player or might have been a coach (might have been woosher in the Bomber's draw with GC not sure?) asked a few weeks ago, "do you ever train for that last few minutes scenario coming from behind in a nail biter?" and the response was "Yes we have a drill for it that we act out and train for it at least once during a training session" or something to that effect. It got me thinking if they can train for these scenarios then surely they are capable of training for things like.... > Man on man through the middle and / or front half for X amount of time before reverting back to usual type (eg; rolling zone, diamond zone etc) > Slow play / maintaining possession off and across HB > Lock down / Run with on player X and/or Y (or other) as required by our player A & B until told otherwise Etc. The above separate to say a major positional change up such as May to CHF or something similar if the game is almost gone a la Hooker y'day arvo. While i agree, major changes "in game" would be very difficult to pull off in my mind surely ones that the players know and have been instructed in and trained for can't be impossible? As for on field leadership, i believe your senior leadership and other players / captains can and should be capable of coaching 'method / structure' individually. But imv the coach is the one who decides when/which method of change should be brought in at any particular time. They see more from up high and have a full view of the ground plus more eyes on the entire scene. They also aren't caught up in the heat or role of the moment nor under physical stress / exhaustion which might have an effect on a player's judgement / decision making in game. Among other things, the the coach is there for very good reasons such as these and that's what he gets paid to do and do well imv. Some doing it better than others, including training it onto the playing group till it becomes second nature to most, or at least those that are capable.

This sums us up in a nutshell. Whenever we are favs or slightly better than a 50/50 we usually play like rabbits in the headlights at some point during that match. When the going gets tough too many players go missing instead of stepping up and taking it to another level when challenged (and i'm talking small percentages here, not expecting miracles across the board). Does this mean we should win this week given we will surely be going in as rank underdogs? Unfortunately i reckon we can match speedy skilled teams for about a half as we did last week, winning enough inside contests and clearances to balance the losses on the outside, at least to that point. Once that effort/skill drops away a little (skills usually fairing the worst here) after half time and the game opens up a little with the opp starting to win their fair share of clearances and contested, they're then able to spread and use their better skills on a more regular basis, as well as intercepting more of our awful turnovers, to rip us a new one with multiple unanswered goals. Weight of numbers on the outside overwhelm us once our "inside" intensity, skill levels and ability to run down the opp drops away in the second half (against those clubs who have the speed and skills i mean). It doesn't help that we also don't seem to react to this in the box and try and shut down one or two of the main offenders from the opp. The box also appearing to freeze like a rabbit in the headlights. Ok so maybe we don't have the answers on the day as we just don't have the outside speed / chase down ability to go with the opp. But surely that's by design both at a list level and at the selection table (to various degrees). I can't say i've witnessed us doing much of anything such as... ? Attempting to close down the opp's spread / movement by going man on man for short stints before reverting back to a zone method once/if we get the game back on our terms. And i'm not talking about waiting until the 4th, 5th or 6th goal in a row is kicked either. A good box should be able to recognise we're losing control of the ball / losing control of the match early on into an opp's run on and swing the change ups quickly ; ? Slowing our own ball movement down to bore the opp and let them cool their heels, putting a halt to their run on. ? Down by 5/6 goals or more and time's running out to turn things around? How about throwing some caution to the wind with player positions / roles and giving yourself and the opp a different look / feel. Look at the Bombers match yesterday, swinging Hooker from HB up forward and instructing their blokes to handball on the angle, then kick long to one on ones once they got in the clear. Sure it was only a few minor tweaks but it shows that sometimes a few tweaks (whether it's actually the tweaks themselves having a direct effect and/or the mere psychological effect upstairs, maybe a bit of both) can have a major effect on the outcome of a match, including massive turnarounds on occasions even if history would show your chances of doing so are slim. As per the late John Kennedy's famous cry "Do something, don't just think....DO!"

Might have been handy this week on Hill?