djr

Gee, this place has gone mad. Everyone wants to burn the place down. It was only 3 weeks ago that we were sitting fourth. Yes, we have had a bad month, just like the previous three years at this time of year, although admittedly, not as severe. It happens with every club at some stage during the season. Look at Geelong. 7 zip and have lost 5 of the last 6. GWS were 6 and 1 after 7 rounds and were co-premiership favourites. They have lost 5 of their last 6 as well. Look at Carlton last year, they were sitting 15th after round 13 and ended up in the Prelim final. The only real downer for me was Petracca getting injured. I will throw you all some more red meat. I thought Goody's presser was encouraging. There, I said it.

Thank god.

I wonder if the high performance team will design a specific programme for Luker that resembles an extended pre-season in order to be AFL ready by March of next year. After 9 months of aerobic training and dedicated gym days to build up muscle strength, he will look quite formidable. With that said, I assume he can play football.

I note with interest that Judd is still on the rookie list and his contract is up at the end of this season. Can someone confirm. If true why hasn't he signed?

What could go wrong?????

Yeah I will tone down the dial a bit: best 23.

I totally agree. I thought Taj made a huge impact in the last quarter. He is definitely in our best 22. He is getting better and better. Billings played the link-man/transition role very well.

I take it that you are a little disappointed with the AFL.

No field umpire would have called touched even when vision showed that the ball grazed a hairfollicle of the docker player. No umpire would have noticed that.

Yes he did. According to other media reports, it was quite vicious.

I watched the first 20 minutes of play, in which we played fast attacking football, hitting targets and using angles to target players who were in better positions, then everything changed. I wonder whether Goody and Co were satisfied with what they saw, felt they had seen enough, and did not want the footy world to see anymore. After the first quarter, did you observe any discernible changes to the team makeup or gameplan that might help explain Richmond's 10 goal run-on?

I can certainly see him as a key back taking over May's role in a couple of years. Could be as effective as Moore.

Have you noticed any difference McQualter has made as compared with, I guess, Yze?

This preseason, I have not seen much discussion about Ed Langdon. Is he just another old guard player who goes about his business at training without drawing attention to himself and does what you would expect?

Boy that's a long break.

What a bunch of nonsense words! This is what you get when you copy and paste content from one of those writing and grammar apps: a word salad that leaves the reader clueless about what the author has written. Did you actually check what you wrote before you posted? God forbid if you did.

Sestan. Was he noticeable?

My dad played for Melbourne in the Norm Smith, Percy Beames era of the mid to late forties. I didn’t stand a chance

You are obviously not OK with my view. You immediately launch the tired accusation that posters like me and others that have a similar view are wearing coloured glasses if we don't agree with your view. Its kids playground stuff. It is simple to say that the game plan is the issue without providing any support or logic. Its lazy commentary. I find it unbelievable that you then double down on it and gloat about how perceptive you have been over the previous two years. Are you that single-minded that you cannot accept other explanations for the recent failures in finals?

Of course not. Despite the belief held by many posters on this forum that our gameplan has not changed since 2021, it has been adjusted each preseason due to changes in our list and the way the opposition has responded to it. However, once the season gets underway, successful teams adhere to their gameplan, so when players are injured, there are VFL players available to step in and carry out the plan. The issue we faced last season—which I previously discussed—was that we lost so many important players, leaving us shorthanded. The cupboard was bare. It is difficult to suddenly and drastically alter a system that players have become accustomed to and react instinctively to something different, especially during a finals campaign.

Good teams make little changes to their gameplan(s). They back their system over the opposition. That is why we don't have taggers in the game anymore.

It tells me that we didn't have a forward line. We lost Petty and Melky before the finals, and we lost Gus in the first few minutes, so Tracc was forced to play more minutes in the midfield rather than take a leading role forward. It got worse for the Carlton game when we lost JVR. If these players had been available, I think we would have defeated the Pies and we would not be having this conversation about our gameplan.

Is that TMc or Tomlinson? I assume the latter.

Nice little intro to the punchline. 🙂

And where did you learn this information, BigFooty? You seem to be implying that he is lazy. Perhaps Burgess did not manage him properly with his injuries. It's on record that Lamb really targeted him, even knowing his history with injuries.