poita

It takes some serious coaching skill to get every single match up completely wrong. Well done Goody. Can't tackle, can't get a clearance, can't hit the ball to a teammate, can't man up, can't kick, can't take a mark. I don't know what we do at training, but it certainly isn't practicing basic skills or tactics. Add in McDonald and Chandler sleepwalking around, and a bunch of kids who are miles off the required standard, and the sooner this season ends the better. PS Bontempelli is the best player in the comp, how about we show him some respect and pay him some attention?

I'm guessing Laurie was dropped because his defensive positioning and efforts are well below the required standard, which might not be obvious to people who watched Saturday's game from the comfort of their living rooms. It was noticeable that he was not on the ground towards the end of the game, along with several other young players. That said, he is a little unlucky because I have the same concerns about Moniz-Wakefield and Tholstrup, and they seem to get multiple opportunities. Ultimately what I take from this week's team is that we love rewarding mediocrity, and that our depth is non-existent. 20 of the 22 who started in the terrible performance against Fremantle 11 days ago are playing this week. The other two are both injured.

I suspect he found that the offers coming from other clubs were nowhere near what he was being offered by North. Nobody is selling the farm to bring in a 190cm third forward.

Max's inability (or unwillingness) to counter rucks who block his leap at centre bounces is becoming a real issue for us. Clearly his foot injury was an issue on Saturday (realistically he wouldn't be playing if we had a suitable backup), but this tactic is something that has been successfully used against him numerous times this year. I also don't think fatigue is an excuse for the way we line up at centre bounces. It was quite clear that we were prepared to give up front position throughout Saturday's game, which led to us being second to the ball for the most part. Combine that with Max's erratic hitouts and it's no surprise that we were belted at centre clearances.

We may regret not giving some of our players more VFL games this year. In such a short season, the consequences of not being close to top form by round 1 can be significant. Some clubs, such as Hawthorn, I believe gave their players a lot of VFL games, so it will be interesting to see their early season form.

I can't disagree with those votes. We had a number of players do a few decent things and then disappear. The Giants players were more consistent across the game, and were clearly more influential when the game was in the balance through the third quarter and into the fourth.

The team is fighting for a finals spot, and their so-called supporters can't be bothered getting along to cheer them on. If you only buy a membership to get access to finals tickets, or attend only when you know you're going to see a win, you're not a true supporter.

First quarter was excellent, last ten minutes pretty good, but the rest was absolute garbage. As soon as we coughed up two soft goals at the start of the second quarter it was inevitable that we'd lose, and GWS went on a 12 goal to 3 run after quarter time. Gawn clearly wasn't fit. Good on him for having a crack, but our centre bounce work was atrocious once again and he was a major reason why. Not having a running player as sub was horrible coaching, and should never happen again. Our bottom 8 to 10 players are just not good enough, and most of them will never be good enough. We need to make significant, long overdue changes to the list in the next two months. Ditto the coaching staff, from the senior coach down. And finally, tonight's crowd was abysmal and says everything about the character of our so-called supporter base.

Yes, he's going okay (at best), but has done nothing to warrant a 4 year extension at this point. Why not hold for off 12 months? How's the ridiculous Laurie extension looking at the moment?

We really are determined to follow Richmond into mediocrity if we make short term list management decisions at the expense of longer term improvements. Just ask them how the Jacob Hopper trade is working out. The only way forward for this group is to bring in quality kids with high draft picks. Anything else is Goodwin trying to save his own [censored].

Is that a nice way of dropping Lever without actually saying he's been dropped? I'd be more than happy for Tomlinson to come in for him. May missing, on the other hand, would be a big loss given he matches up well against Hogan.

When in the next decade will this happen, and at what level will he be playing at that time? Keeping Laurie on the list is the equivalent of a gambler chasing his losses. I agree that Bowey needs to be tried elsewhere, because he is not working as a defender.

Richmond got a crowd of 19K to their game against the Giants two weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon. Given our respective member numbers and the poor forecast for Saturday night, are we in danger of falling below that number?

I'm more concerned about what our 2027 team looks like, and how we recruit and develop adequate replacements for Gawn, May, McDonald, Viney, Melksham and Salem in that time, whilst acknowledging that Lever, Langdon, Petracca, Fritsch and Neal-Bullen are also 30 by then.

Lamb has been a massive failure from both a personnel and a contract perspective, whilst we have been a top 4 side. How is he going to attract and retain top end talent if we drop out of finals contention when he can't do it now?

We definitely need to change our thinking. If a team like Geelong can get away with 1 year deals for their older players, we shouldn't need to lock players away until their mid 30s. The Brayshaw situation should also be a reality check for us.

Do you really believe that, if a coach says "please Mr List Manager, I need a genuine no 2 ruckman to back up my ageing, injury prone lead ruck", he is going to be ignored? He is absolutely responsable for the imbalance of the list and our obsession with recruiting undersized utility types.

When May and Lever are bad, they are just horrific. It feels like we've spent the entire game taking 5 steps too many and running into trouble, or just banging the ball long to the Freo defenders.

I'm glad people have worked out that Lever is a liability. I'd rather see Billings in there. Goodwin is an absolute moron for the team he has selected, just completely incompetent.

Pedersen was a great contributor when called upon, but the key line in that article is that his presence allowed teammates such as Jack Watts to play their preferred roles. Goodwin clearly has a short memory if he thinks that weakening the forward line by playing Van Rooyen and Petty in the ruck is the best thing for the team.

You mean when we're out of finals contention? Fullarton should have played against West Coast, after Petty was ruled out.

As others have said, the issue is not that we have overlooked two poor options in Fullarton and Verrell. The issue is that we're destroying our forward structure, and potentially the players themselves, by asking Van Rooyen and Petty to play as permanent rucks, particularly against an aggressive ruckman like Draper. It is exceedingly poor selection and coaching, which will look even worse if we cop another injury to a key position player.

They probably allow for the possibility that he'll do something stupid like trying to play with broken ribs and a dodgy spleen, much like Max wants to play before his leg heals properly.

Just to clarify, we: 1. Continued to play our most important player in the second half of a game that we had already won, after he had sustained a significant ankle injury in the first half; 2. Have no AFL standard backup ruck on the list, even though it was blatantly clear to every man and his dog that it was sheer madness to assume that a 32 year old ruckman would make it through an entire season unscathed; 3. Repeatedly balked at the opportunity to give an opportunity to Fullarton in recent weeks, even though Max has clearly been at less than full fitness; and 4. Feebly tried to cover for the absence of Max by throwing our best young forward (in the middle of a career best game) into the ruck, and therefore completely destabilising our forward line in the second half. You'd think the Petracca debacle might have taught us a few things, but we continue to do our very best to destroy our players.

Lever was absolutely terrible. I'm guessing he was directly responsible for about 8 shots on goal, mostly to Allen. He is tall, but he's not a genuine tall defender.