The heart beats true

My 70 year old mother had to get a special letter of exemption from the Queensland department of Health (which took her months) just to be able to visit my brother, who is dying of liver and bowel cancer in Brisbane. Then she had to do 2 weeks of quarantine by herself, where she got fresh air exactly twice in those 2 weeks (including doing a 9 day streak with no outside air at all). I’m not allowed to travel to Queensland and may never see my brother again. The Queensland government and the AFL needs to explain to me, my family, and the literally thousands of other people with heart breaking stories like mine why they are getting such a sweet deal - when they continue to prove they can’t even live by the most basic, community minded rules. It makes me sick.

Wow. Honestly some of the comments in this thread say so much about the people making them, and nothing about a guy whose played almost 15 years at the highest level. He has come to the end but he shouldn’t, and won’t, be remembered for his last few games.

This. The club keeps pumping up narratives about once we get to x amounts of games with this group blah, blah, blah. Ultimately the coach has to create a winning system and inspire the players to deliver it. 4 seasons in and Goodwin is below expectations, and has had a very good run at it this year with injuries. I hope Glenn Bartlett is watching.

Ohhhhh no. You can’t just pin this on the players. This is Goodwin’s 4th year as coach. His list, his team, his structures. It doesn’t work, and he has to wear the blame.

Burgess has to wear some of this surely? Off short breaks we don’t look up to it.

You beauty! Steven May all night, and Clarry and Trac when it mattered.

Wonder if Riewoldt still thinks we lost the May and Lever recruitments? They’ve kept us in it.

Without Steven May we’d be 8 goals behind. the guy is an absolute gun

Oliver has to be carrying something. He’s a shadow of himself. No explosion, struggling to compete. Odd.

Honestly, he’s lacked real intensity this year. He’s missed very gettable goals at often crucial times for us, and he just isn’t living up to his potential. This might just be what he needs. Now he has a point to prove.

Brad Hill is on 900k a year over 6 years and will be almost 34 at the end of that contract! Let’s just see how that plays out. The saints almost dropped him 6 weeks ago. Jake Lever had a horrific knee injury and is still only 24. We paid overs because he fit the list demographic perfectly. May is a huge win over Hogan, no matter how you look at it given what’s occurred. Everyone else is swings and roundabouts. I really rate Langdon in terms of what he offers to us structurally. He holds his shape better than any outside Melbourne player in 10 years. The issue with us has been player development. Fritsch, Harmes, Hannon, ANB and Brayshaw, Weed and Salem in particular (as high draft pics) just haven’t stepped up. We needed 2-3 of those guys to become solid talent, and some still have time, but haven’t don’t it yet.

3 games in 9 days coming up. I suspect we’ve gone early on the freshen up as the Sydney to Freo turn around is quick, and we looked horrific on our last 4 dayer. I suspect Harmes, Lockhart and Fritsch given a kick now so they have time so salvage their seasons. Harmes and Fritsch in particular need to respond as they’ve gone backwards fast in 2020.

Tom Lynch is certainly not very popular on the Gold Coast. Good to hear some old fashioned booing.

Just a thought... We’ve all seen the lack of connection between our midfield and forwards the last 2 years. Any chance Jesse had a reason to be upset, and actually helped cover over that glaring issue during his time at the club? I’d love him back. We need natural competitors with skills.

The Grimes and Langdon situation highlight the growing problem with the two layered system of the AFL. Both players won free kicks, and then only later does a separate group of people decide the action was wrong. So logically that would mean the umpires that issued these free kicks would be demoted because they got the decisions wrong? Nope. That never happens. So instead we just have weekly show trials that end up being completely irrelevant, except to signal the league’s virtue by punishing those that are seen as more disposable. The media have a roll to play here. They need to be much more vocal about how confusing it is, and how biased it looks.

You can bet it was Melbourne who only gave Bontempelli 4 votes. Couldn’t bring themselves to give him 5, since they clearly don’t rate him that much. ?

I think one of the things that I've really noticed about Langdon watching the game on the TV is that he's a natural outside player. He holds his shape exceptionally well. It's been such a glaring problem that having him do his role properly has only further emphasised what i think is a clear list imbalance. He's the only one that does is consistently, which is why he's become such a link player for us. Speed is important, but we have too many guys who get caught in no mans land 10 metres from the pack when playing outside. If you maintain your shape in relation to the contest you're much more useful both defensively and moving forward. We seem to struggle to teach players how to do that, so I'd be keen to bring in someone else with experience at the end of the year to whom it comes naturally.

Right? It clearly depends whose doing the shoving. He doesn’t need to touch him, so it should have been 50 under the new adjudication.

I was responding to your comment where you said that it’s not Goodwin’s fault, and then noted us being killed on outside run. You don’t need to defend the list choices. They’re not yours to defend. But someone will be held to account, and it’ll be the coach, because that’s how the system works. At this point it’s his system, and it don’t work often enough under pressure.

Sorry, whose responsible for our lack of outside run, and one dimensional list? The coach, whose had 4 years to get the list that suits his game plan?

Structures worked out at half time, Bulldogs players adjusted to it, and we simply don’t have a counter plan. If anyone knows I’d be fascinated by how many games we’ve lost since Goodwin took over where one quarter of being completely out structured cost us the game? It has to be over 20. Our coach is not dynamic enough for the modern game. I want him gone. Why? Because we have a better list than that this. We are far too one dimensional. He’s got the balance of the list wrong, which also helps reinforce our one dimensionality, and makes us easy to coach against.

Bontempelli beats Melbourne every time we play. I’m glad we’ve had such a solid plan for him this time. Well coached

This. Every week. One plan, and if it don’t work it don’t work.

Our team defence was absolutely destroyed that quarter. Our back 6 have been good all game. What does that tell you....? That in a head to head between coaches and game styles we just got out scored by 6 goals in a short quarter, and didn’t respond. Please can Goodwin go. He’s simply got no plan B, and isn’t creative.

Watching Channel 7 cover this Essendon game proves how biased the media coverage of the AFL is. If Melbourne, the Saints, North or the Dogs has delivered up a spineless half like that they would be (rightly) nailed to the cross. Instead they keep trying to barrack for them to come back into the contest.