Lucifers Hero

I know but not sure it will be enough if the WA clubs come calling. They are premiership players and JVR shows a fair bit, so fully expect the WA clubs to make some enticing offers. Is Woewodin also from WA? We will be ripe for poaching, sadly.

We have a few: Rivers, Kozzie, JVR, McVee With Jackson there is a lot of good draft picks tied up in them albeit McVee is an NGA rookie. Lets hope they don't all want to go back any time soon.

More info, please 😟

The way it is often presented on DL is that it is the major factor contributing to our losses. And the facts I listed are rarely given much discussion regarding those losses but mentioned in passing or generalities as the last few lines of your post do. I'll repeat, I believe in loading programs.

It isn't helpful to take one sentence: 'Our game relies heavily on defence' out of context of my post. I'm not sure what the above post has to do with what I wrote. I listed some key facts in our losses to very good sides and some of the best coaches in the league. Ignore them if you like. There are lots of reasons why players fatigue in games, loading is but one of them. I clearly said I believe in the loading programs. All sports have loading so it doesn''t take a crystal ball to predict it at the beginning of a season.

I don't think we have been worked out, per se. But every coach tries things. Some we are able to counter in game some we aren't and learn from them until next time they are used. With each tactic that looks successful the next coach will try it or a variant of it. In the bulldogs game they drew on the Hawks tactic of running with Langdon, Adelaide's attacking the corridor, Sydney's coralling our clearance players at stoppages, Geelong's avoiding Max etc An example is the bulldogs played Bailey Williams as a loose tag on Langdon. Williams is 7cm taller and a fair bit heavier than Langdon. They often used Williams as the exit kick from our fwd 50 and by using their bullet passes were able to move the ball quickly through the corridor, Then they made sure they kicked it to where Max wasn't.

Maybe: freo won because we had a heap of players covering covid absentees and the newbies made cohesiveness harder. May out early and Freo exploited all that in the second half. Sydney and Geelong won because they used different tactics that challenged us. As Goodwin has said clubs always try new things and we learn from them. bulldogs won because we were missing most of our fwd line and key interceptor, Lever. Coll won because we had only half our backline. They as the better teams also exploited our lack of a settled forward line. Our game relies heavily on defence. In our losses to top 8 sides only in the Geelong game did we have all of May, Lever, Petty, Salem. So maybe their and other key player abscences have been significant. I fully believe we and other clubs use a loading program. And that there are various loading programs/models available. Not all clubs will use the same program/model altho in principle they have loading and tapering phase(s). I just get frustrated with the ardent followers on here when they don't really acknowledge the above facts in our losses, in particular other club's coaching tactics. Which by the way doesn't mean 'we have been found out'. It simply means that on the day what they did worked better than what we did. They just say 'other factors' affect results. Then happily promote loading in our wins/losses without really knowing which loading program is being followed or when the loading and tapering phases are timed nor how that timing relates to our losses, except guesswork. So when we lose the first thing that comes up is 'loading'. And as for a 'loading end' party, please. And some loading proponents have started talking about how 'lucky' we were last year...

Our double up games are: Freo finished 11th Collingwood finished 17h Port finished 3rd Lions finished 4th Bulldogs finished 2nd. Its the luck of the draw that Eagles slid, North stagnated while Freo and Pies have climbed giving us a tough run home and the Cats an easy run. But really if we can't beat Freo, Coll, Carlton and Lions (again) we don't deserve a double chance and won't last long in the finals. It is totally in our control.

Ok, I get your interpretation of timing. However, they have managed to win every game while loading and we haven't. If we don't make top 4 from a 10-0 start it will be a poor second half of the season.

Some points: They talked about McCrae's experience at the Lions so it couldn't have been that opportunistic. MCrae talked about loading in the last 4 to 6 weeks ie during and since the bye, so we can't really attribute their losses early in the season when 5/5 to loading. To me it sounds a similar program to the Cats who have been loading during and from the bye. Since both clubs started loading neither has lost a game in months so their loading program hasn't had the serious affect on performance as ours ostensibly has ie they still win. If Coll win today both teams will have won 9 consecutive games while loading. We have won 4 of the last 9. According to the proponents of loading on DL our 3 straight losses were largely due to loading. But those games were before the bye which makes the loading program timing rather different to Geelong and Collingwood. Time will tell if they have peaked early.

At the start of the year August games looked like a training run with a good workout in the last round, based on where teams finished in 2021: Freo: 11th Magpies: 19th Blues: 13th Lions: 4th Now they are desperate to take our top 2 or top 4 spot and we will be fighting for a double chance. I had really counted on a win last night. Top 4 would have been almost guaranteed. So deflating to lose and to let them take a chunk of % off us.

Max had a knee to the back early in the game and was on his knees for a while. He has had back issues for a few months. Why then did we play him for 92% of the game and the back up ruckmen Jackson 69% and Weideman 72%. Max had to do it all: ruck, fwd and rarely (by necessity) drop back. I don't think Jackson went down back at all but then he rarely does. Just doesn't make sense to burden a beaten up Max with that workload. Share it around a bit more among the three of them be it ruck, fwd or back.

We missed Lever. Bulldogs would never have scored 110 if he was in the team. We didn't have a ruckman drop back to help defend for nearly the whole game which compounded the impact of Lever's absence.

These comments from last year made me doubt if Grundy has what it takes to give his all for a premiership: “Being a premiership player too. It just feels like a lot of the messaging was ‘your career is only successful if you win a premiership’. “It has never made sense to me. How can you go through 15 years of your life playing at the highest level but not see it as a success? “Being able to have that perspective and balance away from football and to love what you do in finding happiness in the journey. That’s more important than the destination.” brodie-grundy-interview-career "I think as I've gotten older, you want to be able to make it through a career and make it sustainable and most importantly, enjoy it. I am not going to do extra work at the expense of being miserable. For me it is really important to have that balance and to know when to push and do the extra work and to also know when to pull it back. It is a finite balance and it is different for everyone. "I want to be someone that helps facilitate those conversations." https://www.collingwoodfc.com.au/news/587804/grundy-opens-up-about-footy-and-life-outside-the-game By the way, the interview behind those articles was a year after he signed his mega contract. I understand his view that a successful career is not defined by winning a premiership and totally agree with having interests outside football and not wanting to be miserable. However, I got the impression he was happy to have a successful career ie the journey and not the destination ie a premiership. He was fairly successful (2 x AA, 2 X BnF winner) before his mega contract. Maybe that success and his mega contract are enough for him. He will be 29 early next year and getting to the latter part of his career. His outlook on life is admirable but I want players who want to succeed in getting us more premierships. Otherwise stay away. A BIG, BIG NO from me!

Sydney's poor kicking (4.11) in 2nd and 3rd qtrs has cost them a significant % boost. It may cost them a top 4 spot.

"Fremantle tall Rory Lobb has been reminded he is a contracted player and is wanted next season despite industry sources claiming he is a major chip in the Dockers’ bid to lure Luke Jackson. Dockers coach Justin Longmuir said on Saturday he expected Lobb to be at the club next season". That is the second time in as many weeks Longmuir has pumped up Lobb as a wanted player. Not bluffing anyone saying he is a wanted player. Just trying to max Lobb's trade value and use his contract as leverage. Not sure whether the message is for the bulldogs to pay up more or to us as a key to a LJ trade.

I'm optimistic about Port beating the Cats at Adelaide Oval. A repeat the 2021 QF performance therel will do just fine. Both teams kicked poorly. Result: Port: 12.14.86 d Cats 5.13.43

That too.

His hand will be strapped, he will have a few pain numbing injections and he won't feel a thing when he has his usual quota of handballs.😐

So many threads detour to Sam bashing and the pile on is getting tedious. Ask oneself a question: Is he doing the best he can? If the answer is 'yes' then folks should back off. His best may not be enough for some but it is all that can reasonably be asked.

The article itself says: “They’ve tried and failed on a couple already this year to get them on the hook.” so it would be players from other clubs.

“They’ve tried and failed on a couple already this year.” I wonder who has turned us down?

I'm of the same thinking, in that we may take the afl comp pick, less than he is worth, to get another deal we want done over the line or get it done early. We took less than we wanted for Watts but got the pick for Fritsch. Ditto we converted Hogan for May. Effectively Brown for Preuss etc. Above all we are pragmatic when it comes to trades rather try and extract max value on each trade.

I agree about Gus' trade value which is why I think we would not match. Yes, we would lose a comp pick for an inbound FA but are there any we would be looking at/want? De Goey aside? Mc Stay looks bound for Coll.

Buckley can be a real FIGJAM sometimes. As something totally irrelevant I notice his sons are named Ayce and Jett. Nice names in a way but phonetically they are words used to describe elite sports people...