Lucifers Hero

Votes 10 Max Gawn (MELB) 6 Sam Reid (SYD) 4 Paddy McCartin (SYD) 4 Logan McDonald (SYD) 4 Callum Mills (SYD) 2 Jack Viney (MELB) Coaches split 5/5 - Gawn 4/2 - Reid 4/0, 3/1, 3/1 - McCartin, McDonald, Mills 2/0 Viney Leaderboard Only showing the top 5 as 6 teams had a bye Oliver still on top. Only Cripps has played one game less than the others. 63 Clayton Oliver MELB 58 Andrew Brayshaw FRE 58 Lachie Neale BL 53 Patrick Cripps CARL 52 Jeremy Cameron GEEL

All very good reasons. This gave me a good laugh: "Given the choice between a night on the couch with Brian Taylor and the gang, or (risk) having your head split open by a wind instrument, what would you choose? Actually, don’t answer that question".

The Freo and Brisbane examples are clutching at straws. Freo lost in round 9 and 10 which were played in very heavy, wet conditions and they didn't adjust their dry weather game plan. Note how well they played on a dry MCG and Optus since. Brisbane are at the tail end of 4 interstate trips in 6 weeks starting in round 7 to round 12: Sydney, Gabba, Adelaide, Melbourne, Gabba, Perth with flights home after each trip. A fair amount of disruption to training schedules etc and hardly a time to be 'loading'. 'Loading' as early as round 8 (to affect games in round 9 and 10) is rather early since their byes, like ours, aren't until round 14. imv our loss to Freo was entirely due to lack of personnel: May, Salem, Langdon, McDonald, Harmes. Having an injured Petty and ill Petracca mid match caused imbalances all over the ground. 7 of our top 10 players 'missing' and Freo exploited the weaknesses created. We weren't able to cover the gaps left. And we lost to a whole bunch of Sydney's brilliant tactics: separated their forwards to isolate our defenders so ours couldn't leave their man and intercept or help others. corralled us to the boundary and stifled our ball movement so instead of handballing in waves to running players we hand balled in circles until we turned it over. (They kicked 8 goals from turnovers we kicked zero whereas we normally kick 8-9 this way) without the boundary to enter our fwd 50 we resorted to bombing it long into the waiting hands of their backmen. closed the d50 exits. McCartin on Kozzie which enabled him to be the interceptor. double and triple teamed Brown. applied more pressure where it counted. 75 tackles to 58 tells a story. We may have counted some but weren't able to counter all the above. So yes, sometimes the obvious answer is the correct one and I've noted some very obvious objective reasons why the Freo, Lions and Demons have lost games in the last month. All in all, the cause and affect that losses are caused by loading is a bit tenuous. Now, I'm not saying loading doesn't exist just that it looks convenient and superficial to blame it for everyone's losses. I can see that loading might happen during a bye like a mini pre-season to make up for lack of a game but not in rounds 9 - 10 when many players are run down from covid, injured or ill. And I don't get why 'loading' should ipso facto result in losses. One would hope in such a tight season with competition for top 2 and top 4 red hot the 'loading' gurus would work out a way for it to not result in losses. Losses will come regardless of loading so we don't need to add to them.

While we have 60,000+ members it is worth noting that many are 3 game, armchair, country or interstate members who simply can't get to every Home game. And of course quite a lot would be kids or older folk. Would those groups add up to 10K - 15K. No idea. Clearly about 10 - 15K are 'new members' who have joined the ranks in the last few years and may not have a ritual of going to footy games live. So forgetting the issues with transport, tickets, covid, game time etc I feel it is a bit simplistic to say: where are our 60K members?

Lever isn't anywhere near what he was last year, with or without May. His intercept game is well down and it looks like other teams are making him accountable so he can't go and help others. So, not sure the leaving Tomlinson out to dry criticism is fair as Sydney did a brilliant job of isolating him and other defenders so they couldn't help each other. It is a tactic that will be tried again. We need to find ways to negate it.

LOL. Hope the AFL says: dropping the knees, ducking the head and diving are faking and should not be rewarded. In fact they should be penalised. tbh Ginnivan did deserve a couple of frees not paid. I laughed when McCrae said that 'Selwood had made a living out of it'. Sam Mitchell said the same of Puopolo. Hopefully, the umpires keep up the non paying of frees to the likes of Weightman and Ginnivan. Stop them while young so they don't grow into a Selwood type. Btw, I've noticed that Spargo and Kozzie aren't playing for frees so much lately.

A draw. Then they need an 'extra' win to pass us,

The umpires were right onto Weightman's tactics to milk frees and didn't pay him a couple. Today the umpires were right onto Ginnivan who also missed out on a few = some which were really there. Good to see them coming down on it especially young kids who make a habit of it.

I don't remember last year. But last night if we had played in front and tackled like Sydney (75 to 58) did perhaps we would have got more of the 50/50 frees. If they had kicked straight we would have been out of the game by 3/4 time, umpires notwithstanding.

1) It wasn't just the 7 shot difference that the scoreboard flattered us. It was they kicked 10.13. If they kicked a bit straighter we would have been out of the game by 3/4 time. 2) But we didn't and it left us with a fourth quarter job to do: to play attacking football (rather than defend a lead). We didn't get the job done.

Sydney excelled at isolating our defenders and making them accountable. We lost a lot of 1 vs 1 in our d50 be it to marks or 'panicky' frees. Not sure what the intercept stats were but I doubt they were at our 'normal' levels. Reid kicked 3 of their first 4 goals on Tomlinson, in a 20 minute time frame. Momentum swung their way and Sydney didn't look back after that. Tomlinson was poor. He doesn't read the play at all well so doesn't position himself to outbody/outmaneuver his opp allowing an easy mark or gives away a free, some a bit soft but they are there. And he sulks every time his opp beats him. Thankfully, May will be back next week.

Sydney may have had a slight edge in the umpiring but we can't blame the umpires for losing the tackle count 75 to 58? Maybe if we had tackled more or better we would have had more frees... Simply put the tackle count is work rate and effort. No skill or system required to tackle. We were outworked. And really, the scoreboard flattered us 23 scoring shots to 16 for the same number of i50's.

fwiw of the remaining 10 games, 8 are vs top 8 sides (the ladder before this week's bye): 2 x Pies 2 x Lions 1 x Cats 1 x Freo 1 x Blues 1 x Bulldogs And the other two, vs Crows and Port won't be 'gimme' games. For those thinking 2021 will repeat itself the second half draw this year is different to last year with long haul trips thrown in to Alice and Perth and a few shorter trips to Qld and Adelaide. We need to win: 7-8 of 10 for a top 2 spot 5-6 of 10 for a top 4 spot. We have by far the hardest draw of any top 4 teams. Sobering.

For 10 games this year we've played to shut down the game in the last quarter: Defend the lead, bank the 4 pts and move on. We became very good at it. So good that we have forgotten how to play the last quarter to win the game: In the last 2 weeks we've 1.5 vs opp 8.3 in the final quarter. Accuracy aside, opps have had nearly double our scoring shots. With some allowance for absentees last week, overall that score line is more than tiredness, 'loading' or whatever. It is system ie how to win when down and ball movement when down and lack of effort. Its fine to train/load for Sept but not if it means we surrender the last quarter of critical games. We forgot to play 'tempo' football, slow the game down a bit and get some composure before attacking. Instead we rushed and went all out attack. Then the fumbles came, even by some of our best: Oliver, Lever, Jackson, Langdon etc looked like they were trying too hard to win. The more mistakes we made the harder we tried. When the turnovers went Sydney's way we were badly out of position to defend and our small backs were caught out i50 with no support. The only person to stay calm was Gawn.

We agree: 🙃☺️

@Demonstoneare you preparing some brain teaser puzzles to amuse us during the bye?

Under 40 may not age well, no pun intended - my first instinct was to say under 30. The latter being the age group that grew up in a world with 'social media' like fb etc.

I'm guessing DL will be more skewed than our supporter base as I doubt anyone under 40 reads/posts on DL - to their loss. They are more likely to be on a fb or bf fan forum, if on a fan forum at all.

Yes, again!

On second thoughts the puddy cat will be charged with striking: deliberate, severe impact, head high and suspend for 4 weeks!!

Early in this thread I mentioned Geelong are going under the radar. They have quite a few talented youngsters: de Koning, Holmes, Stengle, Henry, Parfitt, Kolodjashnij, Miers, and some pretty good players in the 26-28 age group. I would say Gutherie, Stewart, Menegola, Duncan etc have a few years left in them. They will be a different team this September than last. Good enough to go all the way, I doubt it but it would be a mistake to sell them short.

Having a DL 'holiday' - something to do with 'facepalms'.

After a few notable faux pas in post game press conf Beveridge has probably been told to keep his mouth shut. Even then he did a fair job of playing it down: “Hopefully there’s nothing in it... whatever it was.” Touhy now saying it was as much his fault as Smith's! Even if Smith isn't suspended, the Bulldogs finals charge is over. That is a good thing, I think...