Lucifers Hero

The good news is if the '4 day break = a loss' experience for many clubs holds this week, we should beat Giants!

Here is a table which summarises our travel and # days break since we had to Melbourne after round 5. For those counting trips add round 1 to Perth. It shows how we compare to our opp in each round rather than compare the season in total. E&OE Please let me know if you see any errors. Edit: this is intended as a discussion tool rather than a view of whether we were badly done by travel or the question of fatigue.

No idea and anything I come up is pure conjecture. My conjecturing ranges from Bartlett realising he made a mistake with his last outburst to not taking too kindly to Goodwin saying the whole club (which he is President of) needs to be more ruthless. Or anything in between. I'm guessing Goodwin feels secure to go on as coach to say the whole club needs to be more ruthless otherwise he is setting himself up for the most ruthless thing the club could do: sack him.

Goodwin saying the club is immature and needs to be 'ruthless' may come back to haunt him. ruthless-or-toothless Questions posed therein: "Ruthless about what? Ruthless on the field? In team selection? In list management? Standards?" It has a few 'home truths' but its a fair article. Interestingly, Gleeson says: "We tried to speak to president Glenn Bartlett for his thoughts about this culture of immaturity but after a blustery outburst earlier this year he has gone silent". And on Fox, Brereton highlighted Goodwin's lack of 'ruthlessness' in team selection with players who regularly let him down. Said he is 'too nice'. We all know who Dermie might be thinking of!

Thanks. Your underlying point is still valid: I have little doubt we will have the worst travel schedule. I was planning to do the #breaks/travel for our opps before I saw this thread as I suspect it (and fatigue) will be a much debated topic, especially if we miss finals. I'll p m it to you to look at but it may not be til mid afternoon.

I think I've missed one. For the 7 I could find my thoughts are: Perth round 1 - we had a month or two to recover. Sydney Hub - to be our 'Home' for the rest of the season. Qld Hub - this wasn't in the hub plan. We had to relocate on short notice because Qld were closing its borders to NSW, Adel 2 games - the club made a good travel decision by staying in Adel for the North game. Alice - the club asked for this to get the $700k from the NT gov't. Cairns - we were one of the few teams that hadn't played both Syd and Freo who are hubbed there. The club made a good travel decision by staying in Cairns. Qld hub. It could have been worse: Adel to Hobart as originally scheduled and if not allowed to stay in Adel and Cairns for subsequent games. Can I ask how the count is done eg I count 4 for Carlton: Melb to Qld Hub to Perth to Darwin to Qld Hub. And for Adelaide I count 5-6 as they have flown in/out of Adel to Qld for their away games in the latter part of the season. Haven't looked at any others. Some people think the AFL has messed us around but a lot of it has been out of their control. I'm pretty sure the AFL asked clubs their preferences at different times. The more successful teams (wins and/or members) got pandered to more. We aren't one of those and it was bad luck we were slated to a Syd hub first up then had to move. If the idea of the Travel Table is the impact of travel on Wins/Losses, including the # days breaks and travel of our opp in each round would give a broader base on which to draw conclusions. Bit short of time to do that comparison this morning but might give it a go for the dees, later.

Adelaide have made a good start vs Giants. Will they keep it going and help salvage our season!

Game on Saturday evening. Prime Time FTA. As to changes? Anyone's guess!

That is embarrassing and awful. It is up there with the Richmond players touching Chol during their song. Butler did the same at the Saints. Must be the Richmond culture. Never liked Chaplin, a Mahoney mate from Port days. He was an average player who has added nothing to our club as fwd or a defence coach. Time to go.

I was commenting on 2nd and 3rd round picks who haven't been able to solidify a regular 22 spot. The reason for highlighting that is those selections are supposed to be the mid-tier and journeyman in our regular 22. They aren't and imv view it is one reason why our list lacks depth.

It doesn't matter when it was taken. Our Vice captain who walked past him and his two back line leaders (May and Lever) who had been sitting in the same room, all ignored him.

We didn't. We had the same players year after year: Oliver, Petracca, Brayshaw and not sure if there was anyone else. As I said we used our 1st round picks well. It is the 2nd and 3rd round picks that haven't born fruit which is why our list drops away after the top 10-12 players.

This is a still of the change rooms after the game from OTC last night which shows May and Lever. The video version shows Baker sitting a fair way to their left and after a little while gets up and leaves. No team mate or leader got around him. When the camera panned further out Rivers was sitting on his own in the corner opposite May and Lever, head in hands looking distraught. Heartbreaking vision which lasted 30-60 seconds. Viney walks past in the foreground presumably from the showers where the rest of the team must have been. Neither May, Lever nor Viney went to Rivers to console him or even talk to him. Very poor leadership and care for a young team mate who was in the top 5 best on ground. This is not ok behaviour by our leaders. It is not ok in standard setting. It is not ok to leave a kid to sort out what had just happened on his own.

Maybe I expressed it badly. We used our 1st round pics well in draft or trade. My point was that the players selected in 2nd and 3rd rounds in 2015 to 2018 haven't developed into regular 22 selections. Hence our list falls away after the first 10-12 selected each week.

suns-dominate-22under22-squad-two-clubs-completely-snubbed Adelaide and Melbourne are the two clubs without a rep in the 40 player squad. Sad. The 'Under 22' covers the players recruited in 2016 to 2018 as 18 and 19 yo. The years Goodwin has overseen list building. In those 3 years we didn't have a 1st round pick having used them in 2015 (Oliver/Weideman) or for Lever (2017/2018) and May (2019). With no one in the < 22 squad, it suggests we have not done well with our 2nd and 3rd round picks in those years. I can't think of a player of any age drafted in those years, be they new draftees or ex VFL players who are getting regular games or are 'best 22' after several years at the club. In those years, the club recruited 'experienced' players from other clubs /VFL in the belief we were close to 'being in contention' for a flag, The old 'money ball' approach (or a low key version of what Clarkson has done at Hawthorn). However, does taking the 'experienced' path also say the coaches and the club weren't prepared to invest the time and resources to teach and develop 'kids' we did recruit? Anyway, it is very sad to see 3 - 4 years (2015 - 2019) of recruiting 2nd and 3rd round draftees not amount to much. Kozzie, TJ and Rivers haven't played enough games to be selected this year so we can look fwd to them (hopefully) being in the squad next year.

Thank you. I (like many fans) am not on twitter. My thinking is he deserves an article/headline on the website (with maybe a press release to the media) just to celebrate his milestone rather than having to read every article/see every video to hear the news. Not sure how many fans would know to go looking for it, if they don't know it is a special game.

Still no article on club website to announce his 100th milestone. Feel he deserves the recognition especially for the season he has had.

Longmire's strategy was simple: defend when playing against the wind (flood the d50, force fwds wide) and attack when with the wind. Its a typical strategy for any windy day/oval not necessarily Gazaly. We have played in Hobart enough to know that is a basic strategy. While its true we hadn't been able to train on the oval beforehand, a bit of googling would highlight it was going to be windy. Certainly knowing the conditions beforehand may have helped our goal kicking but it looked like we didn't have a 'windy day' strategy re when to defend/attack and paid the price by letting Syd get 5 unanswered goals in the 2nd qtr when they had the wind.

Don't listen to the coodabeens video then od. And don't listen to any coach or player interviews. I'll just say that the 'L' word grates on me too.

Learnings, even if we're losing. Learning is what we play for. Learning to handball, learning to kick straight. Like at auskick we're learning... That is so painful to listen to. We know other fans see us as 'losers' and media just make 'noise' but gee that cut pretty close to the bone. Someone should make Goodwin listen to it to realise how empty and trite his press conf are. No-one is fooled by his 'learnings' narrative; it is long past its used by date.

True, but I didn't get the impression there is much action behind the words. I heard no words or actions that showed a will to win. I shook my head when he kept saying we 'understand' what happened in the Sydney game. There was no reference that we have taken corrective action (he doesn't need to say what it is). Sure he said we have 'planned for' the Freo game; words which scare me given that so many times this year he or senior players have said those words after the game then excused the loss with words like 'the opp played differently to what we expected or we didn't adjust etc'. Great planning, not! Words are just words and tbh I don't want to hear the same hollow words anymore.

That is the impression I had from Goodwin's interview yesterday and from the selections. Worrying.

Anyone else get the impression from Goodwin yesterday that the club doesn't think it will play finals? Three things I noticed: 1. He started talking of the condensed fixture, travel, Alice, late arrival at Gazaly and conditions. It was like excuses are in the pipeline. 2. When asked about focusing at this intense time he talked about the opportunity for the club to grow, to develop, to continue to evolve, to be consistent and that is our aim. Lots of teams vying for finals and we want to use it as an opportunity to get better. No sense of expectation to play in finals. Hardly filled me with confidence. 3. When asked about the list he talked 'this year is about building ourselves up' and play in some games that will define us 'whether we play finals or not' 4. Selections. Have very little confidence in a win tonight.

The changes look ok on paper. Other than Sam I doubt if the rest of the fwds have kicked many more than a dozen goals between them. Neal-Bullen, Weideman, vandenBerg, Pickett, Fritsch, Melksham, Bedford, Preuss?? That is not an AFL fwd line. It isn't even a VFL fwd line. I know they may not line up that way but other than Petracca our mids don't kick goals either. Its good to see some speed but who is going to kick the goals.

Great post. Agree on every point. I looked on in awe at how Geelong were managing their players while watching us [censored] f.l.o.g ours. That most of our players are young and not yet 'AFL game hardened' was reason enough to manage their games/time. The number of our best/core players (all 4 top defenders, Weideman, Langdon, Gawn and various midfielders) playing over 90% game time in frequent games with little recovery time is gobbsmacking. Its no wonder we couldn't stick tackles vs Swans. iirc, in July Burgess said he had to calm the players and explain how they could cope with a condensed fixture and a 'no resting' policy. I feel the club has let them down and I wouldn't blame our players for being rather p....d off about it. I hope Goodwin and co don't ramp up the talk of condensed fixture, travel, conditions, arriving late at grounds etc etc. as excuses if we don't make finals. Such talk treats us like fools. We know they had a chance to manage it and didn't take it.