Lucifers Hero

@Ghostwriter Is @ghost who walks your alter ego 😁? I do say there are some subtle but uncanny similarities in writing styles, humour etc ... 😁 No voodoo dolls please!

Yes, I said we didn't and still don't have the right players. Yet we didn't learn from that WCE experience. At least WCE brought in coaches to help, We didn't. Longmire brought in someone who was able to develop a system to suit their list.. We could have learnt from both and maybe tried something that had a better chance of working with what we have. We could have recruited an assistant coach that had the relevant experience.

Agreed. Simpson said they liked how Port attacked so got Port folk in but their attempts at a system change still failed as they didn't have the right players. Longmire on the other hand got the attacking Don Pyke to 'balance his own defensive' leanings (paraphrasing) and they went on to play in GF, albeit it they wilted badly when they got there.. Who did Goodwin get to help implement a new system and 'balance his own defensive' leaning? No one! And we didn't learn from WCE of a new system without the players needed to execute it. And really if we look at the CV of our assistant coaches they are rather Meh! Haven't looked too closely at the assistants at other clubs but reckon ours, collectively would be close to the worst in the league in terms of variety of experience and directing change. No wonder we are where we are.

I get that fwds haven't been performing but each week we've had at least 2 fwd changes sometimes to players who appear to be in form. It was a bad look last week when only one tall fwd was selected and he was also to ruck then at half time Goodwin said Petty was moving fwd as we needed the aerial presence, something that was obvious at selection. So coaches need to share the responsibility for our fwd line not performing. My main point was the 'revolving door' of fwds isn't helping The New Plan. I'd prefer we select a fwd 7 and stick to them (except for injuries) and persevere until it clicks. It couldn't have been any worse.

I'm glad Goodwin is sticking to The New Plan. It is often said for a team to click (gain cohesion) they need to play together, play together, play together. The fwd 7 players are a revolving door! How can that possibly help executing The New Plan.

tbh, I prefer Fritsch played a full game at Casey to gain a bit of confidence and show form. Very difficult to earn a spot back in half game. As to your question: who knows with selections! It looks random to me with the fwds being a revolving door without apparent rhyme nor reason. Fritsch has his best two weeks in a while and gets dropped! Go figure! btw, I didn't like the heat put on him for the babe-in-arms gesture after his goal last week. I loved it; a nice touch to honour his little one. It is no different than a player kissing their black arm band or pointing to the sky after a goal to honour someone who has passed away.

I calc the average cost to be $190 so the drop in revenue is close to $1.875 ml. On a slightly brighter not, to offset that, the club might make special membership offers to help. And ANZAC and KB being Home games will also help offset the lost membership revenue. It is next year that the $ pain will be felt!

Sadly, I can't see any obvious succession planning to Gawn/Viney. Lets not forget Viney has many years left on his contract. Lever is forever injured and who knows what happens with Trac. tbh I'm disappointed the likes of Rivers, Chandler, Langdon haven't been developed enough that at least one of them joined the leadership group.

That is an interesting point. Not sure showing leadership is auditioning for the captaincy. Would Max give it up? My take is Trac realises someone has to stand up now to salvage what we can from this train crash season but knows our leaders aren't able to atm, be it injury, form, family issues etc. Trac has shown a bit of maturity recently so I look forward to what extra mile he goes to help the team. Cometh the hour, cometh the man!

At this point our dear @Ghostwriter is tearing her hair out, has the voodoo dolls out for you and trying not to 🤮

Thanks for the insight. My thoughts are, in the first round we had 3 tall fwds and their work was quite good. Since then we haven't had three and they've been changed every week. So no consistency or understanding among the fwds. Last week we had one tall fwd who also rucked. Reckon it is pretty difficult to follow training if the players who trained together aren't there.

Fair point. iirc, Gawn was on the bench or somewhere else, May was at the other end of the ground and Lever didn't play.. At half time Goodwin said Petty was moving fwd as we needed some aerial presence. I thought: No Sh---ttt Sherlock! Shame they didn't think of that at selections. Having another tall fwd wouldn't have won us the game but it probably would have helped the score and better value for our 50+ i5-'s.

I agree, it would help if we had tall fwds to mark and if they had leading patterns predictable to the mids On Saturday we had the farcical situation of Spargo and Kozzie trying to contest against two tall defenders. That is on the selection committee.

I agree it wasn't another string not a new bow. The context of the Lewis comment was Yze added another way to move the ball out of CB clearances. Implemented beautifully in the 3rd qtr of the 2021 GF. Somehow we have lost that string that Yze added.

Brett Ratten anyone? Unceremoniously dumpled by Carlton and Saints before he had a chance to deliver on what he was building. Sat in for Clarkson when he took LOA. Currently Head of Coaching Performance & Development at Hawthorn.

Th first part is what Lewis described Yze brought to the club. Goodwin may not be saying ignore that option at all but he may be training/playing for territory in the front half.

Thanks for the link. Interesting reading. From the article, this caught my eye: "... minimal contact between coach Simon Goodwin and Petracca’s parents since his injury, but Goodwin had spoken with them in the past month". Wondering if it coincidence that Petracca has pulled out of the AFL investigation and strongly committed to the club now that Goodwin started mending fences? I'm bogsmacked that someone who preaches unity, love etc has let this go for so long. I think we will see the Trac of old now that burden lifted and he has put that chapter behind him. I applaud him for the maturity to get to this point.

I was impressed the Yze example. A big reason for our 2021 success. Buckley also said it looks a coaching instruction to kick it long to i50 from a clearance. That makes sense as not all players would bomb it long all the time! If so its no surprise players are confused: do they 'use the space' and HB ala Yze methond or do they kick long i50. Jones, Radford and Goodwin need get their message clear. It is no wonder we scored 1 pt from 16 clearances on Saturday

Not a fan as our coach. He is very protective of the players but doesn't seem a team player. He has burnt a variety of FD staff. He wants to be The Boss and gets sooky when he doesn't get his way. We need a unifying person and someone who can consult and negotiate in a new mfc team and imv that isn't Bevo.

Should have realised it was an 'emogi typo' as I've never seen you react or comment negatively to any posts. Thanks 😊

@DeeZone I greatly value your opinions so wondering what shocked you about my post. Cheers.

He was a very strong CEO of the Players Cricket Association. Fought a very tough and times acrimonious battle with Cricket Australia over player contracts. I'm guessing he is a no nonsense sought of guy.

I'm glad he is talking to fans. For me the elephant in the room is what happened to the FD review? Are Crowe and Shand doing the mentoring consulting jobs we were promised? So am disappointed there is no update on the review and on which things he listed in a pre Xmas letter have or haven't been implemented. And how further implementation will help us get better That isn't asking for anything confidential. The President commissioned the FD review, it is up to him and the CEO to ensure it is implemented and if it goes off the rails to make sure it gets back on track. To me it looks like the review has gone off the rails and no-one is monitoring its progress. Or was it just a PR exercise to quieten the masses and the media.

I'm ok with the soccer but not if at the expense of 'touching the footy type' training. Undoubtedly, we do skills training but clearly not enough. Maybe keep the soccer, scrap the' train in their own time' stuff and do more touch-the-footy stuff, and do it leisurely but importantly nail every kick and HB as Graham discusses.

Extract from an interview with Jack Graham of WCE, when discussing they have one day less training than at Richmond, because of travel. At Richmond: “But probably when we do have the sessions, you know, we’re touching the footies enough ... The fundamentals, even if it is a low touch session, it’s like all right, boys, we’re not going to be going quick here, but let’s make sure we hit every handball, hit every kick. So it comes back to the little things.” It makes me wonder whether our players having training sessions on their own, away from the club has contributed to our apparent poor skills. Poor skills quickly becomes lower confidence, poor decisions etc. We aren't as bad as we play! Could 'poor skills' be as simple as we aren't touching the footy enough at training?