Ted Lasso

I'd say that Petracca was pretty selfless against Fremantle when despite feeling like S@#$ he still took the field, granted it was clearly misguided but i don't think it's fair to suggest the selfish tendancies are back, the wheels aren't off, we just need to re-set and we will be fine. Honestly i don't know if it's MFCSS but if we all got offered at the start of the year to be 10-2 and a game clear on top of the ladder at the conclusion of round 12, at the start of the year, i'd suggest all supporters would take it and be thrilled. Potentially it's us fans who bought into the rubbish about us going undefeated who are a little bit sour with the reality check and need to remember how young this group is, we will be down in patches, but we know our best is the best and all that really matters is that come finals we're playing our best footy.

This is a terrific post, and i know for a fact we adopted a similar plan and had a drop off in performance at exactly the same stage last season, and it allowed us to absolutely peak when we needed to. This is something we've only as recently as the last 2 seasons started doing, we balance our pre season out with a lot more skills and game plan focus and work more carefully with in season training loads to try and absolutely maximize our conditioning advantage.

It's definitely high time for the leaders of the club to step up, stop the bleeding and get us back on track. we've had 2 flat weeks due to injury and poor form after a 10-0 start to the week and suddenly all the wheels are falling off. Queens birthday we need a statement win and nothing less. go into the bye with some momentum and the league getting a firm reminder that the MFC is still the team to beat.

Given he's been our mr fix it, i see the only logical option as playing Angus Brayshaw as our towering key forward.

Oh i completely agree. he's as out of form as a player really can be. Sam Weideman really has a massive opportunity if he can find his best form

Last year at a similar time we went into a heavy training phase, and our form dipped along with it, due to increased fatigue from the players. What i know about Selwyn Griffiths program which is admittedly very little, is that it's quite running heavy and designed to help us run teams off their feet heading into finals, similar to last year, I suspect something similar is happening and why our form has dipped slightly, combined with unavailability and injury to key players. I think this is also the cause for our reversion to Bomb it long and hope for the best demons. the coaches would never admit this publicly i don't think

i'm sure a component of Browns form is him not getting to the right spots, as well as a really poor forward structure, as well as diabolically kicks inside 50 we seem to have reverted back to the bomb it long and hope Max or Fritsch takes a screamer.

i don't personally remember a single occasion of Brown being outmarked one out, i may be wrong, but from memory the McCartins took a lot of marks in pack scenarios where blocks were provided, I think those situations speak a lot more to poor forward structure than anything else.

I would suggest really strongly that the number 1 KPI for key forwards in a team like ours is to simply not get outmarked, and the stats you've supplied really show that the other stuff is pretty close between the two, so it's a fairly easy decision to persist with the forward who doesn't get outmarked, and clearly has upside as his form returns.

The biggest difference for me LN is that even with Brown this out of form he doesn't appear to get outmarked nearly as often as SW does, which is a huge concern for him. I suspect if we're going to win the flag we will need one, but probably both of them to find some serious form heading into finals

I hope the club considers bringing in an external person like Jonothan Brown as a consultant to work with the forwards on their forward craft and spacing, it's a mess down there at the moment.

I think our defense is our strength, we can find another target but it'd pointless if we compromise that.

I have a controversial call, Tommlinson to CHF, in his underage years i rated him as a forward, due to his endurance running, i think he could play the Tmac role. I'd like to see Hibbo back in as well for another experienced head. Outs probably Mitch Brown and while he's stiff, Jayden Hunt

Being outworked all over the ground, not sure if the Swans can maintain that sort of effort. geez we are struggling to organise without May back there

Tommlinson is not an AFL standard defender. he's making a very average player look like Wayne Carey

Hearing Tommy macs injury could be worse than first though, anyone able to confirm?

Interestingly i just realized the other day that i am actually very close to my 10 year anniversary on Demonland, which is pretty incredible, means i've spent most of my adult life on here! Werridee couldn't possibly be older than 18, love their work though.

the thing with the dogs, and to an extent Richmond as well is they probably don't need to make top 4 to make a serious run at the flag. Last year the Dogs finished outside the top 4 and ended up 19 points up in the 3rd quarter of the Grand final, which may have been enough against lesser opposition. I'm certainly not counting them out as a threat if they can sneak into the 8 but it's certainly Much much harder, I think for us it's nice we will actually see our true top 4 advantage given we potentially would play 3 finals in a row at the G if we manage to win the qualifying final which would make us really tough to beat for just about anyone.

Tonights game will tell us a lot about where the Dogs are in 2022, if they beat the Cats i think it's fair to consider them a finals threat, if they don't maybe not

The painful thing is you can't even leave Weid in the side to see if he will build confidence because he just seems to get outmarked entirely too often. I rate Weid on talent but he's just not doing enough at AFL level at this stage, i suspect by the end of the season Rooey could have overtaken him as well.

Hahahaha what world do you live in? the AFL makes no secret about the fact they only care about money. there is a huge Tribunal bias towards star players compared to lesser known.. what do you think the difference is if not bums on seats?

Let me make it simple for you, all the AFL cares about is $$$$$$ and their integrity is 000000 a top of the table clash between Melbourne and Sydney makes them more $$$$$ if as many of the best players possible, are playing. the integrity of the incident and what the punishment should be, do no matter to the AFL.

Did Gary Pert run over your cat? I'd say his performance as CEO and the state the club is in, and the direction for the future is fairly self evident to anyone that isn't harboring some sort of deep personal bias against him.

Massive chance he gets off. the AFL would want Buddy playing in a blockbuster Sydney vs Melbourne game. he will be playing.

What i found interesting was Petracca wasn't right, Sparrow was struggling, getting smacked out of the middle but we didn't try Brayshaw in there at all really speaks to the value placed on the role he's playing down back. In terms of the game more broadly, and injured May and Petty makes things hard. we've never been a dominant 4 quarter team, our strengths have been defending opposition momentum and capitalising on our own. with those injuries our ability to restrict the dockers momentum was almost zero. Hats off to the dockers for being able to expose it, but at the same time we should be very confident of making it 1 all when we play them in round 20