Earl Hood

Another soft free in front of goal to Meek. Just let the 200 plus cm rucks go for it FFS!

Soft free to give Hawks the last goal I thought. Port’s ball handling has been something to behold. It’s frenetic ball movement but it just keeps coming off for them, and their system means there are team mates always nearby to receive, unlike us. They are making the Hawks look like a bit like us. I suspect Mitchell will make a few changes and the Hawks will give it a big crack in the second half.

He has in the past but tonight he hasn’t.

Viney has actually been doing something!

Pickett!! But that the level of mecurial talent we need to conjure a goal. That’s the worry.

Pies vs Swans. Ball movement from both sides seems to be at a level above anything we could even dream about, so far anyway. Yeah plenty of player mistakes and skill errors but neither side stops the relentless, high risk ball movement. We just do not operate in this space.

Amazing to see Danger running riot at 35 while we have a couple of “so called” stars who are cooked mentally if not physically in their late 20’s!

He had a very good record at Norward I think. He’s not the problem.

Going in very short up forward in selection is just flagging early to the Bombers that our game plan will be to kick it from longer and even higher into the F50 at every opportunity than previous weeks! I think Goodwin will be putting a big emphasis on hang time.

You can’t see the full picture on TV frustratingly, but when looking at our centre clearance battles on TV this season we are often seeing a contest for the ball, often with all 3 of our mids getting drawn inside and belatedly the ball comes out to an opposition receiver hovering on the outside, who then takes off. MIA are our wingers and half backs running by as outside receivers. Where are they, what are their instructions?

Couldn’t agree more. We have had a fixation on a gun key forward to fix a 4 year old festering forward deficiency. It’s part personal but very much more about system or lack there of. Would love Hogan up front again but he would struggle in our forward line being double, triple teamed by opposition backs who know exactly where we are going to kick the ball. If we do have a coherent game plan, the players don’t appear to understand what it is or how to implement it. However if you take a glass half full viewpoint, although for 4 games our game style has looked disjointed and basically a shambles going forward, we have generated more I50’s in 3 matches than our opponents but with a losing scoring efficiency of 20%or less (goals to entries). Now if you watch the replays, and freeze frame many of our F50 entries you will often see our ball carrier about to roost the ball deep while 2 or more Demons are running free inside F50 or adjacent running in the corridor! The problem is the ball carrier, and so often it is Viney, Oliver, Tracc & Gawn, refusing to look for the shorter options, game after game, after game! And the coach tolerates this? It’s a problem but there is a fairly obvious solution to at least make us more competitive and unfortunately part of the solution is Viney has to go out or to another role. Why is this so hard for players and coaches?

I was thinking maybe a series of match simulations, get rid of the footy boots. Oliver, Viney, Tracc to be in bare feet. The other players in soft runners. Choose a hardish ball to discourage anyone wanting to kick it with bare feet. Then do repeated centre ball up set plays with our barefoot A midfield team vs our barefoot midfield B team. OK its left field, risky and really just a thought provoker but how else do you make our midfield change their ingrained behaviour to get ball, kick ball?

I think Viney has to go as a mainstay of the midfield. He has been a great warrior for us but the game has evolved and he hasn’t, either because he can’t or he won’t. I find it difficult to understand how a footballer at the elite level hasn’t got the peripheral vision and poise to pick out targets around them. I know not every mid can have the vision of a Pendlebury but surely you can try. And that’s the worry for me, that Viney doesn’t even try and fail but continues to just blindly throw it on his left boot to nobody in particular. It’s been an issue for some time. I still have flashbacks of that last dumped kick against Carlton with 30 seconds to go, straight to Walsh? while Tracc was running loose on his inside calling for the handball and us going out in straight sets in 2023. Can he play the defensive small forward role with brief stints on the ball? I believe he deserves the chance.

The main culprits are Viney, Oliver and to a lesser extent Tracc. They constantly burn team mates in better positions forward and on the inside. The fact we look like rubbish but yet are getting ample inside 50’s for an average 10% success rate indicates there is a solution to get us competitive again. I can’t believe the coach has tolerated this for so long. Viney, Oliver and Gawn should be drilled to handball at all costs and only kick as a last resort. Of course that means you need a system that ensures there are always receivers on the outside but that seems to be beyond us.

Free agent I believe.

Yes I was watching it live and was perplexed as to how someone at the elite level could be so one sided. It was as if he had a hand injury on his right. He seemed reluctant to hit through the ball with his hand, very little power on that side.

I agree but I did think coughing up picks 14, 27, 35 to get pick 11 and Tholstrup was just a little too cute. I assumed it was Lamb making those calls and negating Jason Taylor’s ability to identify talent in those second & third rounds of the draft. Given where the game was headed in 2023 it was obvious that we needed more leg speed and kicking skills on the list. Handing over our future first, 28,40,46, 54,65 for pick 9 to get XL last year is seeking quality over quantity. It will take a few seasons to evaluate the cost-benefit of this strategy. But that future first to Essendon (given we might end up on the ladder) could turn out to be extremely embarrassing for the club no matter how good a player XL becomes.

“players don’t know where their teammates are…” This is the most damning observation in today’s footy and an indictment on the coaching staff. All the best teams are playing in a system where they instinctively know where their team mates will be most of the time. In a tight scrimmage they know there will be receivers on the outside. We just don’t appear to have any system.

How do you lose the ability to tackle?

We are really struggling for skills, game plan, can’t stick a tackle but what we don’t need is to be battling the umpires as well as Geelong! That not 15 call on Kossie was ridiculous. And you cannot touch Danger or Cameron without a fricking whistle blowing! It’s doing my head in.

This is reminding me of the old Neeld days. The players don’t know what to do.

Another red time goal! Every fricking game.

Yep Viney for me. I just think the game has passed him by unless he can reinvent himself as a defensive forward maybe. The modern game is about ball speed and movement not the repeated stoppage game we perfected in 2021, where Viney once thrived. I think Vines is the one to go.

I was at 186! Never fully recovered. Never have nor ever will, visit the site of the massacre again.

I was listening to SEN this evening in the car and they had the Champion Data guru on. He was talking about the work they have done to build up 7 years of data on ball speed, which clubs are the quickest and the slowest etc. Brisbane last year took ball speed to a new level and many sides are trying to match them this year. What interested me was that he said Brisbane’s ball speed required multiple players who were elite kicks and many sides generating speed this year don’t have them so it’s not working, e.g. Carlton. He did mention that Collingwood in 2023 generated speed by handball not by foot. He believed McCrae recognised that he did not have the kicking ability so instead developed a game plan built around immediate forward handball to break lines, rather than a succession of short accurate kicking. Is that what the Dees game plan should be to generate ball speed?