The old hard tough footballer is just that....a thing of the past. The game has changed to the point where you can't just run through players, bump or swing them in tackles.
Even as recently as a player like Voss. He'd spend most of the year suspended under to-days rules. Toughness these days is players like Cripps dragging his team along with him, or Petracca's efforts against us in the last quarter of the game against Melbourne earlier in the year.
Toughness today is all about pressure and pushing yourself to the limits. We haven't been a tough side this year. Injuries and players playing injured have restricted our ability to apply that pressure.
But we were a tough side last year, until we ran out of steam at the end. We have the capability to get back to that type of football...but an additional few 'toughies' wouldn't hurt.
we don't need to be harder we need to be ruthless.
We don't put sides to the sword. We need to do that and punishment teams each and every time (like we did to geelong). Hawthorn were ruthless against us. They smelled blood and used it as an opportunity to jump us on the ladder killing our percentage whilst boosting theirs. Put our hmwhole season in jeopardy and scored them a "home final" in week one. Our boys would have gotten the coleman to a chosen player then put the queue in the rack and won by 40 points (if we won at all). We attack the contest but not the opposition player in the contest. Other teams are ruthless in the contest if they can be. Won't hesitate to hurt us legally by going right through us. I've seen very few of our boys do that and we just do enough.
Thing is that extends to list management. We've carried marchbank since what 2015? Cunners too? Sure it's all about what else is out there and cunners and marchy are talented but we can rehab players in the vfl and drop them off the list. Unlucky for some.
Then coaching. Good players lairise without repercussions. Only the kids get dropped for no reason.
Ruthless. No. In that regards we are perceived to be a bit soft, but we are not what we used to be in that regard. Once upon a time you hit us physically and we'd fold. Now we don't fold.
Charlie did his ankle before the Giants game, rumours he stepped in a hole in the ground where the sprinklers are. In the same game TDK, Weitering and McGovern were also injured. At the same time we were getting ahead of ourselves messing with a midfield that was working.
can't disagree with that.
Also dropping young when he had filled a hole and playing ok was a mistake.
That's the stuff that wrecked our season. We kept rushing players back. We get one good run out from a player returning from injury and then they gradually taper off. Sure they need match fitness but not everyone needs to come in via the afl.
Yep Reading around there are quite a few clubs interested. Personally I'd rather keep him But the club may be looking at his age compared to Motlop and Durdin and choose to move him on. I think his value might not be in a swap for a pick ...but rather bundled with a pick for a player of need.
I like owies but he's no Eddie betts. I know once bitten twice shy, but his 2023 was actually better than his 2024. Kicked 27 goals off 18 games rather than 33 off 23.
Realistically you wouldn't vote for Trump over Harris on trumps track record. All she has to do is play everything with a straight bat and she'll win u less the people in America are really dumb.
I think generics of small forward roles is a problem.
If you look at how each player covers the ground it tells a different story.
Motlop for example spent 90% of his time in defensive half and 10% forward half so you can blame him for not being able to crumb, but not when he wasn't there.
Durdin by contrast spent 100% of his time forward half. So he would have struggled with the ball getting to his end of the ground same as the key forwards. In marking contests was he trying to get to the feet? Out the back? Stretching the opposition defense? None of that really. Maybe just a decoy everyone ignored.
Fantasia spent his role 40% in defensive half and 60% forward.
To me this is more an example of their individual work rate and why putting them in the same boat isn't fair.
This is according to the heat maps. So what happened?
Was motlop burning his chips defensively and not working offensively? Did motlop follow his man back too much?
Was durdin moonlighting as a full forward? Or was he stuck forward with the others (not sure where he was for our 56 forward entries but thats a different story.
Was fantasia working up and down or used as a bit of a spare parts man?
All in all our MC failed in one respect. Without owies there Kennedy should have played his role. Owies isn't quick, Kennedy is a better mark and probably our third best finisher if not fourth.
Yep That's an example where stats tell only half a story. The ball went in and came straight back out. They controlled the air and delivery inside 50 was poor. On the ground it broke down around half-forward so a lot of those entries were shallow and they were able to mount attacks.
A lot of that is not due to anything other than a lack of defensive pressure in the forward line and that's why the scoreline ended up 60-0
which is where the small forwards cop a bit of grief.
It's one thing to say it didn't get down there but it popped out way too easily and a lot of them were unsighted for too long.
I'm sorry... I just cant see it. Do folks really think the addition of Binns, Lord and Moir would have made a difference to that start? We were being thrashed in the midfield. Our 'elite' midfielders were getting soundly beaten. Would our youngsters like Binns and Lord fared better than a Cripps, Walsh, Hewett Our pressure and attack on the ball and opposition players was miles off...from our better players.
The only change that would possibly have made a bit of difference was if we'd had DeKoning starting earlier. Our maligned small forwards were ineffectual because the ball didn't get down there until just before half-time
Binns, Lord and Moir were in the games against West Coast (where we just fell over the line) and St Kilda (where we just didn't) So how can it possibly be argued they'd have made a difference in a finals match against Brisbane in Brisbane. They would probably have struggled to match their efforts of the preceeding weeks and we'd have been criticised for throwing them to the wolves.
The argument was.... we had a few returning experienced players who we could mix them in with, A mix of youth and experienced returning players....as long as they're all fit, was the best selection according to popular theory.
Who? The two returnees who had most impact were McKay (9 touches) and DeKoning (deemed "not guaranteed to play an entire game".) We got seduced and excited about a few kids. It was good experience for them to play the last couple of games They look like being solid players. A bit of finals experience may have been good, but that would be the reason to pick them....not because they were ever going to make a difference.
We lost it because the injuries left too many of our players short of a gallop. And our pressure was miles off our best.
yes but in the first half we went inside fifty 24 times according to the stats. It came straight out. That's who we kicked it to and the forwards not getting busy enough.
We suffered as much from a lack of belief as anything else. Brisbane could be supremely confident and played like it. They got the perfect start with a speculative shot coming off for a goal too. That kick by rayner had no business going in but it did. The ball bounced their way early a few times.
On the flipside we made a few uncharacteristic errors at our strongest parts. Very deflating when your a graders who need to fire make some errors. Weitering out on the full (wind a factor) cripps and Walsh turning it over.
The boys lacked belief and it showed. When the game slipped away from us, it was amazing to see the pressure go off the shoulders and the lift in output from some.
The weight of expectation and the dent in confidence can perhaps explain things a lot. We point back to the gws game but that game cooked our season multiple ways. Not just injury I reckon it hurt belief which is what our boys struggle with the most.
Guys here is a statistic for you. The average afl career lasts 12 games.
12 games. Half a season.
We are asking players who have had significant set backs amd kids who have minimal strength and conditioning to come in a hot final and perform against a team that lost the grand final last year. You can carry a few in that category but the weight of numbers who we've been carrying week by week has grown for the last 10 weeks.
Why pick the senior guys instead of the kids? Because next week if lightning had struck and we won the elder players with match fitness would give us more than the kids (durdin or motlop would have been replaced by owies as a hypothetical).
That's why the kids didn't play. You could ruin their confidence by a baptism of fire and there was another game to experience.
Has our club been the picture of consistency over the journey? I'd say not. You know who has? Sydney, Brisbane, hawthorn, Geelong, Port Adelaide, Western bulldogs and to a degree you can say that about gws who still boast plenty of foundation players.
Maybe the lesson is off field impacts on field more than we think.
How important is it to have your VFL side playing into September. There were no proper match practice opportunities to our long list of returning players, a number who would have been able to have a run during the bye.
Also, if there were doubts about TDK over 120 minutes, why not start off with him, see how far he can go, then bring Pitt on when the game has slowed done??
I'd like to think that we were looking to next week with that one. The plan would have been to keep in contact and restrict scoring and then bring tom on to swing the game not pushing him too hard so we could get him to back up next week. When we got hammered early that prompted a swing of the deck chairs on the titanic.
