Match thread. THE GRAND FINAL!!! Swans v Cats.

[Markwebbos]

Yes the midfield group got their backsides handed to them by an aging team that was built and primed for that very game. Geelong got everything right this year. We almost did however I don't believe, unlike Geelong, that at the start of pre-season Longmire and Co were getting together planning on our current young side to be cherry ripe on Grand Final day!

Very good point

[TheBloods]

Yes the midfield group got their backsides handed to them by an aging team that was built and primed for that very game. Geelong got everything right this year. We almost did however I don't believe, unlike Geelong, that at the start of pre-season Longmire and Co were getting together planning on our current young side to be cherry ripe on Grand Final day! Yes they obviously were hopeful and optimistic like all of us, but to be realistic we most definitely overacheived this year!

So really it wasn't a bad effort from our current midfield group to help us become the 2nd best side in the league at this young stage in their development! So why change now, natural improvement will get this group there.

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Well hope they are happy with their not bad effort as we are now trying to come back from a GF humiliation and history shows they take years to come back from . So hope our shot at a flag with a botched midfield was worth it .

[i'm-uninformed2]

Things are never as bad or as good as they seem hey.

I get that Geelong got us on the day, and had the benefits of a tailored plan to get their older stars to perform at their peak on the big day, and a truly unique creature in Blicavs.

But the idea we’ve got a bunch of weak midgets doesn’t stack up either. In the final against Melbourne, our core four of Parker, Mills, Rowbottom and Warner took down Oliver, Pertracca, Brayshaw, Viney and Harmes - hardly a batch of 180cm skinny fleet footers. The Pies mids were Pendles, Crisp, Do Goey etc - again, hardly lightweights.

Of course we’ve got to get better, and I think Sheldrick and hopefully Campbell can grow into midfield roles next year as they’d add a dynamic touch with speed, light feet (which all the best midfielders have), and explosion around the ball. I’m wait and see on Roberts, but hopeful.

But it’s also a nonsense to suggest our core four are broken.

[KTigers]

What we don't have is a Fyfe, Goodes, Cripps type player, 195cm, 100Kg plus, can kick it 60M and is very hard to stop once they are
moving at any kind of pace.

[Kafka's Ghost]

They might not be much , we wont know until we try . All we know is what we have tried hasnt worked so we need to make changes . Madness to say we cant make changes to a midfield group that just got their backsides handed to them !

Hasn’t worked? We made the Grand Final, and after beating last year’s Premiers at their home ground! Worked pretty well until last Saturday, when a team that had planned this assault on the Premiership since last year’s flogging in the PF had all their plans come to fruition. Kudos and congratulations to Geelong, but you can bet Longmire, Pike, Cox, McVeigh and co were planning on incremental improvement back in February, not a possible Premiership so early in the list’s development.
No one is saying we can’t make changes, but you want to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water.


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[Kafka's Ghost]

Yes the midfield group got their backsides handed to them by an aging team that was built and primed for that very game. Geelong got everything right this year. We almost did however I don't believe, unlike Geelong, that at the start of pre-season Longmire and Co were getting together planning on our current young side to be cherry ripe on Grand Final day! Yes they obviously were hopeful and optimistic like all of us, but to be realistic we most definitely overacheived this year!

So really it wasn't a bad effort from our current midfield group to help us become the 2nd best side in the league at this young stage in their development! So why change now, natural improvement will get this group there.

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Apologies, I hadn’t seen you’d posted pretty much the same thing as myself before I jumped the gun, troyjones2525.


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[707]

2021

Preliminary Final

Melbourne 19.11 125 points

Geelong 6.6 42 points

Margin 83 points

Hysteria

[barry]

What we don't have is a Fyfe, Goodes, Cripps type player, 195cm, 100Kg plus, can kick it 60M and is very hard to stop once they are
moving at any kind of pace.

De goey?

[Roadrunner]

Well hope they are happy with their not bad effort as we are now trying to come back from a GF humiliation and history shows they take years to come back from . So hope our shot at a flag with a botched midfield was worth it .

One area you’re forgetting TB is the ruck influence. When big Tom is at his best our midfield is great. They struggle when we’re losing in the ruck, which is understandable and this is what we need to address. Of our 4 key mids, only Parker is experienced- even Mills, as good as he is, hasn’t spent all that much time in midfield as he was used so much down back defending. Rowy and Chad are still babes in this regard. Bringing Gus ( or Roberts) in will only help if he can feed off the opposing rucks and that is a big if at this stage. We need a big bodied Joey type who can block effectively and counter any ruck dominance. Briclav is a great example and he was the difference in the midfield. I would even posit that if he didn’t play, the game would have been different. Not saying we could have won, but the scores would have been closer.

We made 2 tactical mistakes: Paddy should have been on Hawkins, not Tommy, as he has the strength to match, and of course Sammy should not have been selected in the first place. We lost it in the 1st q. and then ran on fumes unfortunately. The boys will learn from this and more so our coaches!

[Dow]

I can't see Clarke being in the team next year. He might not even make the cut this year, despite playing the last third of the season. His inclusion just happened to coincide with our winning streak, which has now come to an end. The defensive forward specialist can be a good role against certain teams, but I don't see it as being a primary spot to be filled.

Of the 2021 + draftees, I think Sheldrick has the best chance of breaking into the senior side, but it's hard to see who he replaces. Both Campbell and Cunningham could easily be ahead in getting back into the seniors, while we should be looking for a spot for Gould, even though none is evident without shuffling a player or 2 out of the defence.

I would rate Hugo Hall-Kahan ahead of Roberts in the queue for who is next in line after Sheldrick, mainly because of his speed and athleticism. HHK, like Roberts, is a skillful player and a good decision maker. HHk looks to be able to handle any outside position, while Roberts could go either inside or outside. I rate Roberts very highly, but it's difficult to put a development timeline on him. He could make up for his deficiencies in one pre-season, or it might take a few, but he should get there in the end.

My thoughts are long a similar line, watching all 3 in the reserves each week they all have something but are very raw and I am not sure one preseason will be enough.

[Roadrunner]

My thoughts are long a similar line, watching all 3 in the reserves each week they all have something but are very raw and I am not sure one preseason will be enough.

I can see HHK at HF instead of Clarke- he is a skilful player and so poses a bigger threat to defenders. Clarke has been good at negating a defender but attacking the scoreboard is the best defence imho. A big pre-season is what he needs.

[barracuda]

I've been thinking carefully about why we lost so badly. The single biggest reason is the fatigue of our players on the day. The coaches during the year had the very tricky job of balancing team performance and ultimate ladder position with the freshness of the team. Unsurprisingly the players in the GF who played out the game well (chad aside) were the players aged in their mid 20s; Fox, Parker, and Clarke. Also Fox and Clarke had only played a portion of the year in seniors and so were peaking. The older players and the younger players were all gassed. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but clearly Mcinerney, Gulden, Buddy, Rampe, Blakey, Tom Mccartin etc all should have been managed during the year. I can only speculate that the coaches felt the ladder position was so finely poised they had to play their best team every week and hope they could hold up to a finals campaign. If this is the case then this was a reasonable decision.

My biggest learning from the year would probably to rest players more, and to include some of the fringe players more. For example I am sure Taylor and Cunningham could have done as well as Mcinerney did in many of the games and could have been rotated through. The other downside of not rotating players was the lack of depth when the injuries and suspensions happened. Reid had to play, Mcinerney was perhaps injured, McLean played after not playing at AFL level for a long time.

Perhaps next year is an opportunity to take a more holistic view of the squad and spread the load a little more despite the risk to the ladder position. As the coach of geelong went to great lengths to say, it takes the full squad to win a flag and they could not have done it without everyone.

[KTigers]

De goey?

So hard to know re some of these allegedly "troubled/difficult" guys when your entire info about them comes from
often very opinionated and hysterical press pieces. Wasn't he put in the naughty room because he went to Bali
during the bye week? Yikes, going to Bali? No Australian has ever done that before. Weren't Plugger and Bazza Hall
meant to be pretty much serial killers before they came to us?
There's this thing called due diligence. Our club does it and mostly they get it right. Either way.

[RogueSwan]

... My biggest learning from the year would probably to rest players more, and to include some of the fringe players more. ...

Which goes against the previous "thinking" of the teams with the most stable line-ups leading into September are generally better performed than those with un-settled lineups. I guess it is different if you are controlling the team list, not injuries.

... Yikes, going to Bali? No Australian has ever done that before...

It wasn't going to Bali that was the issue was it? Wasn't it what he did there?

[Jimitron5000]

A little late joining the wake. We were just beaten up in every aspect of the game by a bigger, stronger team. The way Geelong's midfield made space for Dangerfield was very impressive and this led to numerous targeted inside 50s which are impossible to defend. Fox was terrific, Warner had a good game but sadly that was about it.
I don't think it is worth throwing out worked for us this year, after all we won 18 matches. Refinements on how we play and the introduction of some new players, such as Sheldrick, will help. Our depth wasn't tested really tested this year so getting games into others on the list is important. We could also do with an off-season in the gym.

Our forward line could do with some consideration. It could almost be time for Buddy to do a Richo and move to the wing and give more forward responsibility to McDonald. Heeney, I'm not sure what to think, but I reckon he sustained a bit of damage when Steven May gave him a whack in the game against Melbourne. He hasn't been the same since.