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why don’t you just be a realist about the situation and mentally ignore it?
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Feels like a wasted season, seemingly regressing from last year, but the difference in attitude after the Carlton game gives me hope that we have really turned it around at last
Especially around playing the kids, they just refused to give young guys games at the start of the season, and then we chucked a stack of them in for the Geelong game and look what happened. Now we’ve finished the season seeing real genuine improvement from the youth, not just a flash of potential but players clearly ready to stand up next year, Francis Langford Parish Redman Ridley Guelfi.
I’d lost all faith in this club after the Carlton loss but they’ve brought me right back and I couldn’t be more excited for next season
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I dont think we blew an opportunity this season in missing the finals like the media experts have you believe.
I’m not confident at all we would have won a final at the MCG whoever we played and thus it would have made the gorilla on our players backs even bigger and scarred them even more imo.
Next season is the one, work on the game plan over the off season to allow us to score freely at the MCG, natural improvement front the young guys, maybe a gun trade in and we’re up and going.
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I want to see how Brown, Daniher, Jakey, Tippa & Fanta go together in our forward half next year but I can’t wait that long. Can someone do a computer simulation or maybe Doe can do a mock up with the 5 of them just standing in the goal square.
If they can all get fit they could be awesome. Brown is a real chance to be a late bloomer as he’s got a riewoldt like tank & he can kick straight.
wasted year for mine, mostly because why did it take til carlton to realise neeld is ■■■■■.
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If Daniher is back Brown will have very little focus on him too
Before tonight’s game we were $15 with Ladbrokes to win the flag in 2019. Now we’re $10
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No place for Smack?
Because we’re in great form.
Really terrible that we missed out on finals but I don’t think it’s a wasted year.
We have got ourselves into some great form, have learned how to win interstate, the boys are playing like a cohesive unit. And we still have a number of injured players to come back in.
Imagine Daniher and Fantasia if they get a full preseason.
Imagine adding Shiel into the midfield.
Lid is off already for 2019.
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2018 pluses and minuses. A bit of a mixed season.
Plusses
- despite a much harder draw playing 3 top 4 teams plus ninth twice, we finished on the same number of wins as 2017 and a similar percentage.
- we won interstate 5 times.
- we tightened our defence
- all 3 players traded in played well
- our midfield improved
- our defence improved
- our injury run was reasonably good. Not too many injuries in 2018, although not the dream run we had in 2017.
- some of the youngsters either established themselves in the team in new roles (Langford, McGrath, Guelfi, Parish) or showed some really promising signs (Francis, Redman, Ridley).
- We showed a fantastic level of depth in tall forwards and small/medium defenders
Minuses
- we played the top 4 teams seven times and won once.
- we lost most games at the MCG
- we lost to Freo, Bulldogs and Carlton
- the forward line went backwards
- we were exposed for lack of depth in small forwards
- the saga players 2017 faults didn’t disappear
- the injuries we did have included two critical ones in JD and Raz. Legitimate questions can be asked about our management of both players.
- we were incredibly unlucky with in game injuries
- arguably other teams worked us out a bit
- still questions on the coaches, including selections and tactics
I think there are some real concerns over whether the team is good enough to push for top 4. Our midfield depth wasn’t particularly tested.
So much will depend on how the youngsters develop and the draft/trade period. I don’t think it is a fait accompli that we will improve next year.
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Just ran into the boys as they were going into a nightclub in Adelaide
Love that they are out as a group
Hep, String, Zaka (two young ladies all over him) , Leuy, and all the young boys in tow.
Bring on 2019 and our team spirit
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Can we please keep our foot down on kents next year. I’d love to know how many 6-8 goal leads we allow to get whitled down to a kick or so. Not sure why but we tend to lose focus or go away from what we are doing successfully. The positive is that when challenged at several points like tonight we have found something extra. That’s something I haven’t seen from us in a while.
1 or 2 gun midfielders and a decent pre season should hopefully have us in finals and then hopefully exorcise the finals demons
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Finished the year strong. Feel like every kid that showed something, could of had another 3-4 games into this year, which is kind of a miss.
Concerned about our squad depth in 2019, couple of injuries in 2018 really exposed us, not to mention any good players that turn over? We are light in KPP + ruck, we can’t put teams away.
I still have the season as a fail, but a medium pass on player development.
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That performance hopefully good enough for gaff or Shiel to think we are a good destination.
Yes Daniher will help us. But against the best teams our midfield still struggled a bit. Add a gaff or Shiel and hopefully we have less off days.
Time for Dodoro to get to work.
Expectations top 4 next year.
I don’t really feel that it makes sense to grade the season as a pass or a fail. Every season that we don’t win the flag is really a failure, and we certainly didn’t win it this year.
The season was really in two parts for us: the first eight games and the last 15. We effectively put ourselves out of the finals in the first part, losing all but a couple of them and generally playing slack, lazy football. If we had continued like that then it would have been time to sack all the coaches and half the players.
But the second part was vastly better. We played far more intense football and beat many good teams, with the interstate wins being truly impressive. Those games were well and truly worthy of a finals team.
But not a premiership team. To win a premiership a team needs to play very high intensity football for 80% plus of every game, as well as having players who can capitalise on it. We played high pressure football for about 60% of each game. That’s why we lost to the top teams, who played with that high intensity for much more of the game. It’s also why we didn’t win by large margins and why teams that we had blown away for most of a quarter would come back and score a string of goals against us.
I feel good going into summer. The players now know what they have to do: they have to build on what they’ve done and lift that 60% intermittent pressure into 80-90% almost constant pressure. I’m optimistic that they’ll do that. Individual players have to get fitter. Stringer and Francis are on that list and again I’m fairly optimistic; it’s amazing what the feeling that a team is going places can do to an individual’s motivation. Skills have to be improved, especially kicking for goal: we have games like last night’s where virtually every shot sails through the middle, but we have many others where experienced players who kick beautifully around the ground completely lose their technique in front of goal.
We should have Joe Daniher back next year, hopefully for a full season. McKernan was an excellent replacement for him when he went out of the team but then he too went down and he should be back. I really hope that Fantasia can get on top of his hamstring problems; he missed a lot of games this year and the forward line is hugely more potent with him in it. Brown really stepped up, as did Langford, who hopefully can get even better. Myers had his best run of games but he’s one who really needs to improve his technique on set shots. Francis showed us that he has got what it takes to be a star, but he needs more fitness to put himself into the Rance class. Stringer makes things happen, but he too needs more fitness to show what he’s really capable of. We got ourselves a couple of real winners with Smith and Saad, and Baguley revitalised the forwards when he went there and showed them what pressure was. Heppell really led from the front; I think it was his apology to the young players after the Carlton loss and his own great lift in effort that turned our season around.
Our current best 22 is pretty good. A big, strong, inside midfield warrior would make it better. But the real key to real success — ie a premiership — next season is lifting our fitness and our consistency so that we play full-pressure football for virtually all of every game.
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This for me is the biggest positive - it is nice to play well at the tail end of the season for a change in at least a decade, if not more.
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THIS.
It’ll mean we can start the season playing the way we should be playing, rather than trying to work out how we are meant to play.
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Right im a hybrid of the both.
1st the clapper side. The prospect of putting a full fit JD, Raz and Gleeson into that side and the rumours of who we are looking at in the off season and im getting alittle stiff down stairs.
Now the gloomer, thats the same ■■■■ we’ve been saying for 16 years
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