1 top 4 team?? We beat swans, giants, cats, eagles. Also beat Port early when in form as well as Norf when they looked the goods early.
Agree about the top vic teams at MCG.
Hopefully we don’t change the way we play in the off season like it appeared in early 2018 and we can start 2019 well.
Edit: not sure why I’m quoting smj, supposed to be @Ants
The top 4 are currently Richmond, WCE, Collingwood and Hawthorn. The other teams you listed are currently outside the top 4.
So of the best performing teams in 2018 based on the ladder right now we played them 7 times for 1 win. That’s pretty shocking, both from how hard our draw* was and how badly we went against the most in-form teams.
‘* Especially when you consider we also played interstate 6 times.
If you compare how we finished to pre season expectations, it’s a failed year.
If you compare how we finished to expectations after round 7… It was a success.
It’s easy to forget how much of a rabble we were. Directionless, lacking confidence, horrible form everywhere, and our AA spearhead never fired a shot.
To claw something back out of the year, to be able to kick decent scores with a ‘VFL’ forward line, to get the right kids in the right spots…
It was a fair comeback. Will it roll into next year? That’s the million dollar question, but if it does, we are gonna be amoungst it next year. No doubt in my mind.
The list is good enough, the game plan is good enough (imo), there are no excuses for 2019.
I agree, although I would have hoped for a competitive performance, I will have more faith with the young players having another year under their belts and JD and Raz back in and firing.
Dominating games and arrogance is something I’m looking forward to next year.
Yeah guess i was saying top 8, but you can only play who’s in form and I reakon we knocked a few off that were in some form. Also lacked consistency snd a game plan early!
Anyway I’ll be expecting a big 2019 and will join the gloomers if it doesn’t come to fruition
The 2nd comparisons just moving the goal posts.
Or is it just the reality of the situation?
How did you expect us to finish this season up, as at round 7?
The season became a failure and borderline wasted at the carlton loss. I think you just accept it’d a failure and move on. The mental gymnastics by some to label it as a success is amusing. But most of them also said finals or failure after last year so here we are. Failures.
Footy is a game of momentum and context. If we carry this momentum forward into next year and play well right from the start, then it will affect the grading of this year.nif we have a year with no finals, then this year was for nothing.
So the season stopped at round 7… And that’s it?
Don’t even bother evaluating the rest of the season?
I’ve already agreed with you that the season was a ‘failure, man’ but how do you assess the rest of it?
There’s some major concerns imo.
The regression of Hurley. The inability for consistency from senior players (Colyer/Myers). The complete lack of decent small forward depth. Raz goes down and we bring in a 190cm marking forward over green his most likely replacement.
I maintain we made player management errors namely with Joe and Raz. The complete disappearance of Stewart from the AFL team speaks either of him or our development. I genuinely think Zaka had regressed while the team progressed. Heppell is an absolute monster at imposing himself of contests but I don’t want him kicking a dangerous kick ever.
IMO this last few months have highlighted some glaring list deficiencies too. Now I’m not saying trade Hurley but you could get a class midfielder or 2 very good ones for what hed get value wise. I’d love an upgrade on Colyer and someone with scope to improve on Myers in a year or 2. A gaff/Whitfield type outside runner and miscellaneous Sydney midfield 1 2 or 3.
I especially think we need to draft or trade in a small forward. Baguley looks on the precipice in regards to being able to cover ground.
And most importantly we need players like Redman and Gleeson back so we can just turn hurley into a competitive beast again and let the 5 defenders worry about kicking the ball out of defense.
Fair enough. I personally don’t see anything you’ve mentioned as a ‘major concern’ (except maybe Hurley) or even a concern at all, but appreciate your response.
Maybe it’s my gloomer coming out but I expected us to be comfortably in the 8 this year. I think our whole is much less than the sum of our parts.
See, pre season I thought we might miss finals. I didn’t rate us last year at all, and thought the end result of finals flattered us. (Clearly)
I felt we needed to take one step back to take two forward, and I kinda feel now that we may have done that.
I rate us much better now, than I did 12 months ago.
First half of the season: Essington.
Second half of the season: ESSENDON.
We couldn’t quite haul back the lead we gave Essington. The season is a fail, but a good fail.
Really interesting question. Smack adds ruck depth/relief like we could have used last night. Also adds some mongrel to the forward line which helps our smalls and allows Hooker to stay back.
But Brown is so consistent and also can go back and allow Hooker or Francis to go forward and gives more flexibility to mix things up.
I get why Smack might consider elsewhere, especially if Stewart form continues to improve and he has a good VFL finals series.
I hope we can keep him.
One of the things I picked up on was the kick to handball ratio & how it dramatically changed after our disastrous 2-6 start to the season & just so happened to coincide with Neeld’s sacking. The Dawks game was especially bad. We had 185 kicks & 205 handballs (0.90 ratio). We clearly overpossessed the ball, played stop-start stagnant footy, constantly went sideways, backwards. Discussion at the time referred to Neeld’s keepings off style of play & attacking from the defensive half.
Suddenly, Neeld was out & we dramatically changed the way we played. Played far more direct footy (especially through the corridor). Kick to handball ratio vs Cats (round 9) was 1.63. Contrast that with our game vs Dawks (round 7 - 0.90). The ratio was 1.88 vs Giants the following week. We played on, used speed - one of our weapons & kicked the footy far more than handballing it. In other words, we took the game on.
There are plenty of other things that changed as well, such as our F50 tackling pressure, etc, but I just wanted to focus on the two different styles of footy we played up to round 8 & in the remaining 14 games of the season.
I think we have the blueprint now & are familiar with the brand of footy we execute the best. From 2-6 to 10-4 wasn’t an accidental thing. It really was a tale of two seasons.
The injuries that you downplayed were our forwards. I think that your assessment there was a bit off.
Considering we had to rebuild our forwardline during the season I think we did pretty well and it developed ok. Brown has been impressive and provided a very good option overall. Smack was also in good form and we haven’t seen that from him in a while.
So my assessment of the forwardline is that we actually improved it by developing extra options that will help with next year and gives us more flexibility.
don’t you forget it salami. i’m more than shitposting.
