Is that the advertisement sent out to other clubs? 
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Refer to the Something seriously wrong with the club thread.
Wtf happened to the players at the bye?
Watch the Freo game with 10 seconds to go after Draper marks. Not over. Merrett screaming at him to spread.
Head elsewhere.
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We all prefer it to be simple when a player goes south performance wise. Heās just signed a big contract, just got married or big changes in their lives either good or not so type thing. Excuses abound.
Mason Redman the one we knew however, has totally lost his confidence, his judgement and toughness. Itās a huge drop-off. Heās barely recognisable as a playerā¦
Yet when you look at Ben McKay, Redman and tbh Ridders before he got injured again, our whole backline has fallen off a cliff. Martin also making ridiculous decisions with boot amd ball. I wonāt bring Kelly, McG or Lav into this but theyāve often been poor and cost usā¦
For mine, thereās a massive question mark over our defensive coaches ā¦ their training drills, instructions and setup just seems to have made our guys into a quivering mess this season.
Hey, Redman needs to take ownership of his pissweak performances, like he, Lav and all the backsā¦Theyāre all paid plenty and they owe us and the team in general to be far better than that straight upā¦
But something is really wrong with our coaching. Is it just Brad or is it as much a shockingly bad defence coaching setup. Because theyāve ALL gone backwards this season.
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The back 6 looked solid for the first few rounds, then injuries hit Reid and a bit later Ridley, and the wheels started falling off. The last few rounds were a complete opposite. Ben Jacobs absolutely needs to be questioned.
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Think youāll find the wheels started to fall off as soon as Ridley came back. For some reason it upset the stability
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Wheels fell off when he cut his hair.
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Dys, Archie, Red Dog. Ban sensible haircuts!
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I drank the kool aid with this bloke last year, massively overrated
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Spot on. Ridley at his best against the Tigers and each week from that point his decision making got safer and safer. Seemed to rub off on the rest of the defence. Scared to make a mistake.
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Me too. Wish weād explored the Crom trade while his stock was high. Now we are stuck with him for another 4 seasonsā¦
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Seen a speil from him on twitter the day on how we are tracking in the right direction as a club, I wish he could have explained why he had such a bad year.
There is a good player in there somewhere, under layers of the ordinary at the moment. I am of the opinion that a move of Martin further up the ground would aid his cause, and he would play more instinctually, taking the game on more has been his forte.
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He is a weird unit the way he plays.
Itās like he has moments in matches where he just kind of stops engaging and his arousal level just plummets. For no apparent reason.
Then heāll do a couple of cool things.
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Letās try to get back to being positive & supporting our own. I for one was pretty harsh on Weeds so Iāve got to learn as well.
Redman was a player without position in the 2024 season. His biggest strength was being an attacking half back with ball in hand. He does have a great kick and we need good kicks behind the ball. In 2024 his role in the side was taken away from Martin. He was either told to defend more or just couldnāt get in position to receive and run ahead. Itās pretty obvious that for team balance, it will be better for Martin to play up the ground and Mason to start running off half back again.
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Youāre new here arenāt you?
Spot on. Good coaches get the best out of players thus team by having players play to their strengths. The art is having a full list doing this which also slots into a plan. Players will naturally play better when they are āin positionā to their strengths. I feel Mason was a bit lost last year, as was Rids, hopefully they all more settled next season and get mojos back
Iām sick of these types of players who do a couple of nice things every now and again but you can bank on a putrid turnover a game.
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Whilst I agree, this cannot occur for all players.
Otherwise weād be playing everyone in the forward line and in the middle, giving away free kicks in the 6-6-6 rule and losing by even more than we are now. Weād also be the most front running team in the league.
You have to be able to play elsewhere if you want to make it in the AFL. Unless you are absolutely great at the one thing.
Even the best have to find a secondary spot on the field for when they inevitably start their decline.
For Mason, he had his breakout year in 2022. Before that he was āokā. 2023 was a similar year to 2022 even though opposition teams were more aware of his strengths as the season progressed. They knew a mark around our 50m line could create a Redman overlap run and shot at goal opportunity and that was contained this season.
This year he was certainly down because he played more of an accountable role and the rebound out of the backline was shared between Martin, McGrath and Redman. I think his output was similar to 2022.
The stats certainly donāt match how heās labelled here though.
Between 2024 v 2023ā¦
There wasnāt a major drop off in rebound 50s and he had more inside 50s even though he had less disposals. He had a lot less clangers and his disposals per clanger were his best output for his career. Less turnovers as well. Less metres gained which matches the eye test that he didnāt take on as much risk as previous years.
He was about the same in intercept possessions, down on ground ball gets but had more handball receives which meant he did actually get some overlap run from time to time.
Same number of intercept marks.
His 1%ers have matched both years.
He has way less goals which matches the eye test that he didnāt take on as much risk as previous years, but teams would have worked him out somewhat after 2023.
Weirdly, he had twice as many bounces than 2022 or 2023 which is odd given heās had less possessions, taken on less risk, had less metres gained, etc.
Defensive 1 on 1s is where he was smashed and his loss percentage was very high.
Pressure acts have been trending down since 2022.
Itās obvious this is where he needs a lot of improvement. His attacking flair is actually better than Tom Stewartās, but Stewart is more of a defensive first player, then attack.
I donāt think Masonās had as bad a year as is being made out. Probably more of a case of overrating his good previous years.
I donāt expect him to become a Tom Stewart type player unless we surround him with players to allow him to take on more risk. But in a āflailingā team, that risk burns you more often than not. Heās a better than average rebounding defender who needs to work on his defensive play.
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