Good to see the Age supporting Scott’s ignoring the umps, blaming the players and self-scapegoating.
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I didn’t miss a thing.
Correct me if I am wrong but I believe it was the “Premiership Quarter” when we had the ridiculous barrage of significant momentum changing umpiring errors occur.
My point and very valid one, is that what if it had been in reverse, how would Geelong have handled us getting 3 or 4 goals on them in rapid succession with the wind being sucked out of their Sails.
Answer = You will never know, coz it didn’t happen.
But it is quite plausible that they wouldn’t have continued on their merry way and might have lost composure despite the big bodied experienced players.
It’s all hypothetical.
But one thing for sure. No team should have to deal with that kind of incompetent BS, it just shouldn’t happen.
I don’t dispute that we didn’t kick ahead when we got our opportunities in 1st half, but you are absolutely kidding yourself if you believe everything that happened during the “Premiership Quarter” would have happened as it did if the BS didn’t go,down.
You might as well speculate what your life would have been like if your parents didn’t have sex 9 or so months before you were born.
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The big problem with rebuilding on the run and maintaining a presence in the top echelons of the league is your only real currency for trading is draft picks. Eventually clubs like Collingwood who have this philosophy will not have the necessary draft capital trade in the type of players needed to sustain success; they will end up like Port who only had the draft capital to trade in BZT, Soldo etc. Free agents I hear you say? No draft capital needed there. Yes but successful clubs invariably have to pay to keep their squads together and are not always in the position to pay the premiums that Free agency demands. I’m not sure that strategy is necessarily sustainable; clubs will always need to go back to the draft at some point to re-lay those foundations.
Geelong says hello
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That’s where free agents come in, just ask Essendon 
…
Danger and Cameron won’t happen again for them for some time. Their staring at the cliff right now.
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Not if you’re using your cap up to keep your best players at the club.
How long have people been saying this though?
They seem to find a way.
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Geelong are elite at recruitment and list management. Pretty sure they invented both the country and costal lifestyle.
Personally I believe Essendons reliance on the Free Agency model lately has only just highlighted the problems we’ve had identifying and/or developing any kind of real talent via the draft… It’s a bit of a vicious cycle… do the FA’s help us ‘top up’ for a tilt or are they actually just being used to help guide the under-developing talent in a case like Jake Kelly who doesn’t necessarily perform highly in any given position but intent and effort is always super high?? If it’s the latter then I reckon it’s a fair shout to the criticism of Dodoro and his drafting team in particular.
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Predicting / calling the Geelong cliff is akin to predicting the housing market crashing or the shares to crash.
Eventually they’ll be right. Before it reverses and they are back where they were prior to the call.
But then there will be one time when they are right and it’ll crash into oblivion and need to time to recover.
Geelong are a long way from being that club.
The next time we beat Geelong is when half their team is retired and full of draftees
I wonder if 2MP is afraid of getting hurt again. He is certainly not the player he was. He is flat out marking the ball now. Seems like he has lost his confidence since he got pinged and got reported and hurt his shoulder. Have we got a good Psychologist?
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So, how many players can we afford to carry week in-week out, just hoping they’ll eventually come good, despite them being horribly out of form. Wright? Perkins? Redman? Draper? Others?
That was one of the hallmarks of the Sheedy reign (last 3-4 years), and the Worsfold reign.
Of course players have bad games, but Perkins in particular has been next-door to useless for weeks now. There’s no way he should be guaranteed a start.
Wright has been average-to-poor too, but is that him or the diabolical entries into our forward line, or even poor coaching which has him playing too close to goal? Probably a combination of columns A, B and C.
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I reckon the only guy they’ll struggle to cover once he moves on is Blicavs, because he’s so good in so many spots. He can cover a lot of holes.
Otherwise, they lose guys who are very good but play an identified role in a system, and can be somewhat replaced. It’s how Geelong stay good.
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They have struggled to replace Selwood and soon Dangerfeild.
There will have a few that they wont be able to replace not just Blicavs
Have they, though?
There are always going to be some teething in periods, but the midfield combos of Bruhun/Holmes/Atkins/Bowes etc. seem to work ok to my eye.
They’ll be fine. Holmes will take a step up. They have a lot of small forwards who are developing (Stengel, Miers, Dempsey, Wiltshire) and between Mitch Edwards and Shannon Neale they have their future ruck options covered pretty well. Ted Clohesy is performing at lower levels. Mitch Knevitt is developing okay. George Stevens will be developed slowly through VFL as well. And they’ve barely used Connor O’Sullivan who they rate highly from last year’s draft.
Dangerfield hasn’t been the dominant player he was 5 years ago. He’s doing his thing when needed, but it’s not needed as often as it used to be needed. And I think there’s still a few years as a forward target there somewhere.
I’m confident they’ll work through their aging players and sign a key free agent somewhere along the line that’ll push them back up the ladder somewhat.
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A lot of those player wont be at the same qaulity their champion players that retire will be hall of famers is not already
Essendon haven’t been abler to replace the likes of Llyod,Lucas,Hird,Mesiti,Long etc all lengendary players Geelong will have the same issue
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I’m pretty certain they will manage their cap well and still get FA. Daicos x 2, Moore will stay for unders. Pendlebury would be on less now. I don’t think they’ll be restricted in their cap moving forward with good management.