THE ROAD TO THE FLAG 2019

It’s all there for us really.

The team will show us how good they are - all winnable matches, the interstate games look to be against teams that are on the slide, and the Melbourne games we will start favourites in, possibly with the exception of maybe Collingwood and even they look like they could be about to crater.

Not even gonna dream six or seven wins

5-2 and 13-9 would be an impressive run of form.

4-3 would be more of the same and leave us a bit lost.

Anything worse and they’ll be coming for Woosha when you consider the matches left.

North
Adel (A)
Suns (A)
Port (H)
Bulldogs (H)
Freo (A)
Pies

Travel 3 times in last 7. Our first 3 interstate have been pathetic.
Need to at worst split the next 2 games and then pump GC. That leaves us 10-8 going into the last 4 matches and playing teams around us. If we at least win 2 of those we might just scrape in, especially if it is Port (who we have a good record against) and Dogs.
Win 3 of the last 4 to go with 1 of Roos and Adelaide and we probably get a home final.

That being said, we probably drop the next 2 anyway and finals are gone.

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If it clicks…
But yes, this is correct. Our ladder position hasn’t improved but there is no doubt we’re playing better footy defensively than we have to date. Unfortunately the significant gains we’ve made defensively have seen us lose our previous strength.

Helpful results next weekend and we could be 6th. Giants losing makes next week hella interesting. Freo and North could just about be out of the race next week.

Largely due to personnel dropping off, though.

Never realized how tall Heppel is, jeez…

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Let’s hope they are and that we’re still in it!

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All of the sudden matches against Collingwood, Freo away and Adelaide away look very winnable

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And North is a tiny bit scary. This season is a mess.

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I reckon the boys should be excited by the prospect of the games ahead. If they can set themselves mentally to find that zone of playing close to their best they could find themselves deep into the top 8.

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destiny is in their hands. beat the sides around them and they play finals. clean up the last kick inside 50 and we could start steam rolling sides.

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This doesn’t prove the Tigers will win it this year. It proves that you can be middling with 7 weeks to go and then get on a hell of a run if things click.

At Round 16 2017 Richmond we’re one of the best couple of defensive sides in the comp but desperately inefficient I50, failing to convert opportunities into scores. Sound familiar?
They got smoked by St Kilda. Then it clicked and over the next 10 weeks they became the highest scoring team in the comp to go with their impregnable defence and the rest as they say is history…

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The grass at the MCG can also be deceiving. Doesn’t just happen at Tulla.

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Optical illusion.
The shadow proves he’s very short indeed.

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Still needs a haircut.

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Last kick inside 50… How do you fix that as a coaching team and playing group?
Whatever we are doing on the training track is not working when we play against the opposition.

It’s that problem of training against your teammates - they all know each other and they know the drills and gameplans. It’s all too familiar.

Our defence is doing well in real games so either they are creaming the forwards at training or they are operating differently at training and are giving the forwards/mids a false feeling things are working.

Poor disposal under pressure you can “excuse” - it’s what opposition teams are meant to do and you win some and you lose some of those contests. It’s the poor disposal not under pressure that hurts us and is frustrating. I think Worsfold said in the presser they tend to show the players footage of when they do it right, so they can see what it should look like. Rather than focus on the errors (2min 20s if you want to hear it). Maybe they should see their stuff ups a lot more so they can think about and work out what they were doing in that situation.

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I think a Melbourne player early this year said they had not reviewed the 2018 prelim, because they knew that was not how they normally played.

this year would suggest otherwise…

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That will be a short tape if they’re drawing from this season.

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that magic word… connection. It’s so blindingly apparent that our mids and forwards are lacking connection with each other. That could be part structural, due to constantly changing personnel due to injury/fitness, and maybe just blokes who aren’t that great at playing their roles.

Who knows if it’ll click all of a sudden but if it hasn’t to date it’s hard to see it doing it in the next couple of months. But our defence continue to give us a chance…

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