News 2020 Pre-season - New and Improved after Rd 1 with Rd2 in June. ***

[Capriati]

Even though it was as predictable as death & taxes, for some reason I’m bloody annoyed at more Cockatoo problems.....

I can already see the future. He misses nearly all of this season again, gets delisted, another club throws him a lifeline, and he goes on to play good footy for them!

Sad to hear about Cockatoo. I can understand why many Catters are bullish about him. He is a star in waiting.

If he doesn't extend with the cats this year, clubs will be clamouring over each other to give him a run in the SPP next year.

 

[Drunkcat]

Well if he goes and does come good someone's head should be on the block...…But good news 5 days and we get to watch the cats again

 

[Pollywaffle]

Well if he goes and does come good someone's head should be on the block...…But good news 5 days and we get to watch the cats again

If he is let go, and another team gets him out on the park consistently, then there should be some nervous people on our medical team for sure. Brisbane seemed to get some consistency out of McCarthy where we couldn't. Maybe luck of the draw, but if it happened again....

 

[Joey JoJo Shabad]

5 days until our pre season kicks off, 31 days until the official season starts.

Who know's what 2020 will bring for Geelong, But it's fantastic to have some good sports to watch over the weekend again.

 

[frggr]

If he is let go, and another team gets him out on the park consistently, then there should be some nervous people on our medical team for sure. Brisbane seemed to get some consistency out of McCarthy where we couldn't. Maybe luck of the draw, but if it happened again....

Is the medical team a bit of an 'old boys' club type deal? I can see how it might be in a community like Geelong

 

[Live in hope]

If he is let go, and another team gets him out on the park consistently, then there should be some nervous people on our medical team for sure. Brisbane seemed to get some consistency out of McCarthy where we couldn't. Maybe luck of the draw, but if it happened again....

Spot on PW
I genuinely hope that our medicos reached out to Brisbane (and Linc) last season and asked about the program that magically got McCarthy to play almost a full season. Pretty unprofessional if they didn’t ask. With good will from Linc and probably Brisbane I’m sure they would have enlightened them.
Hawks medicos are the standouts here, Burgoyne, Omera and apparently Patton having Lazarus like recoveries after years of crippling injury. If anyone could ‘fix’ Nakia it would be them ....

 

[Shadow89]

Spot on PW
I genuinely hope that our medicos reached out to Brisbane (and Linc) last season and asked about the program that magically got McCarthy to play almost a full season. Pretty unprofessional if they didn’t ask. With good will from Linc and probably Brisbane I’m sure they would have enlightened them.
Hawks medicos are the standouts here, Burgoyne, Omera and apparently Patton having Lazarus like recoveries after years of crippling injury. If anyone could ‘fix’ Nakia it would be them ....

They'll definitely go after him, as they've enquired before. He'd go there too. That would absolutely kill me if he went there and tore it up. It's the one thing along with our ruck situation that's concerned me the most for the past 7 years or so - our medical department.

So many players at our club that get an injury, never come back right, if at all. That's not to mention the injury prone ones we do recruit, that we can't get right either. I honestly think it's something that goes under the radar, but something that should really be seriously addressed.

How does Gregson get the wrong sized screw put in his foot and have his career ruined? How does Menzel get an injection that gives a 'bad reaction' and essentially ruins his career after having a decent injury free run (by his standards). How does Cockatoo have multiple injuries and then get rushed back every time. Can anyone seriously recall one injury prone player that we've actually ever got back to full capacity? Let alone all those who don't get back at all but end up being fine at another club. It's turning into a joke now.

Off the top of my head, Vardy, Gregson, Cowan, Menzel, Cockatoo, McIntosh, M. Clark (combination of things, but still never got his toe right), Thurlow, McCarthy, Christensen, Cunico, Henderson, Smedts, Scooter, D. Simpson, and I'm sure there's a bunch of fringe players that suffered too. That's only in the past 8 years. They've literally all had their careers ruined lol. There are some who you can make excuses for, but I really wish we could have our version of a Patton, O'Meara or Scully. I literally feel myself twitch every time we get an injury, as our team is just so unreliable with both timeframes and fixing the issue entirely. Some things are unavoidable, but something like putting the wrong size screw in Gregson's foot, is unforgivable.

Sorry for the rant to all on here, but this has been a pet peeve of mine for a fair while now.

 

[Landgraft]

If he is let go, and another team gets him out on the park consistently, then there should be some nervous people on our medical team for sure. Brisbane seemed to get some consistency out of McCarthy where we couldn't. Maybe luck of the draw, but if it happened again....

We had Linc finished rehabbing and back to footy before he left, he just hasn't gotten significantly injured again since. Heck, we got basically a full season out of him back in 2016 that often goes unmentioned.

And I will say I definitely hope that his luck genuinely has turned around by now. But the conspiracy theories are a total nonsense.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Spot on PW
I genuinely hope that our medicos reached out to Brisbane (and Linc) last season and asked about the program that magically got McCarthy to play almost a full season. Pretty unprofessional if they didn’t ask. With good will from Linc and probably Brisbane I’m sure they would have enlightened them.
Hawks medicos are the standouts here, Burgoyne, Omera and apparently Patton having Lazarus like recoveries after years of crippling injury. If anyone could ‘fix’ Nakia it would be them ....

Linc was fit when traded

 

[Pollywaffle]

Hawks medicos are the standouts here, Burgoyne, Omera and apparently Patton having Lazarus like recoveries after years of crippling injury. If anyone could ‘fix’ Nakia it would be them ....

Oh man, now that would be a bitter pill to swallow..

 

[Pollywaffle]

Sorry for the rant to all on here, but this has been a pet peeve of mine for a fair while now.

Let's go back a little further.
Barry Stoneham and Mathew Egan say hello..
( cue the melts )

 

[ChappyUK]

Three prong attack with Jenkins, Sav, Hawkins might work, just bomb it long and in the air. Miers, Dalhaus, GAJ on the deck. Steven, Cocky, Dangerfield as rotations.

I think Dangerfield might be used as full time midfielder this year, with maybe 10% forward time max.

I think the return of the big forwards will be this year's story.

We look good in that department.

 

[Live in hope]

We had Linc finished rehabbing and back to footy before he left, he just hasn't gotten significantly injured again since. Heck, we got basically a full season out of him back in 2016 that often goes unmentioned.

And I will say I definitely hope that his luck genuinely has turned around by now. But the conspiracy theories are a total nonsense.

That may be, but Brisbane kept him on the park where we couldn’t for more than a handful of games at a time, at best. ( I’m delighted they did BTW, Linc really deserved it).

 

[Live in hope]

They'll definitely go after him, as they've enquired before. He'd go there too. That would absolutely kill me if he went there and tore it up. It's the one thing along with our ruck situation that's concerned me the most for the past 7 years or so - our medical department.

So many players at our club that get an injury, never come back right, if at all. That's not to mention the injury prone ones we do recruit, that we can't get right either. I honestly think it's something that goes under the radar, but something that should really be seriously addressed.

How does Gregson get the wrong sized screw put in his foot and have his career ruined? How does Menzel get an injection that gives a 'bad reaction' and essentially ruins his career after having a decent injury free run (by his standards). How does Cockatoo have multiple injuries and then get rushed back every time. Can anyone seriously recall one injury prone player that we've actually ever got back to full capacity? Let alone all those who don't get back at all but end up being fine at another club. It's turning into a joke now.

Off the top of my head, Vardy, Gregson, Cowan, Menzel, Cockatoo, McIntosh, M. Clark (combination of things, but still never got his toe right), Thurlow, McCarthy, Christensen, Cunico, Henderson, Smedts, Scooter, D. Simpson, and I'm sure there's a bunch of fringe players that suffered too. That's only in the past 8 years. They've literally all had their careers ruined lol. There are some who you can make excuses for, but I really wish we could have our version of a Patton, O'Meara or Scully. I literally feel myself twitch every time we get an injury, as our team is just so unreliable with both timeframes and fixing the issue entirely. Some things are unavoidable, but something like putting the wrong size screw in Gregson's foot, is unforgivable.

Sorry for the rant to all on here, but this has been a pet peeve of mine for a fair while now.

Thanks Shadow. Bit of a list.
To stick up for them - there are some on the list that the medicos couldn’t do much about eg. Cunico - bad break in a game. Also, footy is a tough game on ‘finely tuned’ young bodies and you are going to have a number of chronic injuries. We did also have a small injury list last year. But - the point is, our medicos definitely haven’t had the record of other GFC departments (eg. fitness team, where we are right up there) and definitely seem to lag some other clubs medicos in elite LTI management.
As mentioned in my original post - I would be extremely disappointed if they didn’t reach out to their Brisbane counterparts to find out how they managed Linc. Maybe they have.

 

[Landgraft]

That may be, but Brisbane kept him on the park where we couldn’t for more than a handful of games at a time, at best. ( I’m delighted they did BTW, Linc really deserved it).

This is literally false.

 

[Cataholic]

I think the return of the big forwards will be this year's story.

We look good in that department.

But we've looked incompetent at getting the ball to them, so unless we fix that they'll be impotent.

 

[Partridge]

Is the medical team a bit of an 'old boys' club type deal? I can see how it might be in a community like Geelong

I think you could apply that to the footy industry as a whole.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

But we've looked incompetent at getting the ball to them, so unless we fix that they'll be impotent.

Maybe, but i would argue we were slowing the entries at least partially because of our forward set up. We needed our smaller players around the aerial contest for when it gets brought to ground so we had to let them get there for the ground level pressure.

If we go with three big fellas there should usually be at least one of them in a one on one and so we can just move it forward as fast as possible and pick our target on the way in.

Am I oversimplifying? There's probably more to it

 

[Cataholic]

Maybe, but i would argue we were slowing the entries at least partially because of our forward set up. We needed our smaller players around the aerial contest for when it gets brought to ground so we had to let them get there for the ground level pressure.

If we go with three big fellas there should usually be at least one of them in a one on one and so we can just move it forward as fast as possible and pick our target on the way in.

Am I oversimplifying? There's probably more to it

Fair point, but can they adapt to the idea of moving it forward as fast as possible??

 

[bulletproof]

Little bit of an overreaction to a tight hamstring. I’d say an abundance of caution here. At some point they are just going to have to let rip and play him (Feb is clearly not that time). Let’s not forget another regular hamstring victim Darcy Moore left the ground in round 22 and then played very well two weeks later.

I think it is getting partly mental with Cockatoo, as it was with Moore.

 

[goyoucatters]

Little bit of an overreaction to a tight hamstring. I’d say an abundance of caution here. At some point they are just going to have to let rip and play him (Feb is clearly not that time). Let’s not forget another regular hamstring victim Darcy Moore left the ground in round 22 and then played very well two weeks later.

I think it is getting partly mental with Cockatoo, as it was with Moore.

It's the context of the player's injury record that informs the 'reaction', though.

He has supposedly been training well for months and now gets held back just as some actual footy comes around.

Hard to imagine how he could have had a better progression towards being ready to play some games and he's still not right.

Like everyone here, I really hope he's back out there in a month or so and the true believers can enjoy lecturing the overly anxious like me.

However, given his history, I think that is far from a fait accompli.

 

[witsend]

They'll definitely go after him, as they've enquired before. He'd go there too. That would absolutely kill me if he went there and tore it up. It's the one thing along with our ruck situation that's concerned me the most for the past 7 years or so - our medical department.

So many players at our club that get an injury, never come back right, if at all. That's not to mention the injury prone ones we do recruit, that we can't get right either. I honestly think it's something that goes under the radar, but something that should really be seriously addressed.

How does Gregson get the wrong sized screw put in his foot and have his career ruined? How does Menzel get an injection that gives a 'bad reaction' and essentially ruins his career after having a decent injury free run (by his standards). How does Cockatoo have multiple injuries and then get rushed back every time. Can anyone seriously recall one injury prone player that we've actually ever got back to full capacity? Let alone all those who don't get back at all but end up being fine at another club. It's turning into a joke now.

Off the top of my head, Vardy, Gregson, Cowan, Menzel, Cockatoo, McIntosh, M. Clark (combination of things, but still never got his toe right), Thurlow, McCarthy, Christensen, Cunico, Henderson, Smedts, Scooter, D. Simpson, and I'm sure there's a bunch of fringe players that suffered too. That's only in the past 8 years. They've literally all had their careers ruined lol. There are some who you can make excuses for, but I really wish we could have our version of a Patton, O'Meara or Scully. I literally feel myself twitch every time we get an injury, as our team is just so unreliable with both timeframes and fixing the issue entirely. Some things are unavoidable, but something like putting the wrong size screw in Gregson's foot, is unforgivable.

Sorry for the rant to all on here, but this has been a pet peeve of mine for a fair while now.

I would factor in the fact that because of our consistent Top 4-ish finishes over the past 10-15 years we have been forced to take a LOT more risks on potentially injury hampered kids in the draft, as we haven't had access to low Top 10 junior talent. Even Joel Selwood had injury knocks as a kid, which is why he went at Pick 7 and not lower, IIRC. Given the depth of IP, financial security and the industry acknowledged culture of excellence GFC has displayed and nurtured over this period, I find it hard to believe the problems you describe are anything more than just bad luck and circumstance generally. I'm sure certain mistakes have been made on occasion, as would happen at all clubs, but I doubt too many stones are being left unturned.

 

[BORIS332]

But we've looked incompetent at getting the ball to them, so unless we fix that they'll be impotent.

Couldn't disagree more. We had the best conversion rate in the league from inside 50s. We also had six players inside the top 50 goal kickers last season - more than any other team, next best was Richmond with four - and the equal most marks inside 50 in the whole competition.

Our entries last year were excellent, and certainly far from 'incompetent.'

 

[goyoucatters]

Couldn't disagree more. We had the best conversion rate in the league from inside 50s. We also had six players inside the top 50 goal kickers last season - more than any other team, next best was Richmond with four - and the equal most marks inside 50 in the whole competition.

Our entries last year were excellent, and certainly far from 'incompetent.'

The numbers you quote back the sense I had across 2019 that we were far more effective than we had been in previous years at bringing the ball in and scoring as a result.

We were outscored by one team last year. That was the Lions, who scored less than a point more than us each week over the 22 rounds.

So, if our forward line work is considered incompetent, where does that leave the other 16 teams who finished behind us on this measure?

Little wonder the AFL is mired in mediocrity when the imcompetent set-ups are running second across the comp in any given year.

 

[Cataholic]

Couldn't disagree more. We had the best conversion rate in the league from inside 50s. We also had six players inside the top 50 goal kickers last season - more than any other team, next best was Richmond with four - and the equal most marks inside 50 in the whole competition.

Our entries last year were excellent, and certainly far from 'incompetent.'

It was a reference on my part to our forward work as a whole over the last few years - not 2019 in isolation.

Yes, we did ok last year in that regard, but our record otherwise has been below par imo.

And we haven't been known for 'fast, direct' movement over that time either.