2022 - the season that could have been...

[Falcon3518]

some of my observations:
1. really pooor coaching.
dimma is clueless in the box in tight situations. mcrae and leppa always there to guide him.
2. dumb football i q in our players.
too many stupid decisions, this is coachable in scenarios but at times they resembled amatuers playing in a pro league
3. Poor discipline.
giving away frees and dissent- beig heads.
4. Did we get better?
Only some players have got better (baker and bolton). Balta has got worse. our veterans have not got better. so we need to inject better players.
5. Midfeild woes.
we had 5 picks insite 40 didnt we. did we recruit one big bodied mid? no? we get pushed of the ball too easily. I would have gone for hobbs ahead of gibscus. There were still mids around. we get skinny blokes clarke and banks.
6. Forward entries.
Disaster. Is Teague our entry coach. we still have high entries into 50 and we cannot convert.

A lof of this is capable of changing if we change personell. its now time to look at coaching options after dimma or look at other options. I just dont think his voice is respected anymore unless we build a team around him.

I still think Gibcus was the right move, our game plan primarily starts attack from intercepting in defence and Gibcus was the best intercept defender in the draft. Always time to fill midfield holes, incredibly rare to get gun Key Position players. Grimes and Vlastuin are starting to look old too these last few months. Without intercepting defenders we have nothing.


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[Jono_Hain97]

The optimist in me says: Most of our senior players over 30 have fallen off a Cliff, Martin has hardly played, we have unearthed some young talent and we have been in every game we have played. Despite losing every close game possible we are still in finals contention. We probably won’t make it, but we aren’t far off beating any side and if we can change a few things structurally next year and bolster our midfield then the future is looking good and I see no reason why we can’t play finals next year

The pessimist says: We have forgotten how to win and the mental scars of the past two seasons which have been riddled with heartbreaking losses will last for years to come- possibly even decades

Not sure what happens from here tbh, but the last two seasons have been heartbreaking. You can’t be up the top forever, but I still don’t think even the most negative of supporters, expected us to fall this quickly after 2020

 

[Groupie_]

reckon gibcus might be a bust

 

[Karp3_dm]

reckon gibcus might be a bust

Did you watch the VFL?
Gonna be an absolute star

 

[Groupie_]

Did you watch the VFL?
Gonna be an absolute star

watched a quarter and couldnt handle the pom commentator

 

[bd3_]

Maybe McRae was the brains behind our success after all.

 

[Tiges1229]

Maybe McRae was the brains behind our success after all.

Why ?

 

[Tiges1229]

reckon gibcus might be a bust

* you’ve def had to many bongs you fat campaigner

 

[Tiges1229]

what else we can do

Watch 17,19,20 gf blue rays

 

[Groupie_]

Watch 17,19,20 gf blue rays

20 is s**t

 

[Tiges1229]

20 is s**t

Never s**t watching Geesook collapse in a GF

 

[Groupie_]

Never s**t watching Geesook collapse in a GF

fake footy

 

[Karp3_dm]

watched a quarter and couldnt handle the pom commentator

Kelly Underwood is more your style hey

I enjoyed the Pom

 

[bd3_]

Why ?

Why not? Seems like he’s turned the pies around eerily similar to our rise in 2017.
Could also be leppa, Brendan bolton etc. just a theory.

Wonder if the Mrs Hardwick thing has actually had an effect on this playing group and assistant coaches. Would be incredible to be a fly on the wall inside punt road

 

[Daka]

Maybe McRae was the brains behind our success after all.

He was good at the development part of our success, Hardwick is a better coach but right now McRae would better than him with our group because they need a new voice.

 

[living_in_syd]

He was good at the development part of our success, Hardwick is a better coach but right now McRae would better than him with our group because they need a new voice.

Hardwick is still same man in 2016, we just surrounded him with tactical assistants good at their jobs in leppa, mccrae, carracella and rutten. Hes the overall voice but the detail stuff is left to the other guys. Unfortunately now we’ve gone back to shitty replacement assistants (some we didnt even bother to replace) and its turned to crap because hardwick is a stubborn person without string assistants under him. Just look at team selections etc and changes taking too long

 

[Daka]

Hardwick is still same man in 2016, we just surrounded him with tactical assistants good at their jobs in leppa, mccrae, carracella and rutten. Hes the overall voice but the detail stuff is left to the other guys. Unfortunately now we’ve gone back to shitty replacement assistants (some we didnt even bother to replace) and its turned to crap because hardwick is a stubborn person without string assistants under him. Just look at team selections etc and changes taking too long

Yeah well that's what happens when you have Stack & Coleman-jones covid breach got us fined 100k from the soft cap & it's clear DH has taken a massive pay rise for us to lose Leppitsch who said he was getting out football only to sign with Collingwood as an assistant.

 

[Tiges1229]

Why not? Seems like he’s turned the pies around eerily similar to our rise in 2017.
Could also be leppa, Brendan bolton etc. just a theory.

Wonder if the Mrs Hardwick thing has actually had an effect on this playing group and assistant coaches. Would be incredible to be a fly on the wall inside punt road

Most of the team knew about Mrs Hardwick stuff in 2020 and we won the flag so theory out the window .
Yeah Mccrae has just taken the Richmond game plan , let’s see how he goes next year in year number 2, they will get destroyed cone finals

 

[Meteoric Rise]

It's pretty simple really when you take a realistic view.

Players reach a certain point/age in their career, where their best football is behind them, and they start to decline in form incrementally, and become more prone to injury. We have too many players in that camp, that were largely the core of us being the best team in the comp between 2017-2020. This year they had one last hurrah, but if we don't win it this year, that's it for this group.

A number of these guys below won't be on the list next year potentially, of the ones that are, they are all of the stage in career where +1 preseason and year is not a good thing to their form prospects or injury management. We've already seen it with a number of them already.

Grimes (age next year: 32 midseason)
Prestia (30 end of this year)
Martin (32 mid next season)
Tarrant (34 start of next season)
Riewoldt (34 end of this season)
Edwards (34 end of this season)
Cotchin (33 start of next season)
Lynch (30 end of this season)
Lambert (31 end of this season)

Then there'd also be the potential for others not far behind in Broad, Pickett, Macintosh, etc.

To think that guys like Dow, Miller, Ross, Stack, RCD, Ralphsmith, Rioli Jr, etc. etc. will improve enough in one year to match the drop off from literally some of our all time greatest players in club history is just not realistic. They are not really any better than other clubs youth, and arguably other clubs have better upside. I would love it to be true that we can crack on again, but it's not. This is the year, if it's not this year, it ain't for a little while.

Looking at all the older champs like this gives a bit of a bleak perspective. But I am not sure it is that bleak for us.

Decent teams normally lose about 2 players per season and of course replace them with another 2. So if we go back to 2017, the following table shows our movement of players in and out of finals calibre ranking.

Year	Players of finals calibre dropping off	Players attaining final calibre	Net gain or loss in players of finals calibre
2017	Deledio, Chaplin, Maric	D Rioli, Butler, Castagna, Nankervis, Caddy, Prestia, Broad, Graham	+5
2018		Short	+1
2019	Conca, Grigg, Butler	Lynch, Pickett, Soldo, Baker, Bolton	+2
2020	Rance, Caddy, B Ellis	Balta	-2
2021	-	-	0
2022	Astbury, Houli, Lambert, Edwards, Castagna	Tarrant, Cumberland?	-3
2023	Likely 2 from Riewoldt, Cotchin, Tarrant, Grimes	expecting 1-2 mature recruits at least plus some of the following who are getting to the right maturity or ability - Miller, RCD, Stack, Mansell, Ross, Ryan, Dow, Ralphsmith, Nyuon, Rioli Jnr, and possibly one of the highly rated 5 x 2021 draft recruits, expecting 4 total	(expecting +2)
2024	2 more of the above	some stragglers from the above list plus the best of the 2021 draft crop + 1 mature recruit, expecting 4 total	(expecting +2)
2025	2 of Pickett, Broad, Prestia, Lynch, Martin	the last couple of he players already drafted + another mature recruit, expecting another 4 total	(expecting +2)

So we can see we have probably had 17 players make the grade since 2017 started and 14 players have dropped off the list of players who had previously been genuine AFL finals level players. This has left us with I think 19 genuine AFL finals level players, or 20 if you counted Cumberland but it may be too early to count him. We can reasonably expect 2 of the older guys will fall below that level in the 2023 season or prior. So we will sit at about 17-18 players of that level plus what we add next year. The next 3 years or so should be something like the 2017-19 period above where we lost 6 strong players but gained 14 players of finals calibre. 2023-25 we might expect to lose up to 8 one way or another, retirement, injury or traded out. But we should see a very strong surge in players traded in and players we have drafted maturing to reach the right level for us, anything up to about 4 traded in and 8 of our draftees.

 

[SDMTiger4]

Gee Collingwood are really having the inverse season to us aren't they?

Last four matches have been come-from-behind sub 1 goal wins. Unreal.

Good sides have a belief and just find a way to win, we just find a way to lose.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

Good sides have a belief and just find a way to win, we just find a way to lose.

Since and including 2010 the Premiers in each season have played in 59 games decided by 11 or less points, including some finals.

The Premiers each season tend to be THE best teams. How many of those 59 games do you think were won by the Premiers in each season?

 

[Foley#41]

Since and including 2010 the Premiers in each season have played in 59 games decided by 11 or less points, including some finals.

The Premiers each season tend to be THE best teams. How many of those 59 games do you think were won by the Premiers in each season?

49 and one draw

 

[Meteoric Rise]

49 and one draw

Premiers since 2010 have won 35 and lost 24 of the games decided by 11 points or less. 59% win ratio. This wouldn’t be a long way from a Premier’s average probability of kicking the next goal at any point of a match. Given overall the Premier would win roughly 80% of their matches on average, the best teams in the AFL are losing close matches at roughly twice the rate at which they lose matches that are not close.

Does this put the lie to any claim good teams just find a way to win?

 

[YeOldTiger]

Gee Collingwood are really having the inverse season to us aren't they?

Last four matches have been come-from-behind sub 1 goal wins. Unreal.

Still July. We just have to get there, get that weeks break...

 

[SDMTiger4]

Since and including 2010 the Premiers in each season have played in 59 games decided by 11 or less points, including some finals.

The Premiers each season tend to be THE best teams. How many of those 59 games do you think were won by the Premiers in each season?

I know in 2017 we seemed to lose some close ones. Whilst the Premiers may not win the majority of close ones, the Best side tends to win most of their games by good margins. We are just not a Good side.

Premiers since 2010 have won 35 and lost 24 of the games decided by 11 points or less. 59% win ratio. This wouldn’t be a long way from a Premier’s average probability of kicking the next goal at any point of a match. Given overall the Premier would win roughly 80% of their matches on average, the best teams in the AFL are losing close matches at roughly twice the rate at which they lose matches that are not close.

Does this put the lie to any claim good teams just find a way to win?

Cheers. Maybe it's good sides find a way to win the close ones when they have to win? i.e,. the season is on the line.