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BigRang said:
I just wanted to come in here and ask how all the Negative Nancy’s are felling right now (currently 8:35 remaining in the last quarter V Nth Melbourne) I realize its only round 1, and it’s North Melbourne not Richmond etc, but hey look at us winning by over 10 goals without Bennell/Hogan/Logue/Cox etc etc etc. just quietly I’m pretty excited. Not so much about this year but about the next few. Thanks for listening [emoji106]


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I've been a Negative Nancy for sure. If you have look at my posts it's been about seeing substantial changes. Certainly one week in, today is about a strong of a statement that you can get.

If this continues (still an IF after a grand total of one week) then I was wrong. I'm going to have no trouble admitting that.
 
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Well how about that. Today makes it alot easier to stay in love with our club . The lads harrassed and hustled till deep in the game when it was clinically dead. Loved it
 
StingBitten said:
All negativity before today's game was warranted, and smugness shouldnt be stapled on our cheeks just yet.

Just enjoy what we have on our plates in front of us tonights, which thankfully, isn't a dog's dinner.
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Absolutely,
but if you think the likes of hardies, whstelys, hackdorns, Barrett’s and all the other sensationalist muppets posing as journalists shit was “warranted” with really having not an ounce of real info behind what actually goes on behind the FFC football club walls then I suggest you brush up on your skin deep football analysis
 

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StingBitten said:
All negativity before today's game was warranted, and smugness shouldnt be stapled on our cheeks just yet.

Just enjoy what we have on our plates in front of us tonights, which thankfully, isn't a dog's dinner.
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Sorry SB probably should just let this slide especially on a day we should just be enjoying a good win but I’m genuinely curious as to EXACTLY what negativity is justified towards the club??
Genuine question..
 
Twice i have said i dont care anymore. Both times ross has been on charge. The first time we went on to our most succesful period. Ross is the boss.
 
fnerd said:
Sorry SB probably should just let this slide especially on a day we should just be enjoying a good win but I’m genuinely curious as to EXACTLY what negativity is justified towards the club??
Genuine question..
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Negativity on the Dockers chances - massive injury list, poor JLT form, what's not to understand?
 
I'm usually pretty optimistic, was still fairly optimistic during the JLT series because after last year you can never take that block seriously. I was a pretty negative nancy in the last week because of how our list was looking, so much so I was actually dreading watching yesterday's game which never happens. So yeah, I'd say there was a lot of things that warranted the doubt prior.

My problem was the key outs and understanding of where some of our named players were at. Ryan, Hamling, Fyfe, BHill, Walters and Taberner weren't exactly 100% - INB4 "No player is" Yeah, but these players are carrying some niggles, but they still performed and impacted to my surprise.
 
Im pleased with myself that I managed to keep my pitchfork away during this period and only really posted that JLT means nothing.
We should enjoy this win as supporters today and tomorrow but the reality is if we go into next week thinking we've got it won before we turn up (as supprters and players) history suggests it will bite us in the arse. We beat an undermanned NM in round 1 at home. Not enough to book GF tickets on. If in 4 weeks we're 4-0 and have thrashed the Eagles, my lack of confidence shackles will definitely loosen.
'One swallow doesn't make a summer', 'Nothing is as good or bad as it seems' etc. Etc.
I loved yesterdays game but the only thing that will make me truly happy is to be the last team standing come the end of September.
But we did brilliantly yesterday and we had a great win so screw anyone who doesn't enjoy that. Much better than losing.
 
I will eat humble pie every day of the week if we turn up and play like that. Reminded me of the Bombers game last year before Tabs
went down.
If we play can play that style of footy, it is so much more enjoyable to watch, and with Hogan, Cox, Swita, on the sidelines there is no
reason to revert back to a containment game.
If Ross lets them play, I can see Freo actually rocketing up the ladder, and big kudos to the club on Lobb, thank God he didn't end up at
WC.
 
Bicco said:
Im pleased with myself that I managed to keep my pitchfork away during this period and only really posted that JLT means nothing.
We should enjoy this win as supporters today and tomorrow but the reality is if we go into next week thinking we've got it won before we turn up (as supprters and players) history suggests it will bite us in the arse. We beat an undermanned NM in round 1 at home. Not enough to book GF tickets on. If in 4 weeks we're 4-0 and have thrashed the Eagles, my lack of confidence shackles will definitely loosen.
'One swallow doesn't make a summer', 'Nothing is as good or bad as it seems' etc. Etc.
I loved yesterdays game but the only thing that will make me truly happy is to be the last team standing come the end of September.
But we did brilliantly yesterday and we had a great win so screw anyone who doesn't enjoy that. Much better than losing.
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So much this, its hard to stay grounded through both the highs and lows but people really need to try and stay level-headed over the next few weeks.

Given what the Roo's put out yesterday we may end up playing 3 of the bottom 4 in the first three weeks. There is no excuse not to be 3-0 (and with some healthy % to boot). We'll get a good understanding of where we are it after the Derby and we'll have a good little batch of games to assess.

There was also every reason to be worried (not the level of doom and gloom around here, but worried) heading into the year, playing well doesnt change that. What it does do is show that this team has the potential to play brilliant footy and we now know that there is a team here that can go a long way. Need more games to know if today wasnt a fluke and if it can be replicated against actual football teams and not witches cones.
 
raffrox said:
I've been a Negative Nancy for sure. If you have look at my posts it's been about seeing substantial changes. Certainly one week in, today is about a strong of a statement that you can get.

If this continues (still an IF after a grand total of one week) then I was wrong. I'm going to have no trouble admitting that.
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Well done you raffrox for putting your hand up. I can understand why many have been frustrated by the last couple of seasons and the preamble to this, but sometimes you just have to trust that what's going on in the background is a lot deeper than the minute by minute speculation we see in the press. I will happily say I have been wavering the last few months, but have said I will give Lyon this season before getting the pitchfork out.

Early days yet, but I think we can safely say that it's not nearly as bad as advertised, and maybe, just maybe, we are on the turnaround finally.
 
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Cesoir said:
Well done you raffrox for putting your hand up. I can understand why many have been frustrated by the last couple of seasons and the preamble to this, but sometimes you just have to trust that what's going on in the background is a lot deeper than the minute by minute speculation we see in the press. I will happily say I have been wavering the last few months, but have said I will give Lyon this season before getting the pitchfork out.

Early days yet, but I think we can safely say that it's not nearly as bad as advertised, and maybe, just maybe, we are on the turnaround finally.
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I think it was all about a discernible change being seen in our game plan. There's a possibility that the 6-6-6 rules might have forced Ross to flip the script. It wasn't just me and not just the brick throwers on this board saying that the fun/passion had been sucked out of them so another by product might just be that it's more enjoyable to go to the footy again.

Early days but even seeing the intent and ability to implement a new game plan was bloody heartening.
 
raffrox said:
I think it was all about a discernible change being seen in our game plan. There's a possibility that the 6-6-6 rules might have forced Ross to flip the script. It wasn't just me and not just the brick throwers on this board saying that the fun/passion had been sucked out of them so another by product might just be that it's more enjoyable to go to the footy again.

Early days but even seeing the intent and ability to implement a new game plan was bloody heartening.
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Agree totally, but massive changes in game plans don't happen overnight - they take a long time to implement then perfect and I think this has been ongoing for two seasons at least. We have seen glimpses over the last two years, but it was rare and interspersed with some awful floggings. Trust me, I don't enjoy losing any more than anyone else, but I am hoping we are now coming out of the end of that long, long tunnel we have been in.

I look at the current Eagles squad and remember how we laughed at their lack of skills and success when they were learning their current game plan - once they all "got it" they suddenly became a completely different proposition. I think we finally have the squad to potentially emulate that over the next few years. Exciting!
 
raffrox said:
I think it was all about a discernible change being seen in our game plan. There's a possibility that the 6-6-6 rules might have forced Ross to flip the script. It wasn't just me and not just the brick throwers on this board saying that the fun/passion had been sucked out of them so another by product might just be that it's more enjoyable to go to the footy again.

Early days but even seeing the intent and ability to implement a new game plan was bloody heartening.
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Nah, I think you misread the 6-6-6, as have the AFL itself. This round was the lowest scoring first round since 1965, it is a pretty trivial rule change. The biggest change affecting Freo has been the list, players out, players in and then time for young players to develop in the space of a season or 3 have affected how well we can do things. Last year, we had several young things getting 12 possessions or so per game, slowly improving over the year - several young things under performing compared to the other team (gaining experience though) was the difference in possession/disposal of us effectively lacking a player or two on the field.

re: 6-6-6 Once the umpire bounces the ball, forwards and defenders on the arcs are almost at the centre square by the time the rucks get hand to the ball. If you get a good hit from your ruck and can immediately kick the ball forward to advantage, that's about the only time that there is a noticeable difference as you have one less defender that's in the midfield or your forwards face - but that sort of lightning clearance was mostly to advantage anyway, particularly if it's kicked by someone with a good boot. If there is a hint of teams scrambling for possession in the midfield - which it is most bounces, it is business as usual as the mongol horde has descended by then.

The difference for us yesterday was lowered eyes and a boost of skills/maturity in the team - and being realistic, North had issues with injury to defenders. We would have looked improved in spite of the 6-6-6 rule. Same with the changes to kick out's from the goal square, players can run pretty far in the amount of time a ball hangs in the air for a 50 meter kick, the kick from the goal square is still kicking into congestion, just that the congesion is pushed 5-10 meters further out, so it won't make much difference to being able to go end to end. The main difference is that with lot's of players lining up a little further out, the short passes near goals are less congested.
 
FreoMonocle said:
Nah, I think you misread the 6-6-6, as have the AFL itself. This round was the lowest scoring first round since 1965, it is a pretty trivial rule change. The biggest change affecting Freo has been the list, players out, players in and then time for young players to develop in the space of a season or 3 have affected how well we can do things. Last year, we had several young things getting 12 possessions or so per game, slowly improving over the year - several young things under performing compared to the other team (gaining experience though) was the difference in possession/disposal of us effectively lacking a player or two on the field.

re: 6-6-6 Once the umpire bounces the ball, forwards and defenders on the arcs are almost at the centre square by the time the rucks get hand to the ball. If you get a good hit from your ruck and can immediately kick the ball forward to advantage, that's about the only time that there is a noticeable difference as you have one less defender that's in the midfield or your forwards face - but that sort of lightning clearance was mostly to advantage anyway, particularly if it's kicked by someone with a good boot. If there is a hint of teams scrambling for possession in the midfield - which it is most bounces, it is business as usual as the mongol horde has descended by then.

The difference for us yesterday was lowered eyes and a boost of skills/maturity in the team - and being realistic, North had issues with injury to defenders. We would have looked improved in spite of the 6-6-6 rule. Same with the changes to kick out's from the goal square, players can run pretty far in the amount of time a ball hangs in the air for a 50 meter kick, the kick from the goal square is still kicking into congestion, just that the congesion is pushed 5-10 meters further out, so it won't make much difference to being able to go end to end. The main difference is that with lot's of players lining up a little further out, the short passes near goals are less congested.
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We won't know either way for a while but we had our best game ever as far as scores from centre square clearances - 6.4.

I think the space in certain areas of the ground helped us.

We obviously played a lot smarter overall though.
 
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FreoMonocle said:
re: 6-6-6 Once the umpire bounces the ball, forwards and defenders on the arcs are almost at the centre square by the time the rucks get hand to the ball. If you get a good hit from your ruck and can immediately kick the ball forward to advantage, that's about the only time that there is a noticeable difference as you have one less defender that's in the midfield or your forwards face - but that sort of lightning clearance was mostly to advantage anyway, particularly if it's kicked by someone with a good boot. If there is a hint of teams scrambling for possession in the midfield - which it is most bounces, it is business as usual as the mongol horde has descended by then.
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Lyon's game plan used to be 12 midfielders and 3 forwards. 6-6-6 has certainly put an end to that. It's more impactful than it seems. It means all teams have more space to move the ball through the middle since you can't put the whole team there until well after the centre bounce.
 
bushchook said:
Lyon's game plan used to be 12 midfielders and 3 forwards. 6-6-6 has certainly put an end to that. It's more impactful than it seems. It means all teams have more space to move the ball through the middle since you can't put the whole team there until well after the centre bounce.
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It wasn't Lyon that was taking players from the forward line and putting them behind the ball - every team was doing it with few exceptions. That's an aside, the discussion was...

How impactful is the 6-6-6 rule change?

This round, was the lowest average round 1 score since 1965 - the 6-6-6 was supposed to make for better scoring and aside from the 1 outlier for the entire round (our match), clearly failed.

The bounce takes time and by the time the ball is tapped by a ruckman, players are almost at the center square from the forward and defensive arc. A contest or fumble and the midfield is congested with players. All of this supposed space that you mention from the rule changes does not exist at this point in time. Coaches will adapt, but if you looked purely at the rounds results you'd think the weekend was filled with heavy rain on the muddy grounds of decades ago in the middle of wintery conditions.

<edit/postscript> It was a team that was better skilled (courtesy of list turnover, time into the legs of youth and the trades to us) that made the difference for our round 1 compared to the last few years, not the rule changes forcing a change on Ross.
 
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FreoMonocle said:
It wasn't Lyon that was taking players from the forward line and putting them behind the ball - every team was doing it with few exceptions. That's an aside, the discussion was...

How impactful is the 6-6-6 rule change?

This round, was the lowest average round 1 score since 1965 - the 6-6-6 was supposed to make for better scoring and aside from the 1 outlier for the entire round (our match), clearly failed.

The bounce takes time and by the time the ball is tapped by a ruckman, players are almost at the center square from the forward and defensive arc. A contest or fumble and the midfield is congested with players. All of this supposed space that you mention from the rule changes does not exist at this point in time. Coaches will adapt, but if you looked purely at the rounds results you'd think the weekend was filled with heavy rain on the muddy grounds of decades ago in the middle of wintery conditions.

postscript> It was a team that was better skilled (courtesy of list turnover, time into the legs of youth and the trades to us) that made the difference for our round 1 compared to the last few years, not the rule changes forcing a change on Ross.
Click to expand...

Maybe they might tweak the rule so you can't leave the 50 till a ruckman touches the ball to make it just that little bit more impactful


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Ross has tweaked the game plan, Fyfe has said they had in a recent interview. However anyone who thinks it has changed completely needs to go watch the early rounds at Optus last year. Even more importantly we now have the right personnel (ie we have multiple forwards on our list) and the team executed the plan really well as a unit.

I find it hilarious the media has portrayed a culture problem in recent weeks because everything on field said the exact opposite. That Gold Coast camp looks to have paid dividends already. The players seem to have a really strong rapport with each other and their understanding of the plan seems much better as they executed right from Round 1.

We just need to back it up the next two games and improve on it (goal kicking accuracy, better crumbing positions by small forwards, building on the confidence levels, tweak the defensive structure depending on how the respective opposition move the ball), hopefully we have both Hogan and Switta playing by the St Kilda game, and head into the first derby breathing fire.
 
FreoMonocle said:
It wasn't Lyon that was taking players from the forward line and putting them behind the ball - every team was doing it with few exceptions. That's an aside, the discussion was...

How impactful is the 6-6-6 rule change?

This round, was the lowest average round 1 score since 1965 - the 6-6-6 was supposed to make for better scoring and aside from the 1 outlier for the entire round (our match), clearly failed.
.
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You can't really read a lot into the results from a single round. You need a bit more data than that before deciding if it's failed or not. Total scores vary wildly from 1 round to the next without needing a rules change to make that happen.
 
One thing I will say is that this week did prove what I was saying about the media.

There's a new topic or two to go onto and all that I've heard about us has been positive.

They can't be out to get us if we actually get the results.
 
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