Analysis Optimism at the bye

[SureBuddy]

Hahahaha, yeah, if only we were as positive as the famously positive and forgiving Richmond supporter base we’d be flag shoe-ins.

https://amp.theage.com.au/sport/afl...ad-speaks-16-years-later-20170929-gyrjn2.html

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2004-04-26/cops-warn-fans-after-frawley-incident/176248

https://coupler.foxsports.com.au/ap...s/news-story/6bf46102595269e2a8b80b3d0b595027

I am talking about the 2018 season, not what happened in the past. Their fans right now are positive and expect to win every game.

 

[bomberclifford]

At the risk of over explaining a joke...
If 99% of the things you worry about don't happen, then clearly worrying works, doesn't it?

Reminds me of when Bono stopped in the middle of a BandAid concert and started to clap, saying, "Every time I clap, an African child dies".

Someone from the audience yells out, "Well stop doing it you campaigner!"

 

[Portology]

Unreasonable optimism would be saying we are at a level where we could win a flag right now. Sorry, but I’ve never said that. I’ve stated in this very thread that right now we are the 9th best performing team statistically and we need to improve dramatically in the back half of the year.

All I’m saying is that encouragement is the key to that improvement. Choco said it himself at the season launch - there is nothing different between the Richmond players and us. It’s just that they had belief - belief in themselves, in their teammates and in the system.

Choco was noted for playing mind games. What he meant IMO was that they believed in themselves, not that their system was some kind of secret weapon or talisman. Well ok it's no mind game really. Every sales manager I've ever worked around screams "execution" all year and draws deliberate attention away from all the other facets of the selling environment.

Thing is the Tigers' total system was different, last year. They played an even shorter forward line than we did, but to a reasonably projected strength - mobility with manic pressure - in a relatively straightforward way, rather than try something significantly more complicated. It was intended to confound HBF running roboticism and it did. And in a bigger cycle they 'planned to peak' rather than expecting to 'hold manic' all season. Neither treating players like bricks with eyes, nor as mentally superior football intellectuals. The whole thing bloomed like an organic creature with the limited lifespan that implies and they beat the heartless robots, like Kasparov in 1996. Yay for humanity. That one time

Encouragement is the welcome mat, not "the key".

Skill is operating the key in a door lock.

Skill under pressure is operating the key in a door lock with someone nearby hunting you.

Encouragement is not the same as learning. Our 'plan' seems to require learning rather than just practice by repetition and mental indoctrination. I am optimistic that we will improve, because we aren't getting blown off the park. We do look silly when the plan fails to execute but we seem to keep going. I too don't know how far it can take us past 9th.

 

[Killer Power]

Reminds me of when Bono stopped in the middle of a BandAid concert and started to clap, saying, "Every time I clap, an African child dies".

Someone from the audience yells out, "Well stop doing it you campaigner!"

Bono is a campaigner to end all campaigners

 

[Portology]

The difference is that Richmond won a flag last year, Adelaide made the grand final last year and West Coast are currently on top of the ladder on an 8 game winning streak that shows no signs of abating (also made a grand final with roughly the same team 3 years ago).

We have made the finals 3 of the past 10 years. In that time we've won three finals (2 x elimination final, 1 x semi final) and never finished the H&A season higher than 5th.

Sure, we can be hopeful and optimistic, but we can't truly believe in the way that those three clubs can because we simply haven't got the runs on the board over a long period of time.

These different optimisms are interesting to try to pull apart.

WC like Crows tend to have "a" poor season then bounce back to being a "top half competitive" unit. Both play a conservative mix of running and contested footy. It looks like competent footy, to the unwashed, and in reality it is. They mostly win games they ought and 'above average' expectations are ... 'generally met' allowing for the widely varied (I'm being really really polite here) footy nous of their fan groups. This is the optimism of a mild soporific. Pass the diazepam please.

Richmond have less runs on the board by comparison, over a three decade plus span. If fans at any other club were as maniacal as they can be, that club would have been torn apart and possibly not been able to be put back together again. Yay for their passion, and compliments for continuing to attend through chronic, serial embarrassments, 'five year plans' and other inanities. Post that, Hardwick took half a decade to slowly change culture and himself, rather than assembling some 'secret weapon' or raising hope through high profile 'player messiah' recruits or media mind trickery quotes. 2017 bliss-relief raised fan expectations but didn't kill memory, expectations are high now because they have suddenly, in a couple of years, been 'confronted with' a consistent performer and they're not used to it (hurt me with this problem, please). It's possible Richmond folks will react savagely to 'small blips' because of that underlying memory of inconsistency.

Now which of these "two types of optimisms" is Port closer to, in the AFL era?

 

[Schulzenfest]

I am talking about the 2018 season, not what happened in the past. Their fans right now are positive and expect to win every game.

Yeah, because they won the flag last year. The wins came first, the trust and positivity resulted from that. Not the other way around.

Richmond’s team has earned that trust. Ours hasn’t. If we win the flag this year you can bet we’ll all be a lot more positive in 2019.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Yeah, because they won the flag last year. The wins came first, the trust and positivity resulted from that. Not the other way around.

Richmond’s team has earned that trust. Ours hasn’t. If we win the flag this year you can bet we’ll all be a lot more positive in 2019.

Since the Tigers lost to Saints by 67 points in Rd 16 which would have tested some of those long suffering Tigers fans who also saw 3 losses by under a kick in the dying minutes of Rds 7, 8 and 9, they have won 16 and lost 3 games, with streaks of 4, 6 and 6 games between those 3 losses. You are correct, get on a winning streak and trust and positivity comes. Yo-yoing throughout successive seasons causes the opposite.

 

[raptalia]

On the subject of other teams and the optimism of their supporters. West Coast have only played three games away from their new stadium, a stadium on which we were not even allowed to train. The three games away from Optus have been, Western Bulldogs, Carlton and GWS. They played four of their first six at Optus and the two they had away were the Bulldogs and Carlton. That virtually set their season up.

West Coast's problem will be when they find them selves playing on the MCG come finals time. Given the advantage West Coast have playing in a new stadium which none of their opposition have seen and the fact that they play Richmond, Port, Sydney, Melbourne, Geelong and GWS at Optus their draw is the stuff of dream time.

West Cost supporters have a right to be optimistic given their ladder position but are they the best side in the competition do they have a great draw?

 

[GremioPower]

On the subject of other teams and the optimism of their supporters. West Coast have only played three games away from their new stadium, a stadium on which we were not even allowed to train. The three games away from Optus have been, Western Bulldogs, Carlton and GWS. They played four of their first six at Optus and the two they had away were the Bulldogs and Carlton. That virtually set their season up.

West Coast's problem will be when they find them selves playing on the MCG come finals time. Given the advantage West Coast have playing in a new stadium which none of their opposition have seen and the fact that they play Richmond, Port, Sydney, Melbourne, Geelong and GWS at Optus their draw is the stuff of dream time.

West Cost supporters have a right to be optimistic given their ladder position but are they the best side in the competition do they have a great draw?

It gets worse now, but not much:
Hawks, Etihad
Bye
Saints, home
Swans, SCG
Bombers, home
Crows, AO
Giants, home
Pies, MCG
Dogs, home
Roos, Etihad
Freo, home
Port, PAO
Dees, home
Lions, Gabba

 

[Forzaport]

I’m positive and optimistic. It usually leads to better outcomes than being negative.

You can literally change reality using the power of positive thinking.

 

[Contested Marx]

I’m positive and optimistic. It usually leads to better outcomes than being negative.

You can literally change reality using the power of positive thinking.

Stop it

I haven't forgiven you yet for Trump

 

[El_Scorcho]

We were all about as positive as you could possibly imagine in 2015 getting massive, raucous crowds to every home game until it got to about round 8 and we realised we weren't the premiers-elect we'd been built up to be.

We were overwhelmingly positive in the Ginever era because we knew we could rely on the boys to show up week in week out.

We have plenty to be positive about. We're 6-3 despite having several key players out for stretches of games, and we haven't even played particularly well apart from the odd quarter here and there. We've banked wins that will hopefully see us with a good chance of a top 4 berth if we play well in the 2nd half of the season. We've only had a taste of Rockliff's best and we still have Marshall to return.

But we're still the long term least trustworthy football team in the AFL until we step up and prove otherwise.

(Side argument: We'd be in a better position now if we'd been even more negative in 2017 because it might have stopped us from extending Ken's contract)

 

[Visenfest]

Pessimism is cancer. Literally.

Psychologists have done studies where after a negative life event, patients would develop cancer six months later.

Every person who thought to themselves in the Showdown when we were 17 points up “Watch us lose this”...you’re the the problem.

Every person who thought to themselves after the Showdown that Gold Coast would be a danger game...you’re the problem.

And all you pessimists talking about s**t losses in the past...kindly **** off and stop posting, because you’re the problem and you always have been. This team won’t reach its potential with your negativity stinking up the joint.

Try being positive about your side and their chances of winning a flag for once. They don’t need skills. They have the skills. What they need is belief.

This is a forum for the discussion of football, which may include both positive and negative opinions. If you can't or won't understand that it's fine, but don't tell everyone else that they can only stick around if they buy the bullshit you've been selling.

 

[King_Tredrea]

I used to think positivity was a must, and in some ways it is. But realism is definitely more important. Realistically right now we are a mediocre side who loses more often than not against decent sides. That’s who we have been post-‘14 prelim. That’s a pretty long time. If the club want overwhelming positivity from everyone, they should perhaps conduct themselves in such a way that gives people hope that 2018 isnt just another wasted year.

 

[Macca19]

I like to take a positive viewpoint currently because I like our regime and those running it. I was extremely negative through the Choco era and Primus era because I didn't like anything about those regimes.

But, this thread isn't about blind positivity, its about optimisim and there is plenty for us to be optimistic about. This isn't 2017 or 2016. We are 3-2 against top 8 sides this year. That's a good record. We have a good side, are playing ok and we can all see that we are nowhere near the finished article. Whether we can go that extra step to become the finished article is the big question. I like to think we are looking towards peaking at the right time.

 

[Peck]

I reckon calling out our supporters for negativity and angst at the ground is fair. I reckon we could have gotten the players over the line a couple of times last year, if instead of the groaning and bronx cheers we were more supportive.

Still, I’m feeling so much better about this year than last year. Another positive is the more we win the less people will whinge on here

 

[ozph1870]

I like to take a positive viewpoint currently because I like our regime and those running it. I was extremely negative through the Choco era and Primus era because I didn't like anything about those regimes.

But, this thread isn't about blind positivity, its about optimisim and there is plenty for us to be optimistic about. This isn't 2017 or 2016. We are 3-2 against top 8 sides this year. That's a good record. We have a good side, are playing ok and we can all see that we are nowhere near the finished article. Whether we can go that extra step to become the finished article is the big question. I like to think we are looking towards peaking at the right time.

When you look at out best or close to best 22 its very impressive. Young gun defense. Aa ruckman with some genuine bulls in the midfield. Polec, Motlop as the speedy 'outside running types. 3 big key forwards with smaller forwards the caliber of gray and Wingard. Throw in a 200cm impossible to match up on wing / wherever he wants in hoff.. our list is pretty much as strong and as well balanced as you could possibly get. It would be almost impossible for our coaches to stuff this season up.. yet they are trying so hard..

Get rid of this negative chippy nonsense. Get rid of this clearing out the forward line to get all the numbers behind the ball..get rid of our shitty soccer tactics. Get rid of the stat padding bs, the soft safe pathetic timid footy we mostly play until we are getting smacked then finally open it up..see the wce and adelaide games... Let them actually play, release the shackles, no one can go with us. No one can match us. We will dominate.

 

[GremioPower]

When you look at out best or close to best 22 its very impressive. Young gun defense. Aa ruckman with some genuine bulls in the midfield. Polec, Motlop as the speedy 'outside running types. 3 big key forwards with smaller forwards the caliber of gray and Wingard. Throw in a 200cm impossible to match up on wing / wherever he wants in hoff.. our list is pretty much as strong and as well balanced as you could possibly get. It would be almost impossible for our coaches to stuff this season up.. yet they are trying so hard..

Get rid of this negative chippy nonsense. Get rid of this clearing out the forward line to get all the numbers behind the ball..get rid of our shitty soccer tactics. Get rid of the stat padding bs, the soft safe pathetic timid footy we mostly play until we are getting smacked then finally open it up..see the wce and adelaide games... Let them actually play, release the shackles, no one can go with us. No one can match us. We will dominate.

AFL.com published an article stating that we are one of the teams with fewer km covered per game. One wonders whether we have played so far with our parking break on. Can you imagine it if that is the case?

 

[PowerForGood]

I am optimistic about this year.

We are the best 6-3 side ever

sounds a lot better than

We are the best 0-4 side ever.

 

[PowerForGood]

AFL.com published an article stating that we are one of the teams with fewer km covered per game. One wonders whether we have played so far with our parking break on. Can you imagine it if that is the case?

We also are the team with the highest or second highest time in F50 in the comp. One could be related to the other?

 

[Marmozet]

6-3 looks better when 2 of those wins were by under a goal.

The Port of 2015-17 would be 4-5 right now, nothing surer!

 

[Janus]

By the end of the year, that which has been learned will become instinct.

At the moment, we are slow because we still have to think about what we are doing.

Just like Adelaide took the heat off of Richmond who were building nicely, West Coast is going to take the heat off of us until we are ready.

 

[Magus]

If we had won every game so far, all the knockers would say we had peaked too early. I hope we continue to fly under the radar and hit our straps later in the year when it really counts.

 

[OneGreatClub]

AFL.com published an article stating that we are one of the teams with fewer km covered per game. One wonders whether we have played so far with our parking break on. Can you imagine it if that is the case?

Well chip chip chipping the ball around in our back half will have that effect. I keep hoping and waiting for that game where we take off from the get go. Please happen Ports.

 

[ozph1870]

Well chip chip chipping the ball around in our back half will have that effect. I keep hoping and waiting for that game where we take off from the get go. Please happen Ports.

When it does we will be unstoppable..