Training Preseason 2023

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On May? Absolutely no chance.

Woulda been 23.2

We had May Petty and Lever all on him at one stage. It was impressive but he needs to stop being so selfish and let some other guys kick some goals.
 
Apr 12, 2014
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On May? Absolutely no chance.

Woulda been 23.2

But seriously how's he fitting in? Always thought he was a bit mismanaged at the Dogs.

Can't see him getting a game with us playing two rucks, Fritsch, McDonald and likely Van Rooyen. Will definitely play at some stage but he needs injuries to get into the side (Which is likely with McDonald).
 
Apr 13, 2015
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Yep. Being 10-0 ultimately did nothing for us last season. Its all about peaking leading into finals but winning enough games to be in a good position. Richmond did it perfectly well as did early 2000's Lions.
I disagree about the 10-0 doing nothing for us. 10-0 was the perfect platform to get us top 2. Banking wins early means that slip ups (like going 6-6 for the rest of the season) are less likely to be costly later. What ultimately did nothing for us was failing to win either of our two home finals against interstate sides. Finishing 2nd was the perfect platform to have a crack at back to back, the 10-0 was huge in getting us there. We simply failed to stick the landing.
 

Topkent

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I disagree about the 10-0 doing nothing for us. 10-0 was the perfect platform to get us top 2. Banking wins early means that slip ups (like going 6-6 for the rest of the season) are less likely to be costly later. What ultimately did nothing for us was failing to win either of our two home finals against interstate sides. Finishing 2nd was the perfect platform to have a crack at back to back, the 10-0 was huge in getting us there. We simply failed to stick the landing.
Nah I agree with crusty 10-0 ultimately ment Jack s**t. It put us in a place we didn't deserve based on the second half of the season. You can't make yourself peak in September but going too hard too early can be an issue. The great home and away sides weren't the era defining premiers. Essendon, Collingwood and Geelong got one flag out of their 3 best seasons
 
Apr 13, 2015
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Nah I agree with crusty 10-0 ultimately ment Jack s**t. It put us in a place we didn't deserve based on the second half of the season. You can't make yourself peak in September but going too hard too early can be an issue. The great home and away sides weren't the era defining premiers. Essendon, Collingwood and Geelong got one flag out of their 3 best seasons
Well, I suppose if you lose knockout finals or Grand Finals, you could render any results in the home and away season as meaningless.

I think that winning a flag (apart from the obvious) largely depends on finishing top 2/4. 10-0 with room to improve put us on that path. Although, I get that others (including possibly yourself) believe that we peaked in that period. Going 4-6 in the next 10 jeopardised top 2/4. But, ultimately botching the finals series is what cost us. We hit the finals in reasonable form, winning 3 of our last 4 with the only loss being a narrow one to Collingwood.

I’m not dismissing what you’re saying entirely but I think grinding out results in the home and away is important with regard to setting up a crack at a flag. Obviously winning finals is the most important thing (see Bulldogs 2016) but winning home and away games isn’t meaningless.
 
Nov 13, 2005
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I disagree about the 10-0 doing nothing for us. 10-0 was the perfect platform to get us top 2. Banking wins early means that slip ups (like going 6-6 for the rest of the season) are less likely to be costly later. What ultimately did nothing for us was failing to win either of our two home finals against interstate sides. Finishing 2nd was the perfect platform to have a crack at back to back, the 10-0 was huge in getting us there. We simply failed to stick the landing.
Finishing top 2 is irrelevant if you can't even win a game come finals.

We peaked way too early last year going 10-0.
 
Apr 13, 2015
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Finishing top 2 is irrelevant if you can't even win a game come finals.

We peaked way too early last year going 10-0.
Which is why I said in these posts below that we should’ve just finished 8th and won all four finals…
I disagree about the 10-0 doing nothing for us. 10-0 was the perfect platform to get us top 2. Banking wins early means that slip ups (like going 6-6 for the rest of the season) are less likely to be costly later. What ultimately did nothing for us was failing to win either of our two home finals against interstate sides.Finishing 2nd was the perfect platform to have a crack at back to back, the 10-0 was huge in getting us there. We simply failed to stick the landing.

Well, I suppose if you lose knockout finals or Grand Finals, you could render any results in the home and away season as meaningless.

I think that winning a flag (apart from the obvious) largely depends on finishing top 2/4. 10-0 with room to improve put us on that path. Although, I get that others (including possibly yourself) believe that we peaked in that period. Going 4-6 in the next 10 jeopardised top 2/4. But, ultimately botching the finals series is what cost us.We hit the finals in reasonable form, winning 3 of our last 4 with the only loss being a narrow one to Collingwood.

I’m not dismissing what you’re saying entirely but I think grinding out results in the home and away is important with regard to setting up a crack at a flag. Obviously winning finals is the most important thing (see Bulldogs 2016) but winning home and away games isn’t meaningless.
Robert Redford Nod GIF
 

stEdy

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Nov 2, 2007
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Yeah, agree with Mr Karate.

We didn't peak at 10-0. We played some pretty patchy footy against bad teams and put the cue in the rack in the last Q often.

Someone on demonland posted our running numbers at the back end of the season and we just weren't covering the ground like we were in 2021 or to a level that would win us finals. We were spent.
 

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Crusty Demon

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Kinda wish we did finish outside the top 4 last year. A lot more pressure and expectation then finishing 2nd especially with no double chance.
It was hardly a convincing 2nd place though. Felt like Sydney and Collingwood, maybe even Tigers were better than us. Possibly Freo too. Felt like we were more like a 5th/6th side which is where we ended up. So yeah, ultimately the 10-0 start did nothing. I'm not saying we should have deliberately dropped games, but being 6-4 maybe would have given us more time to realise we had issues. At 10-0 we looked like we were cruising in 2nd gear and didn't need to adjust.

Anyway, it's a tough balance winning enough games to get in a good position in the 8, and still hitting peak form leading in. Hopefully we will be better for it this season.
 
We played the same garbage football all season with the occasional spike vs Giants, vs Freo.

Our talent won us games against the s**t teams and we got shown up when going against the better sides coz talent was much more even.
 

LarryDavidNeitz

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Good point about us being way down on running power. Be interested to hear from pre-season watchers how much we're working on that.

2021 aside where we were clearly super fit, it's a concern that (Langdon aside), our best runners are Tomlinson, Tmac and ANB. Basically nobody who goes through our midfield, or is likely to, is a powerful runner. A handful of blokes like ANB and Langdon can't cover for everyone else. Need the whole group to step up their running capacity on what we put out last year.
 
Nov 13, 2005
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It was hardly a convincing 2nd place though. Felt like Sydney and Collingwood, maybe even Tigers were better than us. Possibly Freo too. Felt like we were more like a 5th/6th side which is where we ended up. So yeah, ultimately the 10-0 start did nothing. I'm not saying we should have deliberately dropped games, but being 6-4 maybe would have given us more time to realise we had issues. At 10-0 we looked like we were cruising in 2nd gear and didn't need to adjust.

Anyway, it's a tough balance winning enough games to get in a good position in the 8, and still hitting peak form leading in. Hopefully we will be better for it this season.
Agree.

Good point about us being way down on running power. Be interested to hear from pre-season watchers how much we're working on that.

2021 aside where we were clearly super fit, it's a concern that (Langdon aside), our best runners are Tomlinson, Tmac and ANB. Basically nobody who goes through our midfield, or is likely to, is a powerful runner. A handful of blokes like ANB and Langdon can't cover for everyone else. Need the whole group to step up their running capacity on what we put out last year.
We barely made team selections all year to try and mix it up.

Goody put blind faith in the same soldiers each week to the point where come finals we were completely cooked physically and mentally.

Even more frustrating was we had blokes playing in a VFL team that lost 1 game all year and were in super form but Goody's stubbornness in rewarding those blokes got the better of him.

From a team structure point of view, the coaching staff had zero plan B when the good sides worked us out in the 2nd half of the year. I honestly can't remember anything that made me think that Goody was at least trying something completely different. Wait, maybe with 5 minutes to go against Brisbane when our season had been pissed down the drain he then randomly decides to throw Petty forward.
 

LarryDavidNeitz

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Agree.


We barely made team selections all year to try and mix it up.

Goody put blind faith in the same soldiers each week to the point where come finals we were completely cooked physically and mentally.

Even more frustrating was we had blokes playing in a VFL team that lost 1 game all year and were in super form but Goody's stubbornness in rewarding those blokes got the better of him.

From a team structure point of view, the coaching staff had zero plan B when the good sides worked us out in the 2nd half of the year. I honestly can't remember anything that made me think that Goody was at least trying something completely different. Wait, maybe with 5 minutes to go against Brisbane when our season had been pissed down the drain he then randomly decides to throw Petty forward.

I really believe Goodwin needs to pull some surprises with our half back and midfield mixes. There’s gotta be an injection of pace, dare and running power in their lines. Doesn’t need to be every centre bounce but have to have more options.

I honestly don’t know who those players are. Maybe it’s Kosi in the midfield, maybe to be even more left field it’s Rivers at times.

In the backline Bowey is a must. And I wouldn’t mind us trying to free May up more often by letting Petty or even Tomlinson having a crack at the full forwards.

My fear this season is more of the same. We have lots of players who seem too good to drop but tend to chug around doing just ok in their positions.
 

markm106

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Mar 29, 2006
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I disagree about the 10-0 doing nothing for us. 10-0 was the perfect platform to get us top 2. Banking wins early means that slip ups (like going 6-6 for the rest of the season) are less likely to be costly later. What ultimately did nothing for us was failing to win either of our two home finals against interstate sides. Finishing 2nd was the perfect platform to have a crack at back to back, the 10-0 was huge in getting us there. We simply failed to stick the landing.
I think the 10-0 start was good for us. But we didn’t capitalise on banking early wins. We should have rested/rotated a few players as by finals time half the team was cooked.
 

Topkent

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Well, I suppose if you lose knockout finals or Grand Finals, you could render any results in the home and away season as meaningless.

I think that winning a flag (apart from the obvious) largely depends on finishing top 2/4. 10-0 with room to improve put us on that path. Although, I get that others (including possibly yourself) believe that we peaked in that period. Going 4-6 in the next 10 jeopardised top 2/4. But, ultimately botching the finals series is what cost us. We hit the finals in reasonable form, winning 3 of our last 4 with the only loss being a narrow one to Collingwood.

I’m not dismissing what you’re saying entirely but I think grinding out results in the home and away is important with regard to setting up a crack at a flag. Obviously winning finals is the most important thing (see Bulldogs 2016) but winning home and away games isn’t meaningless.

I don't think we peaked necessarily, we probably played better in the second half of the year but we should be aiming to play better in September than May for sure.
 
Jun 14, 2015
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Yeah I dunno, I reckon we'd have won a final if we had a nice and fit Brown/MacDonald combo. Some of the match committee decisions were pretty wild at the back end too: Melksham had a few vintage moments but I dunno what he did to get so much games, cooked for years he was. No van royen or harry P in the forward line, ******* around with Brayshaw in the middle. I dunno about easy teams or peaking or whatever I honestly reckon the players tiring after two years, injuries, and goodwin being a numpty were the big issues, who cares though. Onto season 2023!!!
 

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