No Oppo Supporters The Positivity Thread

[PurpleEyes]

1. Hamling - superstar, elite defender
2. Brayshaw - elite-in-waiting
3. Logue - going to be very, very, very good
4. Conca - like many I was very iffy when we recruited him, but I’m loving what he brings to this team. Leadership, toughness around the ball, and (dare I say it?) great effort. Thumbs up to Reece.

I've had my moments about Conca, but I've been reading plenty about the leadership he brings to the team and I got to see that when Logue put in that excellent multiple effort, resulting in several Freo players giving Logue a pat of appreciation ... none as big as Conca's. He sprinted to get to Logue to celebrate the effort with a massive rub of the top of his head.
There is no stat that really records the value of that effort by Logue, nor Conca's leadership.
It was a memorable piece of footy and I'm sure it will get replayed for many reasons when Freo do their review this week.

 

[freo_leo29]

Not a lot of positives today but Lobb rocking a Longie was beautiful to see, truly an under-appreciated guernsey.

First time i've seen a player wearing a Longie in the chevrons.

 

[silverscope]

Hughes normally cops a lot on here and his disposal/decisions usually let him down but today against Geelong he was brilliant.

I guess it kind of summed us Freo as a team really, we know the talent/ability is there. We just don't see it as often as we fans would like.

 

[mike91]

Liked Cerra's game. His kicking is back to being good again. Tuckers ball use was also clean.

 

[poshman]

Hughes showed he has another level - now we need to see it more.

 

[Square Peg]

Right as far as I can work out our positivity thread was locked in 2019 and not reopened https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/the-positivity-thread.1161002/

So I am not going to pretend everything is rosy, and I like to criticise as much as the next person, but seriously there has been some hysteria on various threads on here the last few days. So by way of response, if you so want, bring your messages of hope and rebuttal here. I'll start with three of my own

1. We are not a bottom four side, there is no way we are finishing bottom four this year
2. We do not need to start another rebuild
3. JLo can coach

 

[Mr Cheese]

We look pretty natty in Purple, the choice of Emperors.

 

[Dockers v Channel7West]

I just watched AFL NRL players on the ABC's you cant ask that..
It made me respect any player who makes it onto an AFL list.. there was a common theme of damaged mental health due to the effect Media and social media scrutiny and criticism had on these guys...as well as the pressure to perform...
Words can hurt ... we don't know sometimes whats going on in the background of players lives...

 

[apuchar]

They seem to be getting a hang of the game plan, even if they don't do it for four quarters yet.

 

[heypenny]

Nice thread idea. My two cents; I know it's difficult to be patient but the best teams take time to build. If you look at the most successful clubs from the past decade:

• Hawks (rebuilding 2002-06): they were inconsistent for 5 years (albeit being very lucky in 2008). They then hit their straps in 2012 and made the Grand Final every year for the next 4 and won 3 premierships
• Tigers (rebuilding 2007-11): also very inconsistent for 5 years (didn't win a final). Then like Hawthorn, hit their straps and won three premierships over the next four years.

Although this is a very crude analysis - it was 5 years of rebuilding; 5 years of improvement and building consistency; and 5 years of their absolute prime.

Our core group is still very young. If we can keep Brayshaw, Cerra, Cox, Darcy, Ryan, Serong, Young etc together; that's a very strong nucleus who will all be in their prime by 2026 (between 25-28 years old).

Inconsistency is expected at this stage of development. We're 4-3 not 0-7. We've seen enough positives that show we're on the right track. We've just got to hang in there!

 

[kingswood71]

Nice thread idea. My two cents; I know it's difficult to be patient but the best teams take time to build. If you look at the most successful clubs from the past decade:

• Hawks (rebuilding 2002-06): they were inconsistent for 5 years (albeit being very lucky in 2008). They then hit their straps in 2012 and made the Grand Final every year for the next 4 and won 3 premierships
• Tigers (rebuilding 2007-11): also very inconsistent for 5 years (didn't win a final). Then like Hawthorn, hit their straps and won three premierships over the next four years.

Although this is a very crude analysis - it was 5 years of rebuilding; 5 years of improvement and building consistency; and 5 years of their absolute prime.

Our core group is still very young. If we can keep Brayshaw, Cerra, Cox, Darcy, Ryan, Serong, Young etc together; that's a very strong nucleus who will all be in their prime by 2026 (between 25-28 years old).

Inconsistency is expected at this stage of development. We're 4-3 not 0-7. We've seen enough positives that show we're on the right track. We've just got to hang in there!

100% if you look at the premiership teams over the last 10 years or so, all of them (except the bulldogs) had many players who had played over 150 games. We have 4 on our whole list. When this gets to 8 or 9, I think we will see more consistency.

 

[Okinakashi]

There's been a lot to like the last couple of years.

• The rise of the Tab
• The young'uns on the way up (Brayshaw, Cerra, Serong, Young etc)
• The potential of some other young'uns (Henry, Treacey, Duman, Watson, Frredrick)
• Mundy in All- Australian form

There's been times when it all has clicked and looked good, so there's merit to the way of JL.

We have a team full of kids - they get tired, they get overwhelmed, they get bullied by bigger stronger teams. The Wiggles got on top last weekend and our team didn't have the experience to stop the flow - it happens (Fu(k I wish it wasn't against the Wet Toast though...)

Things are tracking well.


I think the mini-hub might be a good thing. Time to regroup, reassess and refocus - get away from the distractions in Perth.

I don't think we'll beat Brisbane in Brisbane and the Bombers might be a hard task too - but I think we'll see an uptick.
I'm looking forward to it.

 

[MadMundy]

Travis Colyer hasn't been a total list clogger this season, could easily see him as our most improved so far.

 

[Clemen]

Nice thread. Adding my two cents.. both Clarkson and Hardwick were under the pump during the five or so years leading to their premierships because the teams were inconsistent. I think that it will be the same for us

 

[Bring back Drum]

The sad thing for us Freo supporters is that we are constantly looking at the bigger picture & building towards success which can be difficult to stomach sometimes when we’ve had very little & want it now.

Unfortunately that’s where we are at again. If all went well this year with a good run with injuries I was expecting us to finish 6-8, obviously we aren’t having a good run with injuries, but we were not winning a flag this year even without the injuries.

We are still building towards a better tilt in 2022-25 & with these injuries we get to see who can be part of that. Watson & Duman are 2 who need to show something along with the likes of Crowden & Giro.

Another year of footy for our young mids to get to know each other’s game & it showed on the weekend what an advantage experience around the ball is with WC controlling that after half time with seasoned players in Sheed, Kelly, Gaff & even Redden.

I remember Geelong getting pumped by 130 points & Richmond also struggling prior to their success whilst establishing their list, we can take something out of that.

 

[tonygeeks]

In keeping with the thread philosophy

100% sure there is almost a decent side on the list already that will be competitive for a long time if we can keep it together

Very doubtful that it gets us where we all want in a timely manner ... too many mistakes during the rebuild IMO


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Fat Nyfe]

- Every team bar the top 2-3 has been flogged at some point this year. Playing consistent for 4 quarters is kind of idealistic, even the good sides struggle with it.

- Things tend to change very quickly in footy. Most of the teams that end up being really good shoot up the ladder quickly from poor positions in previous years, because a lot of things click for them at once. We haven't clicked yet, it may not happen this year but that's not to say it won't happen. There are enough pieces, even if not a complete puzzle, to suggest things could click for us at some point.

 

[wayToGo_]

Love the thread idea Square Peg.

The two things I was looking for this year were better ball movement/retention forward of centre, and better structure and coordination in our forward line.

On the first of those I think the mid to forward connection has been probably as good as I've seen in Freo's history (could be some recency bias but it really has improved light years this year). We are 4th for marks inside 50. Seems pretty impressive to me given the forward line we have. Clearly we are lowering the eyes and hitting targets i50 far more this year. As a comparison we were in the bottom 5 teams for Marks i50 from 2016-2019 (two of those years we were dead last). We've also improved our supply from last year going from 2nd bottom in 2020 to now 10th (we need to keep improving).

Unfortunately our forward line isn't finishing off all that good work. Our goal efficiency is bottom 3 but most of that is due to having the 2nd worst goal accuracy. We've actually had more shots at goal than Port Adelaide, West Coast and Brisbane, yet we haven't even scored over 100 in a game this year. We've got two of our most accurate kicks on goal injured (Sturt) and developing (Treacy). Longer term they will make a difference both with structure and with goal accuracy/efficiency. In the meantime our existing forwards need to improve their goal kicking.

We also have the lowest tackles i50 of all teams - and excepting GWS, we are a long way behind. Melbourne (the best) average more than twice the tackles i50 we do per game. Of course because we are marking i50 a lot that means less ground ball and less reliance on tackling/pressure i50 but we should still be aiming to be better than dead last.

On a positive note about our forward line, most of those (top 4) marks inside 50 mentioned earlier are from leads (as opposed to contested pack marks) - so that gets a massive tick. That's due to good (mostly) coordination by our forwards making space for each other to lead into. That is half the battle won imo. Now we just need to convert better and we could add a handful of goals every game. Scoreboard pressure is the best pressure of all - although something resembling forward pressure would be nice to go along with it

 

[Cesoir]

OK, on the bright side - at least we're not in NSW. It seems they are trying forced gender reassignment to get on top of this latest outbreak.

 

[muckypup]

Great thread, to me the list looks pretty good and is building if the injuries can be sorted out. We are still on the rise. Big chance to make the 8 this year. Hopefully more time in the midfield for our youngsters when appropriate ...

 

[Fat Nyfe]

Love the thread idea Square Peg.

The two things I was looking for this year were better ball movement/retention forward of centre, and better structure and coordination in our forward line.

On the first of those I think the mid to forward connection has been probably as good as I've seen in Freo's history (could be some recency bias but it really has improved light years this year). We are 4th for marks inside 50. Seems pretty impressive to me given the forward line we have. Clearly we are lowering the eyes and hitting targets i50 far more this year. As a comparison we were in the bottom 5 teams for Marks i50 from 2016-2019 (two of those years we were dead last). We've also improved our supply from last year going from 2nd bottom in 2020 to now 10th (we need to keep improving).

This is a definite positive for me. Our ball use going inside 50 has been shocking for a long time, even going back to when we were playing finals under Ross. The lowering of the eyes and picking out smarter options has been very noticeable this year, without needing to look at the stats (though backed up from your findings) . Kudos to the coaching staff for clearly identifying and working on this, it will hold us in good stead offensively when we are able to fix up some other areas of our game.

 

[Tonga Bob]

OK, on the bright side - at least we're not in NSW. It seems they are trying forced gender reassignment to get on top of this latest outbreak.

View attachment 1119682

[NSW Premier news conference]

REPORTER: Premier, how do you respond to the claims that you don't have the balls to enforce restrictions in Sydney?
PREMIER GLADYS BIGSURNAME: *turns to camera and winks*

 

[Tbonefreo]

Im gonna go full HIV(positive).


Serong is our next Fyfe, as he was our next Pav.

Tabs is good.

 

[im_a_lazy_sod]

We are decent.
We lost to Melbourne who are up and about.
Calrton and other crap teams love lifting against us & it turned out to be a good wakeup call
West Coast just came off a 99 point thrashing. Obviously wanted to make a statement. We lost the game mentally. Simple as that. Gaff is still a ****. Wish someone would iron him out and actually exact some venegance.
Tabs is in red hot form. Ditto Mundy.
Injuries suck. Gives youngsters a chance to impress.
Brisbane at the Gabba takes away a lot of expectation and pressure. I will be happy with a close contest.
Colyer's improvement has impressed me.
We have a lot more avenues to goal in 2021.

 

[JunglistPosse]

At least we are not ”on the journey “