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Autopsy V Godees , reversing earlier flogging.

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Unfortunately the league (and world sport in general) is a totally different beast these days. IMO there is no precedent for the current situation we are in.
We can't think about it from a 'big club' perspective.

But we do need to look at it from the Dog's, Hawks, Dee's viewpoint and see how they got their success/rise up the ladder

The key becomes good drafting, good leadership and coaching (and a good dose of luck).

Atm we have poor drafting, non existent leadership (on and off the field) and questionable coaching (and very little luck).

But we turn these factors around and we can rise up the ladder - but atm this seems a long way off for us - a very long way off.
 
We can't survive as the 'battler' club in a modern day environment. It just won't happen. I know some bemoan that we've lost that identity but the huge influx of money and social media influence on the sport means that you simply can't compete in any serious capacity anymore by punching above your weight.
It worked in a semi-professional league full of people who also had day jobs and played in no small part due to their love of the game, but it doesn't with full time career footballers. For every player who burns on the inside with each and every loss there are 10 more just happy to have a contract and playing to extend their careers as long as possible.

I just honestly don't see how we can possibly compete with bigger clubs in the league going forward, unless everything clicks and we become an absolute powerhouse out of nowhere (not to mention somehow managing to convert that into long term intergenerational appeal) we will always be fighting for the scraps left over from the Collingwoods/Geelongs/Richmonds/Hawthorns of the league. Bullshit off the books financial stuff aside, players go to those clubs because they want to win.

Good list management Dr. Talent ID. We have been well below average at both.
 
Thought I might have been going crazy, so I double checked GWS’ record and they’ve been playing four tall defenders for most of the year. Including against Melbourne, who they beat.

Differences seem to be that the athleticism of Aleer and Idun allows them to keep up with a wider variety of opponents than say Logue and Pink, and Himmelberg has the proven positional versatility to be moved upfield if the circumstances require it.
 

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90 point turnaround from earlier this year. This is one cracking path the club is on.

The win earlier this year gave us all the wallpaper for our cracks.

Dees were diabolically in a mess on and off the field then and it still took a quarter of them just kicking the ball to chom for us to break them.

A fortnight later and we’d lost two in a row, including an absolute capitulation against a cooked Sydney to erase any positivity
 
This endless cycle of one step forward, two steps back is becoming so frustrating and exhausting.

I could see some improvement with wins against the Eagles and Carlton, a good showing against Freo and then bad losses to the Dogs and Hawks. I had my hopes up ever so slightly thinking we could / should win against the Dees who hadn't won in the last 5 games and we're just so disappointing.

We were let down by the match committee, ordinary coaching, poor decisions, skill errors, turnovers and the never ending inability to stop an opposition run on again.

This result has hit me way worse than the thumping by the Hawks as these are the exact type of games we need to be winning if were to rise up the ladder and to put in such a poor performance is demoralising.

Whilst I'm happy with say how well Cooper Harvey played I'm sick and tired of trying to find the silver lining in every single loss, it's depressing.

The improvements are there, I know, but they're so incremental and there are still so many things to address I am beginning to wonder if we'll ever get to a point of being competitive again.

I'm really starting to question the whole football department. I think Clarko's way past his best and the talent identification, both draft and trade, is hit and miss at best.

Trying my best not to let my love turn to hate, I guess for now I've gotta keep the faith.

Don't know what was worse - that I went into the game expecting a loss because of course we won't show up when there's something on the line (some upwards mobility on the ladder), or that it was so winnable for most of the game and we chose to kick ourselves out of it and avoid taking the lead with poor goalkicking and bewildering skill errors. Every time we were out and in a threatening position it was like whoever had the ball was determined to find the worst way to **** it up. Even Parker had a braindead handball to nobody that completely torched our momentum. Hard to watch.

If we'd taken our opportunities the Dees would have folded again, they're not some worldbeater team and you could see them panicking on the backfoot in the periods where we had control. Fortunately for them our will to win is ten-fold weaker.
 
I think the shots around at the womens team are off the mark and lazy, not sure why that keeps getting brought into the discussion.

My initial thoughts after the Whitlock trade last year were "well the club has some balls and has some expectation to climb up the ladder." Clear now that isn't occuring. Club has to wear that.

As someone who's been pretty defensive of the clubs poor efforts this year - that effort on Sunday was inexcusable. The cattle on the park was enough to still beat Melbourne. While a mid table finish shouldn't be something to celebrate, an opportunity to make tangible maker for some sort of improvement was on the table. I've been saying judge on the end of the year - but now the end of the year is undoubtedly pointing to a bottom 4, even bottom 2 finish.

If a team is getting a run on of 5 goals, have some sort of system in place to stem the flow. No Plan B ala Brad again. We're at the point now where "trusting the system" is doing more harm than good.

If our fitness, mental resilience or both - are an issue - then get the right people in after the off season.

We can't move Clarko on (I also don't think he's a long term answer either) but a few key assistants need to be moved on if possible. List management team goes without saying.

Really need to make the most of the soft cap increase.

If the board and co aren't scouting out people NOW then they're essentially sitting at the wheel.

Need a new look on field leadership team next year.

No doubt we have a shit tonne of bad luck that's been out of our control, but we're also capable of making our own.

Apathy is one of the worst things that can sweep through an organisation and we've had too much of it for way too long.

If we have the mindset that we're hamstrung as a club and bat above our average, we'll always have results that reflect that.
 
Don't know what was worse - that I went into the game expecting a loss because of course we won't show up when there's something on the line (some upwards mobility on the ladder), or that it was so winnable for most of the game and we chose to kick ourselves out of it and avoid taking the lead with poor goalkicking and bewildering skill errors. Every time we were out and in a threatening position it was like whoever had the ball was determined to find the worst way to **** it up. Even Parker had a braindead handball to nobody that completely torched our momentum. Hard to watch.

If we'd taken our opportunities the Dees would have folded again, they're not some worldbeater team and you could see them panicking on the backfoot in the periods where we had control. Fortunately for them our will to win is ten-fold weaker.
Absolutely nailed it.
 
I think the shots around at the womens team are off the mark and lazy, not sure why that keeps getting brought into the discussion.

My initial thoughts after the Whitlock trade last year were "well the club has some balls and has some expectation to climb up the ladder." Clear now that isn't occuring. Club has to wear that.

As someone who's been pretty defensive of the clubs poor efforts this year - that effort on Sunday was inexcusable. The cattle on the park was enough to still beat Melbourne. While a mid table finish shouldn't be something to celebrate, an opportunity to make tangible maker for some sort of improvement was on the table. I've been saying judge on the end of the year - but now the end of the year is undoubtedly pointing to a bottom 4, even bottom 2 finish.

If a team is getting a run on of 5 goals, have some sort of system in place to stem the flow. No Plan B ala Brad again. We're at the point now where "trusting the system" is doing more harm than good.

If our fitness, mental resilience or both - are an issue - then get the right people in after the off season.

We can't move Clarko on (I also don't think he's a long term answer either) but a few key assistants need to be moved on if possible. List management team goes without saying.

Really need to make the most of the soft cap increase.

If the board and co aren't scouting out people NOW then they're essentially sitting at the wheel.

Need a new look on field leadership team next year.

No doubt we have a shit tonne of bad luck that's been out of our control, but we're also capable of making our own.

Apathy is one of the worst things that can sweep through an organisation and we've had too much of it for way too long.

If we have the mindset that we're hamstrung as a club and bat above our average, we'll always have results that reflect that.
I'm not sure the absence of Larkey and Davies Uniacke has been credited enough. Good sides can lose there best players but bad sides can't. We had 17 players on the weekend that had played less than 100 games. I think the idea that we should have beaten Melbourne is a bit of stretch, but we should have been more competitive for longer. There accuracy in front of goals vs weeks prior was essentially the difference.
 
I'm not sure the absence of Larkey and Davies Uniacke has been credited enough. Good sides can lose there best players but bad sides can't. We had 17 players on the weekend that had played less than 100 games. I think the idea that we should have beaten Melbourne is a bit of stretch, but we should have been more competitive for longer. There accuracy in front of goals vs weeks prior was essentially the difference.
We were competitive for most of that game. Except for another stupid run of goals for eight or so minutes in the fourth quarter.

There was a period from the early in the second quarter to half way thru the third where Melbourne kicked five goals and we kicked none but it wasn't a run on. WE kicked six ****en behinds in a row in that period! Many of them from simple shots on mild angles within about 40m. It was the best part of a quarter and in that time Melbourne scored one point!

And despite that we were still right with them up until that shonky free kick on 3/4 time.

In that time to go thread no one has mentioned the club psyche or whoever is responsible for getting these players into the right head space to win games of football.

Its why its so frustrating, even with the youth, lack of KPs or whatever else people want to whinge about what costs us is above the head and no amount of changing behind the scenes footy department people or wholesale list changes will fix that.

We either get Denis back every week to rev them up or maybe do something in the off season like that Kokoda trip. Cos whatever we are doing now isn't working and it hasn't worked since 2016.
 
Cooper Harvey is an actual forward with forward craft. Powell has had that kick a few times this year but this is the first time it was a decent option leading up. Our forward line is not helping any of our mids right now and it might take a while for them to build the team confidence to make it work long term.
 

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Let’s be honest Simpkin in his current form is anti Captain material.

So many times when you need your Captain to stand up, this guy does the opposite with a game changing clanger.

I’m not sure who should be Captain, but as time goes on, Simpkin is exactly screaming out as the leader we hoped he be.

This side needs someone that stands up and screams follow me.

When’s the last time you saw leaders on the field do something to inspire the rest of the group? Most of the time they are front and centre of the shit your pants moments that result in teams getting a run on against us.
On current evidence there is only one choice for 2026 captaincy - Xerri
 
He screamed "come with me" at the Tribunal a couple of times. Didn't help much.

Don't have any issue with that sort of shenanigans, especially when we're no chance of Finals.
I'd even lay the foundation by introducing a form of Bonus Structure weighted by 'impact'....but I'm unwell, of course.
 

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Autopsy V Godees , reversing earlier flogging.

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