bondiblue wrote:
GreatEx wrote:
I hear you tommi, bafflement is the order of the day. Of course keogh will come out saying the list is crap and always was, but we won 22 of 28 games over 13 months, including finals, including by far the toughest first 15-game fixture of any club this year, despite having one of the longer injury lists during most of that time.
It wasn't a flash in the pan. But something has gone fundamentally wrong and it's hard to put on a finger on it without distorting or ignoring the evidence to fit a preconceived world view. I don't accept that it's all down to a crap list or veganism. Explain the 22 of 28 in that context.
No doubt something has gone wrong in the last 6 weeks, outside of injury.
I can't get that vision out of my head watching players running their guts out in the last. Desperate dives to smother and chases that were never going to catch anyone.
Is our game plan unsustainable with the personnel we have on our list? I have no idea.
What I do know, is I still can't stomach McGovern. He is a pretender. He doesn't like contact, and was never helpful as the 3rd tall up. Kemp is playing a position he isnt made for. He is no CHB, yet Gov wants to point the finger.
Its those little things I look for. Things that show a lack of team harmony and support. AFL is a game of attrition. Vossy's game is based on pressure and contest, and players like Gov have no interest in the hurt factor of AFL.
Pitto is not fit. He's on one leg. he has been for 3 years. When he was fit during the year, he not only rucked well and handled the big boys, he led the team in clearances. That has all dried up.
Our mids are not putting any type of pressure on their opponent yesterday: physical or perceived.
I'm at a loss. The team playing yesterday does not resemble the team which beat the Cats 7 weeks ago. Why ? FIIK.
It's probably more than one thing, but if I was looking for easy answers and finger-pointing, I'd say: hubris.
You, me, Vossy. We all said similar things after R16 - let's try and add more strings to the bow, let's see what we can do with two rucks or at least a more contest/stoppage-driven style, let's give blokes a chance to build match fitness in the firsts. We took the 11-4 for granted, probably thought we could switch the elite turnover game back on at will. Didn't respect the fixture list.
The rule reinterpretation definitely didn't help. Possibly meant our renewed focus on contest/stoppage was doomed to fail.
Either way, it reduced our effectiveness by just a few %, which in this season's context is enough to turn wins into losses. It's not like we were getting belted week-in, week-out. The Hawthorn margin is solely down to injuries. With a fit list, I reckon we might have still lost, but it would have been close either way.
Unfortunately that marginal error of judgement has blossomed into a full-scale catastrophe with the injuries (and here you have to ask whether AR [REDACTED] up the loads), heads have gone and so has the season.
What I would give for Vossy to go back to R16 and just say let's keep doing what we're doing.
hindsight is 20/20 ... but jeez i was losing my mind in here for us just to keep doing what we're doing and not change a thing.
you don't mess with what works and play around with a winning formula. let the comp chase us.
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