when we had license to play with reckless abandon, i really thought elijah stepped up.

a few of his no-look handballs and over the back handballs were exquisite. a few penetrating low passes thru the corridor were speared into chests etc ... it got me thinking how voss is coaching these guys to not play with any risk or flair, but play to the percentages.

if you want to know the difference between hawks and us, there it is right there. Mitchell is allowing the players to be themselves, to take risks and don't die wondering out there. Chris Scott and the cats & longmire's swans are similar in this mould.


if voss is too hardwired not to allow some flexibility in his coaching and allowing some flair on the field. we need to find a coach who does, imo ...

Yeah he opens up play kicking into the corridor.
He had the dare to be offensive.


An Aker type of player in terms of using flair & exceptional skills to light up a game.

With him and TDK improving next year.. should be good.

im not one to get caught up in what other teams are doing ... each team has its unique strength and weaknesses and its up to the coaches to work out what works best ..


i dont normally criticise coaches, these guys are in the goal faces, and know way more than any of us pundits do, but i thought we got it bitterly wrong yesterday.

I have never heard of a ruckmen being a sub ... he was either fit enough to play, or he wasnt.
Cincotta not in the side was a mistake
Moir not as the sub, was a mistake
Playing Cerra isntead of Lord was a mistake
Subing Kennedy half way through the second quarter (whilst something had to change, he wouldnt have been my first option) was a mistake

We lost that game at the selection table and i think our coaching ranks, need as much work as out playing roster.

You need to improve every year as a side, and i dont think we improved on what we where doing last year. We remained the same, whilst the competition moved on and went past us.

Replacing Russell, and getting our players fit and healthy, is a start
Replacing the consistently injured players who we cant rely on is a start
Injecting some youth and speed into the side is a non negotiable.
No player should be safe, and should expect 2 or 3 weeks in the reserves before coming into the side, is a non negotiable.

all year we played, players underdone or out of form ... it cant happen again. it just cant.

we missed the finals in 2022 by the barest of margins
we made a prelim in 2023
we made the finals in 2024 by the barest of margins

by and large, its a massive under achievement and we are still too reliant on too few. Our best had an even contribution from everyone with no reliance on anyone in particular ... its the only way we stand a chance.

Speaking of culture, non negotiable whatever... during last night's coverage they showed a highlight of Geelong's VFL game where Tom Hawkins, 5000-gamer, club legend in his final season, banana'ed a goal from 45 metres. He looked like he was having a ball, while his team mates flew back from a huge qualifying final win in Adelaide.

Can you picture such a scene at Carlton?

also, @#$%&! lachie neale ...

if Newman gets suspended for it, i will be livid.

I really detest that Neale can run at at Newman and he ends up with the free kick. Do we honestly expect Newman not to defend himself ... this game, can be really had to watch at times.

For all of hawthorns traits and what can sometimes be blistering football, i cant watch them. The playing for free kicks is horrendous and they are the worst at it.

I’m at a loss with this club. We had everything lined up tor us after that Geelong win. A genuine chance at winning the flag and we pissed it away by only beating Richmond, North and WCE for the rest of the year. Plenty of views here and elsewhere about what went wrong. Some will say coaching. Some will say injuries. Some will say poor mentality from the players. At this point it doesn’t necessarily even matter what it is because we’re back at square one where it’s hard to trust anything the club is doing. We seem the masters at concocting new ways to lose. I’m sure by March we’ll all be rolling into round 1 optimistic but we’re back to hoping, not believing, as this club just gets it wrong year after year after year.

Hawks are doing what we did last year.
It becomes a different mindset when you are expected to win.
My worry at the beginning of the year was how this group of players would handle the expectations. That is more difficult than when no one thinks you can win so the result doesn't matter.

We were 2nd to tigers for total games lost to injury. We were 2nd to tigers for best 22 lost to injury. Injuries killed Collingwood this year.

You need 10 players playing every game we had 3. The amount of players coming in and out each week should have had us in the bottom 4 and the way we played last 9 games we were bottom 4.

If we are any chance next year we need to fix the problem with injuries. We also need to add players that make us better. Another Acres or 2.
We appear to have found a player in Cowan
TDK was easily the most improved player on the list
Elijah adds something but he is not as good as Martin at his injury free best.
Cerra good last year struggling with hammies
Cripps was great all year probably on the back of teams putting time into Walsh who wasnt his brilliant best.
For 16 rounds Harry was the best big forward in the game playing selfless football but regressed in back end of year.

Still very concerned about what is coming through. Lord maybe a player as to might Binns. Despite people thinking Moir is the 2nd coming he is miles off so to is Wilson Lemmey Akuei Okeefe Monohan.

Lot of criticism of the coaches but when early in the year and the team was stable it was easy to bring in a couple of players to play a role. It's a lot more difficult when you are bringing in 6 or 7

The GWS game was the turning point injuries to Charlie pregame Weiters TDK and Gov was the tipping point we were playing the walking wounded from there on and it on got worse with Saad Fogarty Boyd Cotrell Cerra Harry Williams all getting injuries.

Besides that going 60 points down and not scoring for 56 minutes is not acceptable but it goes back to the players ability to handle expectations and once the game was done and the expectations were lifted we saw what they were capable of.

We need 3 or 4 finals campaign in a row to start to gain that belief but even that hasn't helped the likes of Port

List changes this year will be interesting


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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

That's well said Syd, good summary of the season and its issues.

Yeah. I hope it's accurate, because it gives us hope. The pessimistic view is that the AFL pulled the rug out from under us with its HTB reinterpretation - midseason, how very professional - and now we have an unsustainable list profile.

The rule change definitely hindered us and took away one of our strengths.

How the AFL signed off on this mid-season is a joke.

Young BOG. 2 weeks in a row was our best KPD
I hope he's earned some respect from some of his detractors.
He looked determined, fearless and quick. I hope he does keep improving

Last years Prelim Final loss our best was Marchbank .

TDK was amazing. Totally get why he was sub.

Hewett was elusive and tried to break lines, but no one running past to link up.

Cripps tried his heart out.

Walsh good and tried

But the above 3 were soundly beaten by their opponents Neale, McLuggage and Ashcroft whp were cleaner and too mobile and elusive.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

If the Lions drive didnt start in the middle it started from their HB.

We all know Zorko should have been tagged by Cincotta, but that HB line is where most of the damage was done. From there they opened up the ground and played their game of keepings off.

Wilmot 655 metres, Zorko 615 metres, Stacevich 345 metres.

Who was defending them?

Motlop Durdin Fantasia. There's the game.

I watched the game with a few people and I was glad to hear so honest appraisal of Motlop.
Please trade him. He is the slowest small forward in the game. Tries to outrun, break tackle but get caught every time.

I thought Cerra started the game really well, and for 66% game time, did well. Doc TDK and Cerra were not the issue.

Trade Gov Williams Motlop out of this team.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

37 players used this year

Think about what that means. What it does. Good or bad?

4 weeks ago we had 20 players on the injured list.

I'm glad we made Finals. That counts for something, and thank all my friends who called to acknowledge the achievement.
I would have been spewing if we missed Finals, despite all the injuries.
We proved at times our best is good enough to beat the best.
Our players were not at their best last night.

Russell's gone, and with him I hope all our unreliable injury prone players:

Marchbank, Martin, McGovern, Williams Cuningham and Motlop

Better get this list in better shape starting this 2024 Trade Draft period with Tassie effectively having their way with the 3 drafts after this one.
Lets hope we can have 2 Draft picks before ben Camporeale.

Haynes is not long term planning.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Likewise. Rayner was an Essendon* supporter growing up. Could anything be less surprising?

All of a sudden I like GWS. At least as a group of guys they're a bunch of pretty solid citizens with few unlikable types. Ward, Taylor, Whitfield, Hogan. Wouldn't begrudge them having success. Just seem like a more decent bunch than Brisbane.



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#DonTheStash

Your on fire Bondi . Sadly , I can't disagree with anything you say .

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All my dangerous friends

It's annoying how much I like this guy. So much happier when he was a laughing stock.

My reaction was WTF? Then I realised you weren't listing their unlikeable types

Poor season. Last night we were always pushing sh*t uphill. But we werent very good this year. Got lucky with the Lions in rd0 when they were a mess, fell over the line against Tigers, Melbourne , North and Freo. The only good bit was the Port Ess Cats bit.
Need to get creative with the list. It is holding us back. Our list has the foundatations of 2 reasonable lists all squeezed into 1 unbalanced unit that welds it to a gamestyle that is unsustainable across 24 weeks. Need to get some lightfooted running players with elite skills. A gamebreaker or two...or 3.
Move away from the land of giants. Get a buzz going.

I hate the fact that I don't care

I expected to get flogged, and we did.

I take nothing from the "fightback".

Brisbane had won that game at half time and they knew it. They checked out. I expected a performance that was the result of dumb selections and it's what we got.

Lot of questions tactically that we simply couldn't answer. Scott and Longmjre are the best tactical coaches in the game. Mitchell has adapted to what he had in terms of the list. Our list and game style is slow and relies on big marks down the line.

Watching hawthorn at the ground on Friday night, they did not let the ball out of their half for virtually 20mins in the 3rd quarter. Swarming, ground level speed and press as they did to us a few weeks ago. We rely on Cripps and big contested marks. That's it

The first half of the year was built on turnover and it worked well.

New thought needed.

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Congratulations CK95