I agree 100 percent with you're saying and don't worry about these people giving you dislikes and shit. He's a dead end coach with a boring as shit game plan and while I'm now resigned to him still being here next year that's ok, I'll wait this bloke out. I'll be supporting this club long after this bloke is gone anyway.
What are you on about? Not allowed to hold him accountable? There’s literally pages and pages of people saying he’s shit in this thread
We do have the cattle.
this
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Good post. I agree with your comments on the mentality of the side. I think the difference between last year though was then we had a 'we can do it' attitude. We showed some great character in a number of games. This year I'd suggest that those early losses changed us to a 'can we do it?' mindset. The doubt crept in to our players and conversely, opponents also felt we were beatable this year, so they didn't fear us.There was definitely some positive signs today compared to previous week. I thought our restarts from opposition behinds were much more varied and improved a lot today. That’s a tick for the coaches. The players were fired up and played for the full 4 quarters - another tick for the coach. Jackson’s Ruck taps were a lot more effective than Darcy’s too (I may need to whisper that but it is true….
However as the guys on the Restump Pod said this week - if we win it’s a case of shrugging your shoulders and going “so what, who cares” to a degree.
I thought the team tapped into a relatively unusual mindset that is not really a recipe for sustained success in this league today, because you cannot play in this mentality and still be a top 4 team. Therefore you can’t win the flag by playing games in this way.
It’s hard to describe it but it’s a kind of underdog mentality where we went out with a freedom of expression from the opening bounce against a highly fancied opponent that would have expected to win easily. It felt like our guys played with a weight off their shoulders as nobody really expected anything much. As the game went on we grew in stature and we tapped into that beautiful but rare space mentally where everything good we did made us get visibly more belief as the game wore on, and Geelong were the opposite, floundering in a purple current that surged and overwhelmed them unexpectedly. Fringe players and depth players from Freo throwing their bodies on the line with utter desperation all game. As the half time and especially the 3QT siren went the Geelong side would have been more and more exasperated as they went into their huddles and would have been looking at each other saying “these *ers won’t go away, this isn’t meant to happen, we are in trouble here”. Snapping out of their location and mindset, a complete contrast to our guys mindset, is so so hard.
As a team our situation today is a beautiful place to be, in that moment for the group, this surge of overwhelming and unexpected momentum driving our mid ranking and fringe players especially to play out of their skins when the game was there to be won.
If we lost - no harm done. No one expected anything anyway. There as nothing to lose.
Once could argue that apart from a 4 year stretch from 2012-15 under Ross, the entire history of the FFC can be summed up by the above. Littered with heroic and unexpected victories against the top contenders.
The problem? We have seen this before all too often. The minute any sense of expectation appears and an external pressure falls on the group to win, we seem to play in a completely different mindset - a fearful one, with guys afraid to express themselves and very few players really playing out of their skins.
The challenge for JL and his coaching team, is to make us a team with a ruthless winners mindset every week. It’s an equalised comp where the rules are deliberately set up to not achieve that, but the great teams that win flags are mentally strong enough to win 10 or 12 games in a row. To front up week in, week out and play as $1:30 favourites and back that up with routine expected wins.
The losses to Richmond, Carlton and Sydney this year in Perth were particularly galling for this reason. These were games we came into as even money at worst. There was something on the line in all those games. Our mindset was completely different from today and we were smashed in every sense in those games.
The north game was a bit different - I think we had genuine complacency there and early season games are notoriously unpredictable. However North themselves tapped into the same underdog mentality that we did today.
Ross Lyons biggest achievement was making us become a feared opponent. One that won the vast majority of games against Mid-ranking Dangerous but bearable opponents.
This team is young and will mature, but there is no guarantee that the mental resolve and strength to grind out win after win against those 5th-14th type sides that are inconsistent themselves but capable still, will come with increased maturity. The coaching group are the ones who have to install that belief. They need to make our team Mentality Monsters. That’s what all the great teams are in all sports and it’s very very coachable. There is no doubt about that. Sports psychology would not be a billion dollar industry if it wasn’t.
Until they do we can never be trusted to beat anyone and days like today will remain the highlight of frustratingly inconsistent seasons for freo fans.
Same can be said about responses like yours after we pull a dockery win like the one yesterday. Short memories on both sides of the argument.
The elite teams play on instinct (aka ingrained decision making frameworks) borne out a critical mass of experience.
Pearce did a great job but have you heard of McPharlin.
That is exactly what I thought. Remember the 2010 elimination final against Hawthorn when Luke had Buddy giving away 50s thru sheer frustration.
Beautifully said, this is why we need to give JLo next year and surround him with good assistants. If we fail to achieve that winning mentality than he needs to go.There was definitely some positive signs today compared to previous week. I thought our restarts from opposition behinds were much more varied and improved a lot today. That’s a tick for the coaches. The players were fired up and played for the full 4 quarters - another tick for the coach. Jackson’s Ruck taps were a lot more effective than Darcy’s too (I may need to whisper that but it is true….
However as the guys on the Restump Pod said this week - if we win it’s a case of shrugging your shoulders and going “so what, who cares” to a degree.
I thought the team tapped into a relatively unusual mindset that is not really a recipe for sustained success in this league today, because you cannot play in this mentality and still be a top 4 team. Therefore you can’t win the flag by playing games in this way.
It’s hard to describe it but it’s a kind of underdog mentality where we went out with a freedom of expression from the opening bounce against a highly fancied opponent that would have expected to win easily. It felt like our guys played with a weight off their shoulders as nobody really expected anything much. As the game went on we grew in stature and we tapped into that beautiful but rare space mentally where everything good we did made us get visibly more belief as the game wore on, and Geelong were the opposite, floundering in a purple current that surged and overwhelmed them unexpectedly. Fringe players and depth players from Freo throwing their bodies on the line with utter desperation all game. As the half time and especially the 3QT siren went the Geelong side would have been more and more exasperated as they went into their huddles and would have been looking at each other saying “these *ers won’t go away, this isn’t meant to happen, we are in trouble here”. Snapping out of their location and mindset, a complete contrast to our guys mindset, is so so hard.
As a team our situation today is a beautiful place to be, in that moment for the group, this surge of overwhelming and unexpected momentum driving our mid ranking and fringe players especially to play out of their skins when the game was there to be won.
If we lost - no harm done. No one expected anything anyway. There as nothing to lose.
Once could argue that apart from a 4 year stretch from 2012-15 under Ross, the entire history of the FFC can be summed up by the above. Littered with heroic and unexpected victories against the top contenders.
The problem? We have seen this before all too often. The minute any sense of expectation appears and an external pressure falls on the group to win, we seem to play in a completely different mindset - a fearful one, with guys afraid to express themselves and very few players really playing out of their skins.
The challenge for JL and his coaching team, is to make us a team with a ruthless winners mindset every week. It’s an equalised comp where the rules are deliberately set up to not achieve that, but the great teams that win flags are mentally strong enough to win 10 or 12 games in a row. To front up week in, week out and play as $1:30 favourites and back that up with routine expected wins.
The losses to Richmond, Carlton and Sydney this year in Perth were particularly galling for this reason. These were games we came into as even money at worst. There was something on the line in all those games. Our mindset was completely different from today and we were smashed in every sense in those games.
The north game was a bit different - I think we had genuine complacency there and early season games are notoriously unpredictable. However North themselves tapped into the same underdog mentality that we did today.
Ross Lyons biggest achievement was making us become a feared opponent. One that won the vast majority of games against Mid-ranking Dangerous but bearable opponents.
This team is young and will mature, but there is no guarantee that the mental resolve and strength to grind out win after win against those 5th-14th type sides that are inconsistent themselves but capable still, will come with increased maturity. The coaching group are the ones who have to install that belief. They need to make our team Mentality Monsters. That’s what all the great teams are in all sports and it’s very very coachable. There is no doubt about that. Sports psychology would not be a billion dollar industry if it wasn’t.
Until they do we can never be trusted to beat anyone and days like today will remain the highlight of frustratingly inconsistent seasons for freo fans.
And I'm hopeful yesterday's win will add to that experience/instinct, especially as it was done with no Darcy or Cox and a host of newish patch-ins - Raz, Hammer, Corbett, also Wagner and Stanley.
and Michael Johnson. He stood at 193 cm. can play at CHB but thrived as a 3rd tall on a back pocket too.
We can still make finals this year our list demographic hits peak(most players in 24-28 age bracket with 100 games exp) in 2025.
Made AA one year though
Dude could swing forward and kick them like no other.
Only Acres would have made us better. And that would have come at the expense of Henry's rapid growth.
I can’t remember, but I do remember it was him kicking for goal in that tied game against the Swans ten years ago
So did Luke McPharlin. One bloke made it in 2012 and the other made it in 2013. Back then I savoured it.
