Opinion The Way Forward

[RedBloodBlackSwan]

It's very common to want to turn the whole team upside down after yet another Grand Final flogging. But the truth is, we wouldn't be making Grand Finals if it were not with the team we have. I do think some changes are needed, but not to the magnitude of what is being spoken of here. A smaller and quicker forward line is definitely something I will be looking at implementing. Do away with that three tall setup. Also bringing in midfielders that can win the hardball and can win clearances. We seem to have no issues about losing clearances because we rely too much on absorbing pressure and forcing turnovers. But that doesn't stack up well against the good sides. I hope Sheldrick can get his body right because I think he can be a great addition to our midfield.

The good and the bad news with our GFs is that it is most mental. I suspect it is a very simple yet very difficult mental knot to unpick for the players and coaches.

We come with our normal pressure in the GF and Brisbane don’t look like superstars. We come with GF level pressure (eg. 2012 pressure) and we have a good chance of winning.

 

[RedBloodBlackSwan]

This is spot-on. When WCE moved from the long narrow Subiaco to the more MCG sized Optus Oval in 2017 it was one of the major reasons we were able to win in 2018. I guess size does matter?

More specifically speaking in your analogy, it is girth that matters

 

[S120]

Personnel wise, I highly doubt we’ll be in the market for anyone of note this offseason. Maybe some guys around the edges but our list is what we’ve committed to. The reality is if you’re picking Pete Ladhams and Aaron Francis as two of your three emergencies for a GF you don’t have excellent depth.

If I were the head of footy or the coaches, I’d be sitting Patty Snell, Gus Sheldrick, and Caiden Cleary down in their exit meetings and telling them we need enormous preseasons from them.

Snell is to follow Rampe around all summer and learn everything there is to learn from him and aim to take his spot after maybe Rampe’s career worst game.

Sheldrick as I said elsewhere we need to have such a good preseason that he makes himself indisputable as our grunt inside midfielder who can feed our runners but who can play accountable football.

Our HF line needs more pace and ground ball skill and Cleary has got to be there.

 

[RedBloodBlackSwan]

Heeney is our top clearance player in 2024 and he was ranked 15th in the league for clearances.

15th - Heeney
28th - Rowbottom
31st - Grundy
67th - Warner
75th - Gulden
114th - Adams
118th - Parker

None of that inspires confidence. We need a proper clearance winner.

Swap out Warner for a combo of Mills and Sheldrick

Warner can do bursts, particularly in fourth quarters - in the meantime, he adds pace and unpredictability to our forward line (assuming we don’t trade him).

 

[RedBloodBlackSwan]

Biggest problem imo, is that most of our issues are mental - Yeah there's some personnel things I'll bang on about all trade season like getting a genuine KPD for example. For most part the pieces are there though.......most problems with the group are mental:

• The Starts, problem all year.....and honestly were a problem for a patch in 22 as well but we did fix it up late in that season couldn't manage that this year.
• The Gap between our best and worst. We have not been able to fix this in the last 3 years. Even outside the GF's, In 22 it was not being able to get up for the lessor teams for a while there, This year and last there were non completely non-competitive performances that are as bad as anything a rebuilding North has dished up over the same timeframe.

Now we'll have the scars of 2 GF's, who knows what that does to the group? In a fantasy world maybe it makes us stronger but wouldn't be holding my breath and would be putting money on the opposite if I had to.

Some of this definitely falls to coaching, but you can see what it looks like when it works and I'm sure that's what they want it to look like all the time......but then those days where the entire side just bottles a start, a quarter, a whole game - if handful of players do it then it's a probably co-incidence, a few guys having a bad day. When the whole side does it collectively means it's something else. Whether it's on the players / coaches / off-field performance staff / all of the above, don't know....but that gap between our best and worse just can't continue. (yeah they'll still be a couple ordinary loses, always is, but the GF & 112 etc. are far beyond ordinary loses).

That's the bit where I don't know where we go from here, we have the chess pieces to win a flag but how to fix the mental side and get them a bit more unrelenting in that space idk. That's the main challenge of the offseason.
We'll never have a chance better than the one we just had so to defy history says and be top 4 next year we'll need to be mentally tougher to get back there in what will be almost certainly harder circumstances.

Two words I would love to see in big red and white text in the locker rooms:

• Ruthless
• Relentless

 

[Choogler]

More specifically speaking in your analogy, it is girth that matters

most definitely, certainly in our case, although, as Sydney demonstrated, length (or rather the lack of it!) is too

 

[KingV23]

Its a shame that there is no set dimensions for an AFL oval. A bit of consistency would be goodm

most definitely, certainly in our case, although, as Sydney demonstrated, length (or rather the lack of it!) is too

 

[The King!]

Scott has won 3 from 9 in Prelims. I have never ever heard it even mentioned . Scott was just lucky in 2022 they got to play us in the GF .

I think Horse made mistakes regarding selection but let’s be honest , 3qtrs of the team have shat the bed twice in 3 years at the big dance

Scott copped it heaps prior to 22

 

[RedBloodBlackSwan]

Blakey 5th in AFL for metres gained
2nd rebound 50s
Eq 14th intercepts (Swans no.1)
(7th in bounces)
All Australian

And people want to move him up forward?

You don’t rob Peter to pay Paul. Nuts.

Agree - can we though get him to be the loose man behind the ball?

I feel he doesn’t have the strength and technique to mark a KPF and doesn’t have the smarts and concentration for the mediums and smalls.

I’d like to see him in an Aliir / Andrew’s role where he is given freedom to be less accountable. To do this though, we would need to tighten the rest of our defence and probably lose one of the ‘midfielder backs’ (eg. Florent, Roberts).

 

[Choogler]

Biggest problem imo, is that most of our issues are mental - Yeah there's some personnel things I'll bang on about all trade season like getting a genuine KPD for example. For most part the pieces are there though.......most problems with the group are mental:

• The Starts, problem all year.....and honestly were a problem for a patch in 22 as well but we did fix it up late in that season couldn't manage that this year.
• The Gap between our best and worst. We have not been able to fix this in the last 3 years. Even outside the GF's, In 22 it was not being able to get up for the lessor teams for a while there, This year and last there were non completely non-competitive performances that are as bad as anything a rebuilding North has dished up over the same timeframe.

Now we'll have the scars of 2 GF's, who knows what that does to the group? In a fantasy world maybe it makes us stronger but wouldn't be holding my breath and would be putting money on the opposite if I had to.

Some of this definitely falls to coaching, but you can see what it looks like when it works and I'm sure that's what they want it to look like all the time......but then those days where the entire side just bottles a start, a quarter, a whole game - if handful of players do it then it's a probably co-incidence, a few guys having a bad day. When the whole side does it collectively means it's something else. Whether it's on the players / coaches / off-field performance staff / all of the above, don't know....but that gap between our best and worse just can't continue. (yeah they'll still be a couple ordinary loses, always is, but the GF & 112 etc. are far beyond ordinary loses).

That's the bit where I don't know where we go from here, we have the chess pieces to win a flag but how to fix the mental side and get them a bit more unrelenting in that space idk. That's the main challenge of the offseason.
We'll never have a chance better than the one we just had so to defy history says and be top 4 next year we'll need to be mentally tougher to get back there in what will be almost certainly harder circumstances.

I think it's as simple as your home ground. While having a uniquely sized home ground can be a big asset during the H & A season, it can create problems in finals. WCE went through it while playing at the long but fairly narrow Subiaco. We had trouble winning on the wide expanses of the MCG. In 2015, we belted Hawks in the first final at Subi but got belted in the GF at the MCG. In 2017, we moved to Optus which is more MCG sized, and became a good away team culminating in the 2018 win. I've always said moving to Optus helped us win that.. I don't know where you'd move to but I reckon it would be a good move if you want to win GF's

 

[The King!]

It is done respectfully so no issues there, but do we really need any more oppo fans telling us ground size is an issue.

Brisbane won yesterday they play at the Gabba, Marvel teams win flags, who cares

 

[Choogler]

It’s a bloody long commute from Perth to Princes Park every second week.

Good get, bad fk up by me , Optus Stadium. What's an extra 50000kms on top of the travelling we do?

 

[Choogler]

To be fair, they have tried to find genuine size in defence. Had a real crack at Barrass, and seemingly went pretty close to getting him to agree. It’s not as if they don’t know it’s an area of weakness, but it takes 2 to tango.
Concerningly, they got torched by small and medium forwards yesterday, which they normally do a decent job of handling.
All in all, they had very few winners on the day. For the second time, Robbie Fox might’ve been your best player in a losing grand final. Immense credit to him, but yikes!
Big concerns up the other end for mine. Got to find a tall forward who can consistently impact. I don’t mind all of McDonald, Amartey and McLean, just that neither of them is good enough as a no.1 target.

Get Josh Kennedy out of retirement

 

[The King!]

Get Josh Kennedy out of retirement

Which one?

 

[KingV23]

Which one?

****. Both will be good now.

 

[Dangas]

If Horse is going to remain as head coach, needs to own this loss along with the players where they'll have entrenched and a burning desire to be back in September and the final Saturday.

If players and coaches don't know "what happened" then clearly they are self-absorbed outside of reality that they were bent over backwards and reamed by the opposition who 'wanted it more'.

2025 needs to have this 2024 Grand Final score branded above the door prior to every H&A game. Why do this? Currently nothing is getting the lads mentally in Grand Final mode. You don't just make Grand Finals being turd side, we have been great this year. Hunger is needed.

 

[Choogler]

You know we won the clearances “count” yesterday, right?

you won clearances by 1, and hitouts by 22 which tells me BL we're far more effective at the stoppages a centre bounces because they were able to negate your hitout advantage. The relevant stat would be how effective each team's clearances were, ie who got the next possession and how effective that was. That would be the true measure.

 

[The King!]

If Horse is going to remain as head coach, needs to own this loss along with the players where they'll have entrenched and a burning desire to be back in September and the final Saturday.

If players and coaches don't know "what happened" then clearly they are self-absorbed outside of reality that they were bent over backwards and reamed by the opposition who 'wanted it more'.

2025 needs to have this 2024 Grand Final score branded above the door prior to every H&A game. Why do this? Currently nothing is getting the lads mentally in Grand Final mode. You don't just make Grand Finals being turd side, we have been great this year. Hunger is needed.

Fagan apparently made the lions write down everything they were carrying in 23 and did a burning ceremony. Guess if they lose it looks dumb, but what did we do with 22.? Probably Watched the replay with Horse talking about a lack of pressure even though the prep was great

 

[Dangas]

Fagan apparently made the lions write down everything they were carrying in 23 and did a burning ceremony. Guess if they lose it looks dumb, but what did we do with 22.? Probably Watched the replay with Horse talking about a lack of pressure even though the prep was great

Hearing some of the players post-game talking about "oh, but our prep was good" really makes me angry. They all forget that a Champion Team will beat a Team of Champions.

The Lions banner said it all, Believe. Jeez, I want to see the Bloods culture back and I don't care if we turn into 'Ugly Ducklings' again.

 

[Dangas]

you won clearances by 1, and hitouts by 22 which tells me BL we're far more effective at the stoppages a centre bounces because they were able to negate your hitout advantage. The relevant stat would be how effective each team's clearances were, ie who got the next possession and how effective that was. That would be the true measure.

Can you please work for the club and provide Horse with this observation? The more I think about it, the more I can see how predictable his coaching really is. Clarkson, Beverage, Scott and Fagan have all outcoached Horse early on in games.

 

[Nuggetz]

There was a real hunger in the players for this season & a massive build up with our 150th year onus. I can see us having a flat year after another GF disaster.

I think the biggest change we need to make is our strategy, especially with midfield & fwd line makeup. Midfield is too reliant on kicking skills over ability to pressure & win hard ball contests. Fwd line is too slow & has no ground level presence leading to a lack of pressure. We need players to perform consistently throughout the match rather than bursts.

Biggest change has to be with strategy, felt like we had too many games where a small number of superstars performances got us wins rather than a collective team effort.