Opinion Your 2025 expectations

[Heeney2Franklin]

It's a double edged sword, because although we were losing the midfield battle most oppo teams were so incompetent in their attack that it played into our hands being the best rebound team. I have no doubt that if we actually manage to improve our midfield, our rebound scores will dry up a bit, and those out of the middle plays don't tend to be as clean in regards to hitting up forwards in space. You risk going too far the other direction and becoming a Melbourne who have contested inside beasts but can't manage a winning score. Even Brisbane suffered this a bit at times where they too have had many qtrs where Neale and Dunkley dominated so much yet they looked rubbish trying to put on a score, hence their topsy turvy and at time flaky season - imo they only got the chocolates because the dominoes fell their way at the right time, GWS should've got the job done on them. There's a reason why we were 4 games clear atop with everyone scratching their heads as to how that happens without great midfield numbers.

I still think we need to stick to our current gameplan for the most part but with the addition of someone like Sheldrick who can help on the defensive side of midfield stoppages. That way we become less leaky and more well rounded without overly committing one way or the other. I still think in todays game focussing more on rebound is the way to go.

Soon as Brisbane came back from 8 goals down in a quarter i knew we were doomed another fairy tale team

 

[Bloodz2005]

It's a double edged sword, because although we were losing the midfield battle most oppo teams were so incompetent in their attack that it played into our hands being the best rebound team. I have no doubt that if we actually manage to improve our midfield, our rebound scores will dry up a bit, and those out of the middle plays don't tend to be as clean in regards to hitting up forwards in space. You risk going too far the other direction and becoming a Melbourne who have contested inside beasts but can't manage a winning score. Even Brisbane suffered this a bit at times where they too have had many qtrs where Neale and Dunkley dominated so much yet they looked rubbish trying to put on a score, hence their topsy turvy and at time flaky season - imo they only got the chocolates because the dominoes fell their way at the right time, GWS should've got the job done on them. There's a reason why we were 4 games clear atop with everyone scratching their heads as to how that happens without great midfield numbers.

I still think we need to stick to our current gameplan for the most part but with the addition of someone like Sheldrick who can help on the defensive side of midfield stoppages. That way we become less leaky and more well rounded without overly committing one way or the other. I still think in todays game focussing more on rebound is the way to go.

During the H&A season I whole heartedly agree with you, however it’s a taxing was too play & for me it helped contribute to us running out of gas toward the backend of the year, by late season teams didn’t or weren’t allowing us to rebound as effectively as we did at the start of the season, but I do understand your point on our delivery into the FWD line & certainly needs to improve, get this right & my point about Guldon,Heeney, Warner being 2nd or 3rd in the chain as examples are some of our best uses of the ball,
We have had two GF spankings which tells us certain areas need to change it doesn’t hold up, & only just my opinion & observation but having a game plan heavily reliant on a rebound / slingshot is 1 area we can or should add a new dimension within our plan, I do agree with you on us being one of the best at it so to speak but results show us & tells us we need to make some changes,
Thanks for the chat mate,

 

[31400]

Pretty low to be honest.

Probably has more to with being wary after the psychological battering from the granny, but there you have it. Seeing Gulden missing half the season doesn't help either. And how will Coxy fare?

A lot of variables at play this year.