*** Release the NEGATIVITY ***

[bornadog]

Great OP which I totally agree with.

I can't believe what I am reading about a practise match. Let's wait till the season proper and see how the team goes before we start the doom and gloom.

[GVGjr]

Is it negativity or just frustration? I'd say nearly all of us want us to win games to give the side some momentum

I look to Bevo's presser and saw a relaxed man who thinks a few things need to be fixed and I didn't see any level of despair
Now unless he's a better actor than coach it seems like he got out of the game roughly what he wanted albeit he would have wanted a win

It's early days and I'm looking to our game against the Saints on Sunday as a better indication of where we are.

[Raw Toast]

A couple of quick points from someone who avoided watching yesterday's game.

I think Dickson might be on a modified program - pretty sure I saw him running laps with Picken and someone else the other day when riding past Whitten Oval. Makes sense not to take him up to FNQ.

I'm not going to go back and look at them, but doesn't Beveridge always (or almost always) treat the first practice match as a chance to experiment?

My main pre-season hopes for the men's team is that we have no major injuries, and the players who came on towards the end of last season continue to play with some confidence.

[mjp]

Is it negativity or just frustration? I'd say nearly all of us want us to win games to give the side some momentum

I get that - I do. But what momentum do you get out of beating GC in a game in early much when they play 28 and we play 24 and it is hot and humid and who even cares.

I read comments about people getting excited when we start showing some improvement.

The season is long enough for all the angst and hand wringing in the world. How about we do it in reverse and get excited about the team and players until the excitement is beaten out of us.

Things have been a hell of a lot worse than this and only a week ago the consensus seemed to be we had too much talent to squeeze into 22 spots...now no-one is any good? I just don't get it.

I know I am repeatedly repeating myself but this AFL stuff is supposed to be my 'fun' footy and entertaining and something I look forward too...I got home from a wedding relatively late last night and watched the replay. We were OK. I read the match day thread today and it was like I watched a different game. Footy is hard. There are two teams out there. There are new team-mates, roles and rules to cope with. Most of the players are uncertain of their place in the 'pecking order' (particularly the newcomers).

It's bad enough that non 'dogs people think we are no good and 'got lucky' in 16 without all of us fuelling the fire.

[SonofScray]

I think the season is cooked already. About to commemorate 25 years of Terry Wheeler's sacking in R2 with the same for Bevo.

I'm not even sure if I am serious or not. It's a possibility, a ridiculous possibility.

[Dry Rot]

I think that the negativity comes from seeing many problems from the past two seasons seemingly unresolved in 2019.

[jeemak]

A couple of quick points from someone who avoided watching yesterday's game.

I think Dickson might be on a modified program - pretty sure I saw him running laps with Picken and someone else the other day when riding past Whitten Oval. Makes sense not to take him up to FNQ.

I'm not going to go back and look at them, but doesn't Beveridge always (or almost always) treat the first practice match as a chance to experiment?

My main pre-season hopes for the men's team is that we have no major injuries, and the players who came on towards the end of last season continue to play with some confidence.

2015

Game 1 - Beat Richmond by 22 pts. Richmond finished the season 5th
Game 2 - Lost to Melbourne by 7 pts. Melbourne finished the season 13th
Game 3 - Beat Collingwood by 61 pts. Collingwood finished the season 12th

2016

Game 1 - Beat GWS by 31 pts. GWS finished the season 4th
Game 2 - Lost to Melbourne by 12 pts. Melbourne finished the season 11th
Game 3 - Lost to Collingwood by 2 pts. Collingwood finished the season 12th

Not sure I have a point, other than to say our preseason form was patchy in 15/16 and we lost to some ordinary opposition in very ordinary games from memory. Much worse than last night.

As I said in last night's match day thread, GCS had played together against opposition already this year, we hadn't, and it shouldn't be underestimated how much that actually counts for. In addition they've had from some accounts a heavily loaded preseason and possibly find themselves at a different stage than us a few weeks out from the season.

In last night's team we had Will Hayes, Taylor Duryea, Sam Lloyd, Bailey Smith, Libba returning and Dahlhaus gone, and players playing out of position for the sake of a run (every team has the same issues with changing personnel at this time of year, and that's why only Bombers supporters go completely apeshit over decent preseason form - remember 2008?). Given the conditions which would have been extremely taxing and difficult for both teams we managed to clearly outnumber the opposition for disposals which is a great sign at this time of year, but simply weren't clean in our first run.

With respect to bombing the footy, it was pretty clear this was still an issue at times but we also had some excellent entries with excellent kicks over the course of the game (Jacko and Lloyd stand out here), and with a couple of better decisions should have had a few more. Naughton's marking was outstanding, and Wallis's ability to hit the scoreboard was once again excellent. I definitely think Dickson and Schache will be regular fixtures this year, while they didn't play I'm not reading anything at all into it, and if Bailey Williams had have started the game there's a fair chance we'd have seen much more influence from him as he seemed a touch flat when he hit the second half.

I get frustration, but I don't get the hand wringing and like MJP find the negativity a bit alarming.*


*My rights to whip hunter for doing the simple things poorly remain reserved. He is a fantastic player but he *!*!*!*!ing kills me.

[bornadog]

I think the season is cooked already. About to commemorate 25 years of Terry Wheeler's sacking in R2 with the same for Bevo.

I'm not even sure if I am serious or not. It's a possibility, a ridiculous possibility.

You are funny.

[GVGjr]

I get that - I do. But what momentum do you get out of beating GC in a game in early much when they play 28 and we play 24 and it is hot and humid and who even cares.

I read comments about people getting excited when we start showing some improvement.

The season is long enough for all the angst and hand wringing in the world. How about we do it in reverse and get excited about the team and players until the excitement is beaten out of us.

Things have been a hell of a lot worse than this and only a week ago the consensus seemed to be we had too much talent to squeeze into 22 spots...now no-one is any good? I just don't get it.

I know I am repeatedly repeating myself but this AFL stuff is supposed to be my 'fun' footy and entertaining and something I look forward too...I got home from a wedding relatively late last night and watched the replay. We were OK. I read the match day thread today and it was like I watched a different game. Footy is hard. There are two teams out there. There are new team-mates, roles and rules to cope with. Most of the players are uncertain of their place in the 'pecking order' (particularly the newcomers).

It's bad enough that non 'dogs people think we are no good and 'got lucky' in 16 without all of us fuelling the fire.

It all comes down to what we as a club get out of the game. We fielded a strong enough side to win the game, we got more of the ball and we went in a couple of players light on for rotations than the Suns did so there are some positives. It's not like we got our arse kicked and it was a close game for the last half.
Some of the youngsters performed well which is always good for what is a a youngish list plus Macrae and Hunter dominated possession so there are positives if you choose to look for it. On top of that Bevo looked relaxed not upset in the presser and seems to think there are a few things to fix which I take as a good thing.
Now why I think people get frustrated is that the skill level that was going to be a focus this summer let alone when Bevo first arrived was disappointing to me which is understandably frustrating even if it is a JLT game.
As for getting lucky in 16, some of the commentary by the club itself that indicates a slide after the GF was somewhat inevitable and we are rebuilding the club or list. To me that is not right. I get that we are trying to explain why we fell back so far and we are trying to do that in a manner that gives the wider AFL competition the impression that we have it under control but I think that it also explains why some think that is a possibility that we just had a great final month. I've never been comfortable about our slide because we were awesome in 15/16 and just so nonchalant about a shitty performance in 17.

We have a great draw, exciting youngsters and we have eventually turned over the distracted players so I think it's a good indication that we are back on track. Well that is my take on it.

Some people might be negative, some might also place too high of importance on a JLT game but signs of the club playing some good footy is why so many people turn on the telly or go to the games and I get why it might frustrate a few.

It's been a long and quiet summer and for a forum that was a chance to close because of a lack of participation just a few weeks back I can handle the mixed emotions after a close loss.

[Mofra]

Has everyone completely missed the fact we outran our opposition with a 4 player bench vs a team playing an extended bench?
We are still falling down in the F50 and I am a little mystified why Shache (especially) didn't play.

Pre-season I earmarked Schache as our most important forward and nothing has changed that view.
I view Wallis purely as a forward yet he started in the guts. We played much better when he moved forward (after giving GCS a 4 goal lead with Wallis as a mid).
Lloyd's delivery into the F50 is excellent, he will be very important for us.
I though Duryea was a significant upgrade on Roarke Smith.

There were some negatives but mostly that was the last kick in a stupidly humid climate. I'll admit I'm already worried about Hayes' delivery under pressure.

[Greystache]

2015

Game 1 - Beat Richmond by 22 pts. Richmond finished the season 5th
Game 2 - Lost to Melbourne by 7 pts. Melbourne finished the season 13th
Game 3 - Beat Collingwood by 61 pts. Collingwood finished the season 12th

2016

Game 1 - Beat GWS by 31 pts. GWS finished the season 4th
Game 2 - Lost to Melbourne by 12 pts. Melbourne finished the season 11th
Game 3 - Lost to Collingwood by 2 pts. Collingwood finished the season 12th

Not sure I have a point, other than to say our preseason form was patchy in 15/16 and we lost to some ordinary opposition in very ordinary games from memory. Much worse than last night.

In that period our pattern was to play a strong team week 1, the players that didn't get a game in week 2, then a full strength side in week 3. When we played a strong team we won easily and played some really impressive footy. The exception to this was the second Collingwood match where we belted them early on before resting many of the senior players in the second half and letting them come back, but we'd already shown how good our best was going to be in that game. The home and away seasons reflected exactly that of our best preseason style.

We didn't show anything like the low skilled, disorganised, ineffective style we played with on the weekend. Our past 2 seasons however have very much resembled what we saw on the weekend.

[Topdog]

I'd rather we didnt even play other AFL clubs in the pre season. It is meaningless to the season proper

[bornadog]

I'd rather we didnt even play other AFL clubs in the pre season. It is meaningless to the season proper

Did you see Lippa miss that target at training last week, season gone

[Eastdog]

Did you see Lippa miss that target at training last week, season gone

Hoping he has a good year. Heaps of potential in that forward line. Our most reliable kick up there right now would be Josh Schache. Good mark and kick at goal. Hopefully Tory Dickson can get on the scoreboard as well.

[Mantis]

Has everyone completely missed the fact we outran our opposition with a 4 player bench vs a team playing an extended bench?

We out-scored GC by 5 points in the last qtr with both teams having 6 scoring shots apiece.

And whilst we had a couple of players less and only played 4 on the bench in each qtr, GC were also managing the game time of their players.

There were some negatives but mostly that was the last kick in a stupidly humid climate. I'll admit I'm already worried about Hayes' delivery under pressure.

The last kick has been an issue for a long period regardless of the conditions... and agree on Hayes, just don't see what his POD is at present, was hoping it would be kicking, but that doesn't seem likely.