The balance of the 2020 season

[bornadog]

Last night was almost our best 22, however, we need to consider the following players for the balance of the season:

Duryea
Suckling
Cordy
Schache
Dale
Trengove
Lipinski

I can't see anyone else that we can bring in at this stage of the season.

[GVGjr]

Greene is probably the only one above that most people have anything resembling hope for, and even if he is a competent player do any of us see him being better than Dale who plays almost the exact same role, and he would just add another low possession deepish no crumbing forward to our list which already has an abundance of mediocre players in that position.

Greene has ability and most importantly some upside but he's mainly had an injury free season this year and has made the emergency list just once or twice. We either don't rate him as good enough or have preferred the likes of Gowers, Dale, Lloyd, Vandermeer, Weightman and West. Perhaps we just run a bit too deep in that mid sized forward spots especially with Wally performing so well

It wouldn't be a bad decision to play him based on his form but I don't think we should play him just because we want to give him another chance.

What do we do with Gowers? Should he be given another chance, made to earn it, try him in another role or do we accept that he is not part of our 2021 plans and open the door for others?

[DOG GOD]

The MC have pretty much used 2020 as a “throw the puzzle pieces up in the air and see where they lay” attitude this amongst other stupid moves.

I’m gunna say this, IF things don’t change and change quickly for 2021 and 2022, then the “Bonti” years will be over. The MC have pretty much ruined the careers of Lewis Young and Josh Schache, and are doing their best to ruin Dunkley and English.

Dead wood is ripe at this club. Gowers, Gardner, Hayes, Lynch, Smith have got to go for starters.

If the MC honestly think Gardner is a better long term prospect than Young then .....what do I know.

I’d keep Greene for now.

[Remi Moses]

Disagree on Schache
You have to play with a form of intensity in this era
The games that fast it shows when players don’t
Unfortunately Josh needs to show more urgency

[Danjul]

The MC have pretty much used 2020 as a “throw the puzzle pieces up in the air and see where they lay” attitude this amongst other stupid moves.

I’m gunna say this, IF things don’t change and change quickly for 2021 and 2022, then the “Bonti” years will be over. The MC have pretty much ruined the careers of Lewis Young and Josh Schache, and are doing their best to ruin Dunkley and English.

Dead wood is ripe at this club. Gowers, Gardner, Hayes, Lynch, Smith have got to go for starters.

If the MC honestly think Gardner is a better long term prospect than Young then .....what do I know.

I’d keep Greene for now.

I thought Hayes’ play that set up Hunter’s goal was our best of the last three quarters. Pure class. I wish we had a few more who could do it.

[josie]

Agree with Danjul’s thoughts on Hayes passage of play-thought he played ok rest of match too.

[FrediKanoute]

For starters the season is not over. Win the next 3 games and we probably make the finals. Whilst not quite where we expected to be in March, no one expected anyone to be in this position. In my mind we keep playing the best 22 players we have. Guys who put their hand up should be rewarded - but with a caveat - strong performances on the track and performances in scratch matches count for zip unless its translated onto the field in the AFL.

There is no point Gowers or Schache or Hayes or Smith or Gardiner or Dicko training the house down and performing in scratch matches where the pressure is off and them coming up to the serious stuff and failing. The inability to take the next step and bring A grade intensity; A grade commitment; A grade performance is indicative of players who just can't be part of the set up next year.

[Danjul]

For starters the season is not over. Win the next 3 games and we probably make the finals. Whilst not quite where we expected to be in March, no one expected anyone to be in this position. In my mind we keep playing the best 22 players we have. Guys who put their hand up should be rewarded - but with a caveat - strong performances on the track and performances in scratch matches count for zip unless its translated onto the field in the AFL.
.

We don’t know who the best 22 are. What we see is simply the most popular.

No player in the history of the team has ever been gifted the set of selections given to Bruce.

His 6 possessions as season average (and again on Friday) shows he should not be in the team. When you look at what he did with the ball on those 6 occasions (the missed goals from 25 and 35m and the handball out of bounds when we had a clear path to goal) shows he should not be in the team. Clearly a MC favourite , so they share the blame for the damage done.

Fortunately there are some scapegoats for this season ‘s dismal performance. They will be enough to take our attention away from noticing how far we have fallen in the past 4 years. Halving Dunkley’s effectiveness can be dismissed as a necessity (because English has been driven into the ground - but don’t say it out loud or you will be dismissed as disloyal ).

Why couldn’t the players who took the field defend a 6 goal lead by kicking 4 goals in 3 quarters on Friday?

Why couldn’t we kick more than 5 goals against Collingwood in the first game?

14 games apart but the same reason for failing, and it’s not the players.

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

We don’t know who the best 22 are. What we see is simply the most popular.

No player in the history of the team has ever been gifted the set of selections given to Bruce.

His 6 possessions as season average (and again on Friday) shows he should not be in the team. When you look at what he did with the ball on those 6 occasions (the missed goals from 25 and 35m and the handball out of bounds when we had a clear path to goal) shows he should not be in the team. Clearly a MC favourite , so they share the blame for the damage done.

Fortunately there are some scapegoats for this season ‘s dismal performance. They will be enough to take our attention away from noticing how far we have fallen in the past 4 years. Halving Dunkley’s effectiveness can be dismissed as a necessity (because English has been driven into the ground - but don’t say it out loud or you will be dismissed as disloyal ).

Why couldn’t the players who took the field defend a 6 goal lead by kicking 4 goals in 3 quarters on Friday?

Why couldn’t we kick more than 5 goals against Collingwood in the first game?

14 games apart but the same reason for failing, and it’s not the players.

You'd be great as a Fox news reporter. The Carlson Tucker of Australia!

You're not disposed to discussion or up for even considering changing your point of view.
You've a tightly wound narrative, and confirmation bias be danned, you'll stick to it!
Yep we gave up a 6 goal lead. Instead of examining the full range of factors that may explain it, you just keep your gaze narrowed and focus on the bits that support your predetermined narrative.
Find some nuance
Absolute tripe of a post!
You're clearly a massive Dog's supporter, and like all of us, frustrated by our inability to recapture 2016 lightning in a bottle. Lift your gaze.
Yes we're clearly along way off the mark, but many of your posts, like the one above, want to conveniently reduce our issues to a tightly wound narrative of inconpetence of our coaches.

I just don't see that as being the case.
Reducing our loss to Geelong along narrow terms, misses a larger spectrum of factors that are quite more plausible.

Geelong aren't mugs. They were always going to reapply themselves at Qtr time.
They had the 10 most experienced players on the field . Discount that at your peril.

We lost 2 players by half time. By any stretch, statistically that is a huge hurdle to overcome.

[azabob]

You'd be great as a Fox news reporter. The Carlson Tucker of Australia!

You're not disposed to discussion or up for even considering changing your point of view.
You've a tightly wound narrative, and confirmation bias be danned, you'll stick to it!
Yep we gave up a 6 goal lead. Instead of examining the full range of factors that may explain it, you just keep your gaze narrowed and focus on the bits that support your predetermined narrative.
Find some nuance
Absolute tripe of a post!
You're clearly a massive Dog's supporter, and like all of us, frustrated by our inability to recapture 2016 lightning in a bottle. Lift your gaze.
Yes we're clearly along way off the mark, but many of your posts, like the one above, want to conveniently reduce our issues to a tightly wound narrative of inconpetence of our coaches.

I just don't see that as being the case.
Reducing our loss to Geelong along narrow terms, misses a larger spectrum of factors that are quite more plausible.

Geelong aren't mugs. They were always going to reapply themselves at Qtr time.
They had the 10 most experienced players on the field . Discount that at your peril.

We lost 2 players by half time. By any stretch, statistically that is a huge hurdle to overcome.

List management, match committee and coaching has gotten us into this situation.

If we had a proper ruck solution rather than Dunkley, Bontempelli or Macrae I truly believe we would've been able to withstand the Geelong onslaught and gotten over the line.

How can you justify Bruce's continued selection and our ruck strategy?

[azabob]

We should be bedding down our best 2020 line-up and going flat-chat to win every game.

Experimentation and 'playing the kids' is for the teams on 5 wins or fewer

I think we have done this the last few weeks which makes the first half of 2020 and first half of 2019 equally frustrating.

I would like some ruck support for Tim English and not have it come from our midfielders.

Lewis Young seems the most likely candidate as he has played this role previously with limited success. Young appears to be more suited to the freedom of a ruck / forward role rather than lock down defender. In his debut season he played the third man up / intercept role in the back half really well.

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

List management, match committee and coaching has gotten us into this situation.

If we had a proper ruck solution rather than Dunkley, Bontempelli or Macrae I truly believe we would've been able to withstand the Geelong onslaught and gotten over the line.

How can you justify Bruce's continued selection and our ruck strategy?

I don't disagree our list management has got us into the position whereby Bevo is having to employ this risk mitigation approach.

I do think this needs to be our prime area to sort out this off season.

But the actual mechanics of what is occurring at ruck contests is in my opinion pretty good.
We lost hit outs by a whopping margin 49 to 13. Yet we lost clearances by only 8 overall. 11 to 9 in the centre and 25 to 19 around the ground.

Bruce's selection has become an issue, but I'm not as sure as some as to the solution. Schache simply cannot perform Bruce's role. He's shown absolutely no ability to hit a pack and either mark or bring the ball to ground.

If Schache is to come in for Bruce, then its probably going to mean Naughton plays a different role?

Or yep, maybe Lewis Young. Although I'm not sure he's really going to play the Bruce role effectively at this stage.
But I still think as I said in the match day thread Bruce's time has come, he needs to be dropped. MC will have to work out how to restructure the forward line in his absence.

[GVGjr]

Bruce's selection has become an issue, but I'm not as sure as some as to the solution. Schache simply cannot perform Bruce's role. He's shown absolutely no ability to hit a pack and either mark or bring the ball to ground.

If Schache is to come in for Bruce, then its probably going to mean Naughton plays a different role?

Bruce isn't really clunking marks up forward but to me the goal kicking accuracy of Schache is a huge point of difference with Bruce.

I know it's an exceptionally hard call but we need to cut our losses with Bruce for 2020 and hope he gets it together for 2021.
It just makes a mockery of the notion we have spun this year about picking players on form.

I'd be playing Schache or Lewis Young for the balance of the season but I don't think it will happen.
Give Schache a strong message to make these games count and lets see if the coin drops or not.

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Bruce isn't really clunking marks up forward but to me the goal kicking accuracy of Schache is a huge point of difference with Bruce.

I know it's an exceptionally hard call but we need to cut our losses with Bruce for 2020 and hope he gets it together for 2021.
It just makes a mockery of the notion we have spun this year about picking players on form.

I'd be playing Schache or Lewis Young for the balance of the season but I don't think it will happen.
Give Schache a strong message to make these games count and lets see if the coin drops or not.

Do we know how Schache went in the scratch match this weekend?

[GVGjr]

Do we know how Schache went in the scratch match this weekend?

Greene kicked 3, Schache 2

Goals: Greene 3, Schache 2, Suckling 2, Garcia, Gowers, R. Smith, Weightman