What has surprised you about this season?

[GVGjr]

It's been a bit of a roller coaster season but we finished the Home and Away season somewhat strongly and made the finals.

What has been the biggest surprise of the season from your perspective both positive and negative?

[angelopetraglia]

Suprises Positive

-Conceding the least points for the season and being the best in the comp at stopping D50 transitions!
-Adam Treloar having his best ever season at 31 years of age.
-Rory Lobb reinventing himself as an elite intercepting defender.
-Freijah locking down a spot for a big chunk of the season and looking like a seasoned veteran.
-Taylor Duryea doing his best Benjamin Button impersonation after everyone thought he was cooked.
-Ed Richards turning into an elite midfielder.

Suprises negative

-Busslinger not making his debut.
-Macrae and Caleb spending chunks of the season in the VFL.

[josie]

+ve
Bramble providing dash and good disposal after a so so start.
McNeil looking like a 100 gamer.

-ve
Goal kicking but that’s not a surprise. Having said that I think Johnno has had positive influence. The players don’t seem to be having quite as many sprays. Still need to improve though.

[bornadog]

The biggest surprise is Rory Lobb at CHB. I thought he was going to struggle to get a game and ask for a transfer at year end.

He has taken on the role with professionalism and made the spot his.

[GVGjr]

Positive

- Bevo has reinvented himself as a coach
- Bramble coming in and after a slow start playing a significant role of us
- Lobb success as a key defender
- Being able to debut so many players this season
- Our percentage
- The arrival of Sam Darcy
- The strength of the playing list but knowing we have more to do.

Negative

- Our slow start to the season
- Dropping that game to Hawks early in the season
- The club managing the media narrative better

[MrMahatma]

Positive:
- We're the best team in it. I believe that.
- We stayed tight when the wolves were coming and are all the better for it.
- Signing Tim & Marra.
- Lobster!
- Ed!
- Naughton's role. Reckon he's having a good season even though he's not necessarily as spectacular as in the past.
- Darcy. I'd HOPED he'd come on this year... but gee... he's a serious weapon for someone so young.

Negative:
- Getting pumped a few times.
- Baz... it's just getting weird now.
- Shots at goal. Far out...
- Surprised how little talk there is about our assistant coaches. Lots of changes in the off season and all the negative and positive seems to be directed to Bevo. We got a new defensive coach and are suddenly one of (if not the?) hardest in the league to score against. Not sure that's a coincidence.

[mighty_west]

Most of what has already been written but especially Lobb, it's as though we overnight gained two Liam Jones's, that's massive for our structure meaning our younger key's can play as the third key and not be as exposed.

The fact that at stages late in the season we could have been, have been or seen to be the best team in the comp, that's like wow! from where we came from the start of the season which was extremely disappointing especially game 1 against a side already with a game under their belt, massive especially riding that hot form into the finals, we usually suck leading up to finals.

I know we were probably going to lose Baz either way but to go down pre season was a low point, same with O'Driscoll to not even being given a chance for one game in the VFL, to have his career cut short like that was heartbreaking for the kid, he possibly woke up not knowing anything of what happened and then to be told your dream is over just like that, dreadful.

[Jasper]

+
There is a lot that has gone right
Form wise Lobb, Bramble, Darcy, West, Freijah and Sanders
The signing of English and a few others

-
The ongoing will he or won't he regarding Bailey Smith. I hope he's okay
The O'Driscoll injury which is terrible for such a youngster
The ongoing goal kicking challenges hasn't been rectified

[Flamethrower]

Positives:
1. When we are on, and we don't lose key players to injury early in the game, we are the best team in the league and it isn't close.
2. I and many others have been crying out for a second gorilla to team up with Liam Jones (and Alex Keath before Jones return) - who knew we had him on our list - Rory Lobb has been a revelation since being moved to defense.
3. Ed Richards has always shown signs that he could be a midfielder with a point of difference - his leg speed and lethal left foot. Bont has one, Adz the other but Press Red for Ed has both.
4. The addition of Joel Freijah and Lachie Bramble along with the continued development of both JOD and Buku (with Jones, Lobby and Doc) has turned our backline from swiss cheese to a brick wall.
5. Sam Darcy - could be anything.

Negatives:
1. Still have a propensity to fall apart when things go wrong - exhibit A Port Adelaide, exhibit B Adelaide - unfortunately cost us the top 2 finish we were capable of. Makes winning the whole thing a lot tougher.
2. The whole Bailey Smith saga
3. Those gunning for Bevo's job early on when he was trying to fit together a jigsaw puzzle of new and inexperienced players into a team trying to develop a new defensive game plan.

[whythelongface]

Positives
Lobb
Young guns - Darcy, Freijah, Sanders, Gags getting lots of game time
Evolving game plan
Future prospects
Bevo reenergised
Team camaraderie- you can sense it is very positive


Negatives
Inconsistent form early part of year
Goal kicking

[SonofScray]

That the Club pulled the right levers post review.

Did not think they were honest enough to get it right after the previous year’s review and subsequent waste of another year. Second ti e around it seems as if the right decisions were made.

[Eastdog]

Positives

1. The emergence of Sam Darcy. Just a delight to watch.
2. The move of Ed Richards to the middle
3. Rory Lobb to the back line.
4. The emergence of Joel Freijah. Loved how he has gone about it in his first season.
5. Bevo looking like he is a lot more at ease this year compared to last year which is great to see.


Negatives
1. Our goal kicking still a a huge problem
2. Prone to some terrible performances

[bornadog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eamm_k5asnQ

[FrediKanoute]

Positives

Lobby - revelation
Richards - wow. Changed and revolutionised our midfield
Darcy - amazing in his 3rd season
West - 25 goals from a forward pocket......defensive pressure to boot.....would love to know his total score involvements for the season!

Negatives

O'Driscoll for me was tragic
JJ breaking down
MacRae and Daniel - game and structure passing them by

[macca]

Positives
The 4 quarters of pressure evident in our wins against smashed Geelong, Melbourne, and Freo, good wins against GWS, Carlton and Sydney. We pretty much beat most top 8 teams other than Lions and Port.
Our playing group has some maturity ( group of players 100+ games) and some consistency now.

Closed the gaps where teams get 5 goal run ons

Lobby, Richards, Darcy, Brambles consistency, and contributions has been fantastic

Young players emerging: Gallagher, Sanders, West, Darcy and Freijh. JOD until he was injured

Coaching, after the Hawthorn lost, I think the club to adjust a few things and coaching helped with the improvement.
Negatives

Our goal kicking costs us a few games, especially against Adelaide

We are threatening to smash sides, but we need to really run over them. Probaly our goal kicking let us down. The game against Essendon , poor goal kicking took the momentum away.

Lack of burst speed. Its noticeable against quicker teams. Hence dropping of MacRae and Daniel.

Younger small fwds not being able to challenger for VDM's spot. I get that his fast , but he needs to start kicking more goals to be damaging, not just negating. Probably same applies to McNeil. I see more of a footballer who can't finish in McNeil than in VDM.

CAn some of the fringe players: Poulter, Garcia, cement their spot? I really like Poulter what he offers but he lacks physicality and marking ability for someone his size.

English lack of physicality at times.

Some players I get why they may be in the team like Coffield, but gee his disposal is poor.

[Funke disco]

I have enjoyed this year immensely.
We have had a mindset adjustment.
Aside from the Adelaide games, and brisbane game in which we were destroyed there have been no "run-on" games where the opposition team has clawed their way back after successive 5-6 goals against us.

Lobb at CHB. The guy has solved our year on year issue, unfortunately north of 30 but we should get at least 2 more years from him at this level.

West's consistency, he has been in games much more often and I hope he plays on Friday.

Richards in the middle. Our midfield is no longer pedestrian and can now shift through gears with his spread from the contest.

Joel Freijah - The guy has it. He will be "discovered" by the wider AFL community next year and there will be commentary on how we picked him up so cheap.

[jDogs]

I was surpised about the Dogs having the number 1 defense in the comp, given how I heard so much in the media about how poor our defenders were and that Bevo doesn't care about defending and all that.

[jeemak]

The positives have been mentioned thoroughly, as have most of the negatives.

A couple of positives for me are how the playing group seems to have committed to defending as a team again. A coaching refresh may have helped change things up but Beveridge coached teams have proved they can do it in the past. The lack of run-on goals happening as they have in the past, and while I know we've had a couple of bad days at Adelaide Oval it's not felt the same as when we've previously had runs of 4-5 goals kicked against us out of the blue in games previously.

One negative is the lack of credit the coaching team seems to get from the same pundits in the media who still carry on as if we're the most talented side in it. Mostly our improved performance (outside of defence as per above) has come from out of the blue coaching positional moves, depth stepping up to play important and consistent roles and some development of players who had previously not proved to be established in the game.

Earlier in the year I said things reminded me a little of 2021, and while the start of this year was a bit different our best form and who has contributed and where feels pretty similar.

[bulldogtragic]

That we still choke in finals.

[G-Mo77]

Probably the way we came back and won our way back into finals contention. It'll be forgotten a lot my not only our own but outside as well. The climb back to the 8 was super impressive.

[comrade]

Probably the way we came back and won our way back into finals contention. It'll be forgotten a lot my not only our own but outside as well. The climb back to the 8 was super impressive.

It was but it means nothing if you bow out like we did tonight.

[G-Mo77]

It was but it means nothing if you bow out like we did tonight.

Not going to argue. Devastating result and one that is going to be difficult to come back from.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

It's like getting a C grade on an assignment. Yeah it wasn't a fail but can't be happy about it.