Whilst it was more than encouraging that we won on Saturday, and won well, there were a few holes in our game plan. To me, the most worrying was the way we are using, or not, the sublime skills of one Jesse Hogan.

Some might say he had an off day, but I think it was more how we used him. After watching the video several times, time and again we bombed it into the forward line with little system which certainly did not use hogan's skills to great effect. More than one occasion he expressed his frustration to his team-mates.  

I think there will be essentially three reasons why Hogan will resign:

1. he is convinced we can win a premiership in the next 5 years

2. he feels he can achieve optimum personal development by staying the the demons, and 

3. he is competitively compensated.

i would suggest, even if we get 1 & 3 right, if our game plan does not include Hogan as an integral part, we will be looking for a new full forward in 2018.

By these comments I am certainly not suggesting Hogan should be the central plank of our game plan - no one person is bigger than the team, and there has been no suggestion whatsoever that Hogan himself thinks he is. In fact everyone who has anything to do with him says he is very very team oriented. But on Saturday, there were at lease half a dozen times when a with a little more thought, our mid fielders could have given the big forward at least some chance of marking, and no doubt ensured we would have doubled our winning margin. Anything else, is just pure waste.

Merge.

21 minutes ago, Dees2014 said:

Whilst it was more than encouraging that we won on Saturday, and won well, there were a few holes in our game plan. To me, the most worrying was the way we are using, or not, the sublime skills of one Jesse Hogan.

Some might say he had an off day, but I think it was more how we used him. After watching the video several times, time and again we bombed it into the forward line with little system which certainly did not use hogan's skills to great effect. More than one occasion he expressed his frustration to his team-mates.  

I think there will be essentially three reasons why Hogan will resign:

1. he is convinced we can win a premiership in the next 5 years

2. he feels he can achieve optimum personal development by staying the the demons, and 

3. he is competitively compensated.

i would suggest, even if we get 1 & 3 right, if our game plan does not include Hogan as an integral part, we will be looking for a new full forward in 2018.

By these comments I am certainly not suggesting Hogan should be the central plank of our game plan - no one person is bigger than the team, and there has been no suggestion whatsoever that Hogan himself thinks he is. In fact everyone who has anything to do with him says he is very very team oriented. But on Saturday, there were at lease half a dozen times when a with a little more thought, our mid fielders could have given the big forward at least some chance of marking, and no doubt ensured we would have doubled our winning margin. Anything else, is just pure waste.

Relax Mate...

Win games. The rest will sort itself out. 

We won't be winning many games without utilising his skill set and if we aren't winning games then it probably won't matter.

Hogan seemed to sit pretty deep on the weekend. No doubt the club not trying to over tax him in the first hit out. He'll come up the ground and get involved more. He's going to have to deal with some poor delivery and I don't think that will bother him all that much as long as he gets his chances. He's always grinning when his mates Kent or Harmes get a goal and I think he has no problem with dishing the ball off when needed. 

Dangle James Harmes over a cliff.

3 hours ago, Dees2014 said:

Whilst it was more than encouraging that we won on Saturday, and won well, there were a few holes in our game plan. To me, the most worrying was the way we are using, or not, the sublime skills of one Jesse Hogan.

Some might say he had an off day, but I think it was more how we used him. After watching the video several times, time and again we bombed it into the forward line with little system which certainly did not use hogan's skills to great effect. More than one occasion he expressed his frustration to his team-mates.  

I think there will be essentially three reasons why Hogan will resign:

1. he is convinced we can win a premiership in the next 5 years

2. he feels he can achieve optimum personal development by staying the the demons, and 

3. he is competitively compensated.

i would suggest, even if we get 1 & 3 right, if our game plan does not include Hogan as an integral part, we will be looking for a new full forward in 2018.

By these comments I am certainly not suggesting Hogan should be the central plank of our game plan - no one person is bigger than the team, and there has been no suggestion whatsoever that Hogan himself thinks he is. In fact everyone who has anything to do with him says he is very very team oriented. But on Saturday, there were at lease half a dozen times when a with a little more thought, our mid fielders could have given the big forward at least some chance of marking, and no doubt ensured we would have doubled our winning margin. Anything else, is just pure waste.

For [censored] sake can you see what you've done here? Now I'm going to have to watch the bloody game again!

Oh well, beers - check. Love a good win. Giddy up.

Crap! Forgot about the first tackle of the game....

22 hours ago, Dees2014 said:

Whilst it was more than encouraging that we won on Saturday, and won well, there were a few holes in our game plan. To me, the most worrying was the way we are using, or not, the sublime skills of one Jesse Hogan.

Some might say he had an off day, but I think it was more how we used him. After watching the video several times, time and again we bombed it into the forward line with little system which certainly did not use hogan's skills to great effect. More than one occasion he expressed his frustration to his team-mates.  

I think there will be essentially three reasons why Hogan will resign:

1. he is convinced we can win a premiership in the next 5 years

2. he feels he can achieve optimum personal development by staying the the demons, and 

3. he is competitively compensated.

i would suggest, even if we get 1 & 3 right, if our game plan does not include Hogan as an integral part, we will be looking for a new full forward in 2018.

By these comments I am certainly not suggesting Hogan should be the central plank of our game plan - no one person is bigger than the team, and there has been no suggestion whatsoever that Hogan himself thinks he is. In fact everyone who has anything to do with him says he is very very team oriented. But on Saturday, there were at lease half a dozen times when a with a little more thought, our mid fielders could have given the big forward at least some chance of marking, and no doubt ensured we would have doubled our winning margin. Anything else, is just pure waste.

Just get the ball in the hands of J.Watts. Play Watts as a high half forward (flank or centre-half), and he will hit up Jesse with ease. If you wanted a more radical alternative, send Gawn to FF when he is resting, Hogan to CHF, and Watts to the back line as a lose man or sweeper. Either would work. But an even easier solution would be allowing Salem to have more midfield time, and also the addition of B.Vince.