Just finished watching the game for the first time. 

Jones looks great playing as a half back. He looks set for another massive season. Also, a quick side note, if Jones plays at least 14 games this year, he'll move into 9th on the most games played lost with the MFC. Still only 29 as well.

Speaking of massive seasons, Hogan looks set for a 60 goal season. Looks like he wants to prove a point. Contested marking and his improved set shot routine were highlights. Our other key forward in Weideman did some good things as well. I'd still prefer Pederson to play in the early stages of the season but I think the coaches are determined to get games into Weideman.

I wouldnt complain at all if Spencer is in the round one team. If it means more of Gawn playing forward then yes please!

More Salem in the midfield please. He has a natural ball winning ability. If you combine that with his disposal, then he'll be a serious threat this year. 

The rest of the young midfield brigade in Brayshaw, Oliver, and of course captain Viney did everything right to reaffirm themselves as one of the leagues most exciting centre bounce lineups.

While he's no means a round 1 lock, Garlett still seems the most likely contender to be our small forward. Kicked an important goal and was involved in about four others. Looked back in 2015 form.

Lewis will be worth every penny. He arguably won us the game with his spoil in the final couple of minutes.

Melksham looked understandably rusty, but was involved in a couple of handy plays. 

Bugg surprised me. Looks in great nick and bobbed up for a couple shots a goal. Could be one to surprise this year.

Both of the McDonald bros looked steady. (No terrible turnovers aside from one from Oscar) Cloke looked set to dominate but was fairly well held after half time. I would prefer Frost in the side to deal with the more 'gorilla' forwards of the league. While on the topic of our defence, Hibberd and Jetta will provide a massive boost next week providing they're both selected.

Overall, a great first hit-out. Yes, the Bulldogs had a few significant players out (Wood, Bontempelli, etc), but the key spine of their premiership team was still intact. JLT or not, an important win going forward. 

EDIT: I can't believe I forgot to mention Joel Smith. He was absolutely everywhere in the second quarter. I counted about five or so instances in the space of seven/eight minutes where he was instrumental in the back half.

Edited February 19, 20178 yr by Demon Jack

If Watts had an injury, don't you reckon thy would just say he was injured? There has been no reason offered as to why he didn't play? Believe what you want. I don't really care. I know what was said to me today and I know the person is close enough to the club to have reliable info. 

12 minutes ago, Mad_Melbourne said:

Nah, a reliable source said that he missed out because he's been partying too hard and it's a punishment, also because Goody didn't mention him at the end of game presser it probably suggests he's no longer in our best 22 and definitely going to have a horrible year. 

 

Oh, hell. I didn't get mentioned in the end of game presser either.

7 minutes ago, Ted Fidge said:

Oh, hell. I didn't get mentioned in the end of game presser either.

Ya, sorry taking the pizz

8 minutes ago, Leoncelli_36 said:

If Watts had an injury, don't you reckon thy would just say he was injured? There has been no reason offered as to why he didn't play? Believe what you want. I don't really care. I know what was said to me today and I know the person is close enough to the club to have reliable info. 

It is what it is.....

9 minutes ago, Leoncelli_36 said:

If Watts had an injury, don't you reckon thy would just say he was injured? There has been no reason offered as to why he didn't play? Believe what you want. I don't really care. I know what was said to me today and I know the person is close enough to the club to have reliable info. 

Yeh, fair and he probably chucked the thumb brace on to draw attention away from this and create a plausible excuse as to avoid any unwanted attention from the media  

 

1 hour ago, Leoncelli_36 said:

If Watts had an injury, don't you reckon thy would just say he was injured? There has been no reason offered as to why he didn't play? Believe what you want. I don't really care. I know what was said to me today and I know the person is close enough to the club to have reliable info. 

 Nothing in it. How would you have fit him in with JKH, AVB, Weiderman, Spencer, Petracca, ANB all around that forward line with the usual mainstays of Hogan, Garlett etc not to mention the fact how tall we would have been going in? I bet money Hoges won't play either next week or the week after. We don't need a full strength line-up for each of these JLT games and you'll see key personnel omitted next week just like we did last year.

21 hours ago, RalphiusMaximus said:

He already conned the AFL into giving him a Norm Smith. 

Yep what a joke that was. Turned over 2 3rds of his disposals. Norm Smith for mine was Mcrae with Kennedy Picken and Boyd rounding out the top 5

1 hour ago, Leoncelli_36 said:

If Watts had an injury, don't you reckon thy would just say he was injured? There has been no reason offered as to why he didn't play? Believe what you want. I don't really care. I know what was said to me today and I know the person is close enough to the club to have reliable info. 

There are potentially so many non-sinister reasons why he wouldn't play it isn't funny. From looking at different forward structures and looking at the spencer/gawn setup to managing his load coming into the season. 

If you say you know something from the inner sanctum then ok. But up until now he has been mentioned as a standout in any number of training threads. Seems odd that all of a sudden he is called out as a liability to the team. I'm going to wait for something more solid on this. 

8 minutes ago, FlashInThePan said:

There are potentially so many non-sinister reasons why he wouldn't play it isn't funny. From looking at different forward structures and looking at the spencer/gawn setup to managing his load coming into the season. 

If you say you know something from the inner sanctum then ok. But up until now he has been mentioned as a standout in any number of training threads. Seems odd that all of a sudden he is called out as a liability to the team. I'm going to wait for something more solid on this. 

Pre christmas I remember his class standing out a bit. I didn't go much after christmas. He was pretty quiet in the intraclub but did the full training session as far as I could recall. 

I wouldn't actually be disappointed if Goodwin was cracking the whip. Quite the opposite.

2 hours ago, Leoncelli_36 said:

If Watts had an injury, don't you reckon thy would just say he was injured? There has been no reason offered as to why he didn't play? Believe what you want. I don't really care. I know what was said to me today and I know the person is close enough to the club to have reliable info. 

Beginning to sound like a campaign ...

Funny thing I just noticed watching the replay.  Dahlhaus' first goal, the ball was clearly thrown to him from the player on the ground. 

If you look closely at Wagner in the background as Billy Stretch marks and kicks, it looks like you can see the distortion in his leg where the bone is out of place.  Nasty. 

20 hours ago, Demons2riseagain said:

Interesting stats... the one stat that surprised me was salem's contested possessions. 

I know he is an outside player, but I think he can be soft in the contest sometimes, has opportunities to go in hard and shirks...although the stats don't seem to agree. How did everyone else see this?

Huh? I've always seen Salem as a hard nut 

Very happy about Salem and Brayshaw.

Salem isn't soft and never has been. Polished is the word you're looking for 

8 hours ago, RalphiusMaximus said:

Funny thing I just noticed watching the replay.  Dahlhaus' first goal, the ball was clearly thrown to him from the player on the ground. 

Saw this, was Libba I think. And he then got pinged for a throw at the resulting centre bounce.

8 hours ago, Akum said:

Beginning to sound like a campaign ...

It sounded like a campaign from post one. And you can bet he gets aggressive and snarky the more people call him out on it. I've seen this movie before.

I was down from Sydney so went along. First time back to Western Oval since Rd 22 1987. Sadly still the highlight of my Dees following career. And I waited a long time for that highlight. 

Just a few observations. 

Firstly it was the first pre season game I've ever seen. I was incredibly impressed at the standard of the game for a first hitout. Still played at a ferocious pace. Obviously a bit rusty but still full on. 

Unlike many I have to say I was a bit disappointed at the way we played. While there were some great passages of play on the rebound where we moved the ball well and scored We seemed to go backwards a lot. A few times kicking from around the defensive 50m arc all the way back to fullback then getting stuck back there or worse turning it over. 

Jordin Lewis is going to be a huge asset. I'm more interested in the leadership he will bring. He showed how he just knows what to do in crunch moments. Eg saving the win by putting himself in the opposition goal square in the last 2 minutes when they were attacking and saving a couple of goals. 

Old habits die hard. I noticed his point of extraction from stoppages is to flick a hand pass backwards into space. Sam Mitchell would have been standing there whereas we often didn't have anyone set up for this so we would end up being under pressure and some of this great setup would end up being to the Dogs advantage. 

I know the stats say we did well in clearances but it was clear being there how much better their structure is setting up for clearances compared to us. They don't get too many sucked in to the contest and have a ring of players outside ready to distribute it around to then clear it with an attacking kick to space. Hopefully we'll learn from seeing this. I thought we would be doing it by now so a bit disappointed to see we aren't doing this setup and have too many too close to the contest. 

We are going to be competitive with any team at contested ball. 

Like plenty of others have said Clarry is special. Very special. Will be our best midfielder. No disrespect to Viney etc. 

The Weid is already solid enough to compete. He's bigger than Gunston & Watts. His 3 standout skills to me are his judgment to grab the ball at the highest possible point, his footy IQ and his kicking. He isn't nvolved enough yet but that's not entirely  his fault. I was on the outside wing and he lead up there quite a lot in space and was repeatedly ignored. I suspect this probably happens a lot and we wouldn't know. It looks like he might have to earn the teams respect more to get the ball to him more. 

JKH an example of why you can't rely on training form. He just didn't seem to be able to get involved. AVB disappointing too. Doesn't seem to have the footy IQ to know how to get enough separation on his opponent. 

There are subtle overall improvements compared to a few years ago that I'm beginning to take for granted. Like level of competitiveness. More consistent 4 qtr performances, although there was a drop of composure at the end of the game. 

There's steady improvement not a leap yet which I guess I'm still waiting for. 

We are better but talking finals is premature. A lot of teams will be better this year. I'd only start discussing that after the halfway mark. 

Sorry if this is long winded but I've got a lot of time today. Being driven back to Sydney by my daughter on L's doing a max 90kph and regular stops. 

Go Dees

 

Edited February 19, 20178 yr by It's Time

Even though it's still preseason, isn't it great we're reviewing a game against another team where the sentiment is generally positive (as much as it can be for 'landers).

8 hours ago, RalphiusMaximus said:

Funny thing I just noticed watching the replay.  Dahlhaus' first goal, the ball was clearly thrown to him from the player on the ground. 

I saw that too, however i also thought i saw a handball when i was there watching live, If i saw it as a handball live i cant expect the umpires who are often blindsided by players to see it any other way.

1 hour ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Huh? I've always seen Salem as a hard nut 

Ikr! I think that just because he is a lighter build than the Traccs, Olivers and Vineys of the world that people just assume he is soft. He was probably the one that impressed me the most on the weekend.

19 hours ago, Bay Riffin said:

Hey Madlonboy, can you specifically tell us how you got to the replays? Likje titan i go to match replays and nothing shows up on http://www.afl.com.au/livepass/match-replays

I went into My Account, clicked on edit, and clicked on the Premium Content option. The videos of the game came up as an option. However, the next day I again could not load videos. I went  to the 24/7 chat help and was instructed to uninstall, then reinstall the app. I did so and now have full video access. 

The new app changes are a total dog's breakfast. So many issues, and every platform  (apple, android etc...) has different issues. If you want some negative entertainment, go to the app on Google Play and read the reviews. There are some angry and funny people in the AFL world. 

 

 

9 hours ago, RalphiusMaximus said:

Funny thing I just noticed watching the replay.  Dahlhaus' first goal, the ball was clearly thrown to him from the player on the ground. 

dogs throw the ball a LOT

10 hours ago, Pennant St Dee said:

Yep what a joke that was. Turned over 2 3rds of his disposals. Norm Smith for mine was Mcrae with Kennedy Picken and Boyd rounding out the top 5

Talked to two of my doggie mates and they love the line breaking but bemoan his disposal. He is a turnover merchant and I didn't have him in my top three for the Normie... (either did they) 

9 hours ago, RalphiusMaximus said:

Funny thing I just noticed watching the replay.  Dahlhaus' first goal, the ball was clearly thrown to him from the player on the ground. 

That's the way of the dog. Murphy threw one when he was battled with Brayshaw.