Astbury is a big out for The Tiges. Their backline is now light on for talls, and Grimes won't be anywhere near as effective with his mate out. 

Great time for The Weed to return. 

 

Why hasn't May been trialled up forward yet? 

what's the worst that can happen?When McDonald has been playing like his younger brother Oscar, it makes perfect sense to trial him up forward.

  On 01/07/2020 at 03:45, Hell Bent said:

Astbury is a big out for The Tiges. Their backline is now light on for talls, and Grimes won't be anywhere near as effective with his mate out. 

Great time for The Weed to return. 

 

That would appear logical but it seems they're wedded to this dumbarse forward structure for the short term at least.

  On 01/07/2020 at 03:45, Hell Bent said:

Astbury is a big out for The Tiges.

 

And Rhys Stanley was a big out for Geelong.  And we have Gawn.  And we sill lost.

The Astbury out isn't a big deal as all our tall forwards are garbage anyway.

Edited July 1, 20204 yr by TheKozzieExperience

  On 01/07/2020 at 05:38, Dr.D said:

Why hasn't May been trialled up forward yet? 

because we're three games into a season

Edited July 1, 20204 yr by whatwhatsaywhat

  On 30/06/2020 at 10:53, whatwhatsaywhat said:

leading metres gained for us last game??!?

the notion of shifting him around from the role we brought him in as a free agent to play is one i don't understand at all

it's like those suggesting we play may forward...why? by that logic o mac has to come in as a key defender; i'd rather may take that role and we find someone else who can play as a tall up forward...and i'd say no (at this stage) to smith or lever being the choices there as that trio need time to work out how to play together; it's been two games

i can completely understand the calls for weideman or brown (or jackson) to come in to play as an additional tall forward, but i don't think it's time to throw the baby out with the bathwater when we're three games into the season, and only (an interrupted) two since resumption

I would argue that's a good thing playing from CHF WW.  He can run his opponent ragged, away from the hot zones and / or double back on occasions into the hot zones.  I know many of those meters might be delivery / long kicking etc but a decent chunk is also probably the run and carry.  Also play higher when the team needs to offer the contested or leading link man between HB and CHF.  With Hannan back we don't need Tommo on the wing and Hannan offers a potentially more dangerous option on the opposite wing to Langdon.  Those two will at least pose a speed of transition challange to the opp.  Probably a neutral outcome but frees up Tommo to go forward or back into the "General" role.  Too powerful / tall and rangy to waste on a wing imv.

Im not saying this will work but it might work.  Alternatively as the general at CHB using the same roaming / meters gained strengths.

That was me putting up the No-Mac option for May moving forward.  Probably not this week given the twin KFs for the Tiges but pick the right group of 3 matches against somewhat lessor forward lines and i don't see why we can't trial that as a one off experiment. This issue is not three matches old WW.  This was there for the entire 2019 season other than one match where T-Mac happened to fire (then injured just as quickly).  Another reason to try and find another genuine KF solution to our forward scoring / conversion % woes imv.

Edited July 1, 20204 yr by Rusty Nails

  On 29/06/2020 at 11:08, Lord Nev said:

Picked up a newspaper or caught any sports media so far this week? Been a fair bit of talk from experts already, hardly 'speculative'.

Confirmation bias.

(Also hindsight bias in any case.)

  On 01/07/2020 at 05:38, Dr.D said:

Why hasn't May been trialled up forward yet? 

what's the worst that can happen?When McDonald has been playing like his younger brother Oscar, it makes perfect sense to trial him up forward.

Jesus.

  On 01/07/2020 at 07:00, bing181 said:

Confirmation bias.

(Also hindsight bias in any case.)

Actually, there were at least 2 or 3 articles about our team selection well before game day. Mostly they were around Jetta, but they were also raising questions about selection in a broad sense.

Then, following the game and the poor performance, more commentators raised questions.

So it's not 'hindsight bias', and if that's what you interpret as 'confirmation bias' then you could apply that to absolutely anything. Of course, you're welcome to shoot that down by finding articles where our team selection strategy was praised. I'll wait.

Edited July 1, 20204 yr by Lord Nev

After reading this it feels like maybe...

ANB in (possibly for vandenBerg)

Bennell, Jones and Jackson close, but maybe won't make the final team.

Jetta and OMac won't be selected yet.

 

  On 01/07/2020 at 07:01, bing181 said:

Jesus.

At full forward, of course.

(For those who remember the Hawthorn graffiti in the 1970s).

  On 30/06/2020 at 10:49, TheJam said:

Lever isn’t a key position back man either. He played his best football as a third defender. I’m still not sure on Oscar but i think what you may lose bringing him in you will gain it back plus more having lever floating. Wasted In my opinion 

Agree Jam 

  On 01/07/2020 at 05:49, TheKozzieExperience said:

And Rhys Stanley was a big out for Geelong.  And we have Gawn.  And we sill lost.

The Astbury out isn't a big deal as all our tall forwards are garbage anyway.

Yes...because we only have one plus the ball is not being delivered properly. If you have videos of 2019 compare the quality of ball movement front of centre to the last 16 months.

I think the club wants to settle on a lineup and give it a chance to deliver.  I think there will be few changes, perhaps one or two like for like so the coaches can get their preferred group on the park and playing a few games together.  The posts that want ‘revolution’ (like May or Oscar forward) might have to settle, petal.  They have not trained there, the season is only 3 matches old for us, so there is a long way to go before those sort of tricks could be expected.

  On 01/07/2020 at 09:29, buck_nekkid said:

I think the club wants to settle on a lineup and give it a chance to deliver.  I think there will be few changes, perhaps one or two like for like so the coaches can get their preferred group on the park and playing a few games together.  The posts that want ‘revolution’ (like May or Oscar forward) might have to settle, petal.  They have not trained there, the season is only 3 matches old for us, so there is a long way to go before those sort of tricks could be expected.

Yes Buck but a mid match switch like Smith forward would not be too revolutionary which is what I would have done at least at 3/4 time with maybe Melsham at HB and more game time fir Angus and ball tome for Harmesy.

  On 01/07/2020 at 09:29, buck_nekkid said:

I think the club wants to settle on a lineup and give it a chance to deliver.  I think there will be few changes, perhaps one or two like for like so the coaches can get their preferred group on the park and playing a few games together.  The posts that want ‘revolution’ (like May or Oscar forward) might have to settle, petal.  They have not trained there, the season is only 3 matches old for us, so there is a long way to go before those sort of tricks could be expected.

two more losses and the season is probably over. Had we lost to Essendon and then lost the next three we would be 1-5. As it is with two more losses we will be 1-4

Tigers must be licking their lips at coming up against us. I hate saying stuff like this as I feeling I'm turning into the prototype MFCSS fan but I feel like we've become the confidence building team, we push teams just enough to give them a run but don't get the job done. 

Anyway, to the point. One thing that successful teams build is consistency with line up, I don't see them doing major changes to the team or structure. Personally, as a fan not as an expert, I think our forward line looks small. I think the plan almost revolved around it looking small but playing tall, this isn't happening so I think we need a taller player to take the oppositions number one defender to provide a foil for Fritta and co. What that means is that one of Hannan, Melksham, or Hunt has to go. Personally I'd be dropping Melksham, and moving Fritta into the HFF role the Melksham has been doing and bringing in one of Brown or Weiderman. 

I thought Hannan was solid without being outstanding in his first game back, I think he's deserved another crack. Hunt was very quiet but has been solid in the other two games. He also has pace to him which needs to be used more.

Down back I am not a fan of Smith, but he was better against the cats and in fact I thought aside from those 3rd quarter brainfarts that cost us the game, the defence held up quite well. OMac was BOG in the scratch match, does that earn him a recall at Smith's expense?

Finally the enigma of Bennell. Supremely skilful but how do we fit him in? AvB was quiet but I think he's best 22. Do we drop Lockhart and move Harmes back into defence? Give Brayshaw more time on the ball in Harmes' place.

I've said it before, I think the pieces of the puzzle are there for a successful team. I just don't know how they fit together, and I'm not sure the match committee know either.

how did Gawn not dominate on the weekend? 

Actually kinda surprised by it - he should destroyed their rucks and drifted fwd and kicked 1/2. Probably asking a lot because he also gets 15+ touches a game but I just want to see him impose himself more when we need it

He lifts everyone and we can't keep relying on Trac to do it every week (we have Viney but he can't kick more than 35m) 

  On 01/07/2020 at 13:02, MF-C said:

how did Gawn not dominate on the weekend? 

gameplan

  On 01/07/2020 at 13:02, MF-C said:

how did Gawn not dominate on the weekend? 

Actually kinda surprised by it - he should destroyed their rucks and drifted fwd and kicked 1/2. Probably asking a lot because he also gets 15+ touches a game but I just want to see him impose himself more when we need it

He lifts everyone and we can't keep relying on Trac to do it every week (we have Viney but he can't kick more than 35m) 

He has been dominating all last year and three games this year how many have we won? 
Tap ruckman don’t win games if they did we would be on top of the ladder undefeated.

 

  On 01/07/2020 at 14:08, old dee said:

He has been dominating all last year and three games this year how many have we won? 
Tap ruckman don’t win games if they did we would be on top of the ladder undefeated.

 

It would help if he actually directed his taps to teammates.

Can they please pick Weideman this week?

T Mac will play better with only 1 bloke contesting with him and Fristch can play as more of a small forward rather than being our full forward which didn't work on the weekend. (in fact nothing about our forward line worked last week)

  On 01/07/2020 at 14:14, bingers said:

It would help if he actually directed his taps to teammates.

This is spot on.

We haven't seen Gawn seem to hit targets with his taps for 18 months, not sure what has happened.

In the Geelong game, I'm not sure what the final number was, but at quarter time (I think it was) he had 10 hitouts with only 1 to advantage.

This year he's average 28.3 hitouts (down on his career average of 35.4) with only 8.3 to advantage (down on his career average of 11.7).

In 2018 he averaged 44.8 hitouts. (Obviously we allow for slightly less game time here too)

 

Edited July 1, 20204 yr by Lord Nev

Jobe Watson made a good point about using Gawn as more of an offensive weapon. Obviously being a marking target is one thing, but it was more about him rucking inside 50, as opposed to TMac, and using his ruck work to try and get on the scoreboard. As Jobe kept banging on about, Gawn rucking to Petracca and Kossie inside 50 could be a real weapon.

  On 01/07/2020 at 07:01, bing181 said:

Jesus.

Yes!