5 minutes ago, Rusty Nails said:

Keep an eye out for Harry Schoenberg.  Not saying he'll be a world beater this early but did look a likely prospect and smart ball distributor at u18 level.

No doubt he's probably a few seasons away from impacting but could be a very nice player at some point.

By far the most likely scenario is he will torch us, be super quiet the following two games.

Get dropped and play his next AFL  game against us next year. And torch us.

Looking at those selecctions I think there will be a late change. One of the McDonald brothers in for a midfielder is my call.

1 hour ago, spirit of norm smith said:

Clearly a stronger Crows team. They waved the white flag v Roos. Set themselves to win v Dees 

Will go down to the wire. A loss will see this mob up sheep she it creek in a barbwire canoe without excuses.

Better be a good win than.

Edited August 4, 20204 yr by Tarax Club

1 hour ago, chook fowler said:

Oscar has been dropped because he let a player of only a few games experience, Georgiades, wipe the floor with him. Mind you, Goodwin needs a slap for a poor matchup. His reaction time is so slow that he can only play against Gorillas. He should only get a game if there is an obvious opponent. 

Absolutely correct Chook. He should be picked, and only ever picked if there is an obvious tall, immobile opponent for him.  Charlie Dixon was the only opponent in the Power lineup and as soon as they made a decision that they weren’t going to play Oscar on him, then they had to leave him out.  Such a limited player unless he gets his physical match up. 

3 hours ago, jnrmac said:

Schoenberg, 19, is a ball-winning midfielder who was taken with pick No.24 in last year’s AFL Draft. 

And this week's rising star nomination goes to......

Although I thought OMac has been decent since his return, and maybe even gained some credits in the bank, he just had to be dropped after his performance last week.

If you let a 3rd gamer dominate you like that with such loose checking, it’s gotta be an automatic, no questions asked, dropping.

He’ll be back though. And I have no doubt he won’t let a 3rd gamer fly for a mark unopposed like that 30s into the game ever again.

11 minutes ago, At the break of Gawn said:

And I have no doubt he won’t let a 3rd gamer fly for a mark unopposed like that 30s into the game ever again.

Perhaps. None of us know what specific roles are assigned to the key backs, but there's an argument that Lever was the one to pick up Georgiades when he led, as O'Mac was moving to pick up Westerhoff who was running back to the goal square. It reads as if O'Mac is supposed to stay back in the last line of defence, while Lever runs/roams further up the ground - but in this case, there was that moment too long's hesitation in the handover.

Not saying O'Mac wasn't at fault, but it looks more like a system breakdown to me.

Edited August 4, 20204 yr by bing181

Perhaps O Mac broke some core team rules or something?  or saying other didn't but he is still pretty young so he will learn from it and come back better

Omac did not have a great game.

But please can people stop with the rrubbish about Georgiades giving him a touch up. It is completely untrue.

Not one of his goals were omacs fault. He wasn't even on him when they were they kicked As I have forensicalliy established. Two, maybe three were levers fault.

Don't believe me? Go to AFL.com stats pro and look at the vision of georgiades involvement. It will take 2 minutes.

Sheesh

56 minutes ago, binman said:

By far the most likely scenario is he will torch us, be super quiet the following two games.

Get dropped and play his next AFL  game against us next year. And torch us.

Many would say you are suffering from MFCSS Bin.  But that scenario is not a far fetched as some would argue!  We do have an uncanny knack of making average footballers and / or rookies look like super stars at times that's for sure.  Then there's the "playing teams into form" part.  Still waiting for the worm to turn.

Edited August 4, 20204 yr by Rusty Nails

4 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

I don't get it, and I don't like it.

Oscar was poor last week, but we've had a settled and functioning backline since he came in. Last week we had a disgusting drop in pressure and increase in turnovers, so it's no wonder the back half performed worse than it had the previous month.

Adelaide has a relatively tall forward line (Himmelberg is 198cm, McAsey is 197cm, and Walker, Fogarty and Lynch are all 193cm). Was this the game to throw the third tall defender out and, presumably, rely on Hibberd to play on someone 7cm+ taller than him?

Or are we sending Tomlinson into defence when he hasn't been training as a key defender all year?

Or are we really dumb enough to put Fritsch back into defence after the abject failure that was Fritsch in the backline in 2019?

It doesn't make sense to me.

Meanwhile our midfield last week was poor and we've made no changes. All of Sparrow, Jones, Brayshaw and Harmes retain their spots.

I don't mind Bennell and ANB changing up our forward half mix, and I absolutely agree with TMac being dropped, but I'm concerned that we're going to disrupt the improvement and progress we saw in our back half. 

Maybe it's MFCSS, but I can see one of Adelaide's talls doing a Kent Kingsley and bagging 5 against us, making Lever and May look woeful as they repeatedly find themselves out of position trying to cover too many talls without support.

Whilst I think Oscar straightens us up at the back, he was almost as ordinary as his brother last week.

He's definitely a yo-yo player at the club. The coaching group clearly don't have complete confidence in him. They rightly traded out Frost, IMV, but the element of our defence that really struggled when we played top opposition in 2018 was Oscar. He hasn't been able to put together a decent stretch of consistent games in recent times, but I don't think we can say the coaches haven't backed him in for large portions of 2017 and 2018. In fact, he played 20 and 25 games respectively in those years.

I think ultimately our defence is best served with another tall, whether that be Oscar or someone else, but it certainly works best when we allow Lever to play third fiddle and May to play lockdown. I reckon Petty is the guy for it.

I wonder if Oscar will be gone at the end of this year? This is his 6th year on the list, so we've invested quite a bit of time in him. He may even seek a new home himself, but I reckon his leg speed is an issue, particularly in our set up. He often got caught out on a lead in 2018 and when our midfield's pressure drops, it leaves him exposed, without sufficient leg speed to close the gap.

I think we'll win this comfortably with or without Oscar. The Crows are bog ordinary. It's more our pressure around the stoppages and in our forward half that I'm concerned with.

Edited August 4, 20204 yr by A F

14 minutes ago, binman said:

Omac did not have a great game.

But please can people stop with the rrubbish about Georgiades giving him a touch up. It is completely untrue.

Not one of his goals were omacs fault. He wasn't even on him when they were they kicked As I have forensicalliy established. Two, maybe three were levers fault.

Don't believe me? Go to AFL.com stats pro and look at the vision of georgiades involvement. It will take 2 minutes.

Sheesh

Oscar didn't have a great game.

...and I believe you 'bin', saw some of it with my own eyes.

What he did show is the need for and extra tall for structure down back.

I just hope that Goody doesn't go away from that structure...

...So with some luck he plays Thommo in place of him.

Edited August 4, 20204 yr by rjay

With Oscar if they are small they are too quick for him,if they are big they are too strong for him .He is a long way short of AFL standard and richly deserved to be dropped .

I guess what is a little annoying about OMac getting dropped is I kind of feel it's another case of favourites getting passes while Oscar get's one poor game while almost the entire team plays awful but he gets the chop. Seems like the margin for error for him is very small. 

I will admit I kind of like him, I recognise he has his deficiencies but I really feel that our defence has looked more settled since he came back. He's allowed May and Lever to play their more natural roles, and  really I didn't think he's done a hell of a lot wrong considering that against Port there was an onslaught of easy inside 50s.

5 hours ago, binman said:

Omac did not have a great game.

But please can people stop with the rrubbish about Georgiades giving him a touch up. It is completely untrue.

Not one of his goals were omacs fault. He wasn't even on him when they were they kicked As I have forensicalliy established. Two, maybe three were levers fault.

Don't believe me? Go to AFL.com stats pro and look at the vision of georgiades involvement. It will take 2 minutes.

Sheesh

What about the first goal Dont tell  me Oscar was not on Georgeadis then.

FWIW Imlike Oscar in and its thevpressure downfield first to forwards and mids lack there of that  makes it harder fir our defenders. 

6 hours ago, binman said:

Omac did not have a great game.

But please can people stop with the rrubbish about Georgiades giving him a touch up. It is completely untrue.

Not one of his goals were omacs fault. He wasn't even on him when they were they kicked As I have forensicalliy established. Two, maybe three were levers fault.

Don't believe me? Go to AFL.com stats pro and look at the vision of georgiades involvement. It will take 2 minutes.

Sheesh

Sheesh HAHAHHA haven't heard that one in years.

 

Out of curiosity how do you get the AFL stats pro packages I'm something of a forensic establisher myself

3 hours ago, 58er said:

What about the first goal Dont tell  me Oscar was not on Georgeadis then.

FWIW Imlike Oscar in and its thevpressure downfield first to forwards and mids lack there of that  makes it harder fir our defenders. 

I have previously commented on this topic, at some length.

Short version: Oscar was not on Georgeadis when he kicked his first goal (or his second, or his third or when he took his one contested mark for the game, or when he got 6 of his 11 possessions for the game).

Personally i don't get why Goodwin would drop Omac. But he must have his reasons.  Georgeadis won't be one of them.

If it was a result of the Port game it may well have been the two howling errors made that Omac made where he didn't collect the ball near goal (the one that he left for fritter when he should have grabbed it and attacked, and another where he didn't get it over the point line). Neither cost a goal, but only because of good fortune (Hibberd diving to touch with the first one).

It is also possible he is a bit gassed and they want to give him a spell and bring him back for the Roos. Goodwin did concede at his last presser, when asked about his comments (which now look stupid) that we would not rotate players in this block of games, that some players might in fact need a break.

If they are giving him a freshen up (which we will know pretty soon, as the side for the roos game should come out Thursday night) then the logical move would be to play Tomlinson on Walker.

Tomlinson is slower than Omac, but stronger. Walker is both slow and strong and will play deep. If they put Tomlinson him with an instruction to play man on man all match (as opposed to a ZONE defence) that wont throw the structure out (ie Tomo/Omac deep - Lever, May high). 

The only alternative is to play May on Tex but that is complete waste of May as tex aint no Charlie Dixon. If May goes with him one on one he is will barely get a possession (as was the case in the Port game) and we lose the value of him as an attacking player.

In that scenario Tomlinson shuts down tex, leaving may and Lever to do their thing and be aggressive, intercept and launch attacks. We then drop Braywhaw or Jones, move Tomlinosn to the wing and Omac back to full back.

But really, who knows with Goodwin. His selections have been mind melting this year.

Edited August 4, 20204 yr by binman

13 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

I don't get it, and I don't like it.

Oscar was poor last week, but we've had a settled and functioning backline since he came in. Last week we had a disgusting drop in pressure and increase in turnovers, so it's no wonder the back half performed worse than it had the previous month.

Adelaide has a relatively tall forward line (Himmelberg is 198cm, McAsey is 197cm, and Walker, Fogarty and Lynch are all 193cm). Was this the game to throw the third tall defender out and, presumably, rely on Hibberd to play on someone 7cm+ taller than him?

Or are we sending Tomlinson into defence when he hasn't been training as a key defender all year?

Or are we really dumb enough to put Fritsch back into defence after the abject failure that was Fritsch in the backline in 2019?

It doesn't make sense to me.

Meanwhile our midfield last week was poor and we've made no changes. All of Sparrow, Jones, Brayshaw and Harmes retain their spots.

I don't mind Bennell and ANB changing up our forward half mix, and I absolutely agree with TMac being dropped, but I'm concerned that we're going to disrupt the improvement and progress we saw in our back half. 

Maybe it's MFCSS, but I can see one of Adelaide's talls doing a Kent Kingsley and bagging 5 against us, making Lever and May look woeful as they repeatedly find themselves out of position trying to cover too many talls without support.

Agree with all of the above. The Tmac decision was mandatory, the rest - ?????

This was a perfect game to help May Lever and O Mac further gell together.

Jones kicking across ground to the crows here we come.

14 hours ago, Wiseblood said:

They played each other in 2018 I think, when we smashed them off the park in the NT.

Lever was excellent in that game.

3 minutes ago, leave it to deever said:

Lever was excellent in that game.

If we can have a repeat of that game tonight then I think we'll be more than happy!

A bit of talk on here of Goodwin playing favourites.  I find it staggering that a coach under so much pressure to salvage the season would do that.  And I would hope the selection panel (Mahoney, Richardson, etc) would pull him into line.

So I can only assume that the panel has other reasons for the selections.

Having said that I don't get the mucking around with the regular structural changes fwd and now back with little attempt to settle a team and develop cohesion across each line and connection up and down the field.  No wonder our ball movement is so bad and we turn it over between the 50m arcs. 

I see we have gone in without a 'crumber' and no true small fwd (I don't count ANB as either).  Already I have the feeling the plan is to be defensive and play to 'not lose' rather than play to win.  Sigh...

Edited August 4, 20204 yr by Lucifer's Hero

8 minutes ago, leave it to deever said:

Lever was excellent in that game.

Everyone was. It was the most complete performance I've ever seen from MFC. 

Dropping Hannan is the annoying one for me, yes he was poor but he wasn't alone. I'm assuming he hasn't done his job off the ball.

He is our only true forward IMO, when we play well he plays well. I'd like to give him some continuity as well. Could be a rugby score anyway by the looks.

Jones/Brayshaw/Harmes/Sparrow/AVB in the same team is a concern.

Nervous, very nervous.

Rubbish changes from a coach who has completely lost the plot. One bad game doesn't detract from the fact that we finally had a decent structure in the past few weeks. Now we've replaced a tall defender and a tall forward with more midfield / utility players, even though we already have Harmes, Brayshaw and Jones playing out of position.

We have Gawn hobbling around on one leg, but no key position players on the bench. Bad luck if he breaks down in the first quarter. Presumably we pull Jackson out of the forward line and revert to the one tall forward structure that worked so poorly earlier in the season.

We're building our forward line around a bloke who averages 0.25 goals and 1.5 marks a game. Tom McDonald was poor last week, but he was no worse than Jackson's 2 kicks, 0 marks and 0 tackles.

Meanwhile coach's pet Melksham continues to get a game each week despite simply refusing to contribute anything other than receive cheap uncontested possessions inside forward 50.

We should beat Adelaide regardless of who we put on the field, but this is the not structure that will beat any half decent side.

 

9 hours ago, A F said:

Whilst I think Oscar straightens us up at the back, he was almost as ordinary as his brother last week.

He's definitely a yo-yo player at the club. The coaching group clearly don't have complete confidence in him. They rightly traded out Frost, IMV, but the element of our defence that really struggled when we played top opposition in 2018 was Oscar. He hasn't been able to put together a decent stretch of consistent games in recent times, but I don't think we can say the coaches haven't backed him in for large portions of 2017 and 2018. In fact, he played 20 and 25 games respectively in those years.

I think ultimately our defence is best served with another tall, whether that be Oscar or someone else, but it certainly works best when we allow Lever to play third fiddle and May to play lockdown. I reckon Petty is the guy for it.

I wonder if Oscar will be gone at the end of this year? This is his 6th year on the list, so we've invested quite a bit of time in him. He may even seek a new home himself, but I reckon his leg speed is an issue, particularly in our set up. He often got caught out on a lead in 2018 and when our midfield's pressure drops, it leaves him exposed, without sufficient leg speed to close the gap.

I think we'll win this comfortably with or without Oscar. The Crows are bog ordinary. It's more our pressure around the stoppages and in our forward half that I'm concerned with.

My gripe with dropping OMac isn't that I think OMac played well. He didn't. 

It's about structure.

I think our best long-term plan is for OMac, or someone else who can play that role better than him, to be the "second" defender (May is the "first" defender, taking the opposition's best key forward, and Lever is "third", zoning off, intercepting, playing a little freer than the other two).

We've seen plenty of examples of asking Lever to be the "second" defender which haven't worked. We've also seen examples of asking Frost or Smith to be the "second" defender: because they're both unreliable teammates, that hasn't worked well either.

OMac has flaws, indeed some significant ones that IMO mean he can't be a long-term candidate for our best 22, but the structure with him in the side has had the best look to it. And our defence has been our best performing part of the ground for the past month with OMac in it.

So I'd prefer us to be playing to our preferred structure, even if we're unhappy with OMac, unless/until there is a proper OMac replacement to play in his stead. And that is not Tomlinson (nor is it TMac).