16 minutes ago, WERRIDEE said:

I think the reason they aren't play Ben Brown is because of Viney. Viney will be underdone and I doubt that he will play more than 60 per cent of game time. Ben Brown is in a similar boat so he is in need of form and fitness in the reserves.

Fair enough. Not sure if its right but good reasoning. 

Gee Essendon have a very tall side. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing

Is that the worst looking forward line on paper of any injury-free mid-season ladder-leading team in the history of football? 

 

2 hours ago, CHF said:

With regard to B. Brown, how long is it since he has had a game? I did read somewhere that he was having a mini 6 week pre-season as far as fitness goes. In My opinion, this is a good thing.

Give him a run or two at Casey and we have a chance to look at his form.

Would love to see a fit in form BBB in our forward 50.

He was only given three matches in which to prove himself. We were all still kicking the tyres when he was dropped. ?

Tom Sparrow would want to have a quick return to form on Saturday night. His last game was absolutely pathetic, if I’m being honest. His lack of awareness, in the last quarter, absolutely killed us. He gave away four frees in the last quarter. Has the awareness of a rock at times. I’m not yet sure what his skill set is. Even the goal he kicked the week before was as fumbly as they come. He mopped up his own mess and finished well, but the fact is , he created the mess. 

41 minutes ago, Nelo said:

Gee Essendon have a very tall side. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing

Last week Essendon's talls took mark after contested mark. They soon almost dumbed themselves out of the win by not connecting run correctly through the ground and not giving any time to controlling (slowing) the game. They just all had the brains of Joe Daniher. They are unfortunately getting better each week and can run. The worst medical sub would be Nat Jones, the best would be Ben Brown. I reckon we will probably win but could easily be out-marked on a dry night which may give them the bottle to take us on.

21 minutes ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

He was only given three matches in which to prove himself. We were all still kicking the tyres when he was dropped. ?

Ben had an interrupted pre-season and it may have been that after 3 games of 'kicking the tyres' the powers that be decided that he was not fit enough and needed a good block of training to bring him up to speed.

1 hour ago, WERRIDEE said:

I think the reason they aren't play Ben Brown is because of Viney. Viney will be underdone and I doubt that he will play more than 60 per cent of game time. Ben Brown is in a similar boat so he is in need of form and fitness in the reserves.

W if BB is in need of more fitness after supposedly putting in a pre-season type block of late then i doubt he will ever be ready from a fitness perspective.

Form for someone of his experience can be found at VFL for sure but you never find genuine AFL form until you've played a few or more games at AFL level and hit some form.

The Weid is a great example of someone looking cherry ripe and hitting form, at VFL level, then failing to find it after pushing up to the big league.

If his fitness is up to par (as judged by Burgess/FD KPIs etc) then surely the only genuine trial / test of form is the form BB might find at senior level.

Edited June 24, 20214 yr by Rusty Nails

3 hours ago, Lord Nev said:

All clear.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CQM3kBXht83/

Leo Porter lol - dude just named his kid after a steak. 

1 hour ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Good changes and well done once again for nailing it @Yokozuna

Without conducting an full-scale audit, in my mind by far our most trusted current source. 

11 hours ago, Lord Nev said:

All clear.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CQM3kBXht83/

I think T Mac’s mind was elsewhere against Collingwood which was understandable.

Lets hope for a far better showing from him this week.

8 hours ago, Kick_It_To_Pickett said:

Tom Sparrow would want to have a quick return to form on Saturday night. His last game was absolutely pathetic, if I’m being honest. His lack of awareness, in the last quarter, absolutely killed us. He gave away four frees in the last quarter. Has the awareness of a rock at times. I’m not yet sure what his skill set is. Even the goal he kicked the week before was as fumbly as they come. He mopped up his own mess and finished well, but the fact is , he created the mess. 

Harsh but fair call.

He really let us down last game and I thought he’d be omitted. There was another youngster with a much higher profile that would also want to make amends this week.

12 hours ago, adonski said:

[censored] I hope total goals are the main KPI for a key forward

I think you’d be disappointed.

12 hours ago, drysdale demon said:

I reckon the footy dept. disagrees with you and so do I. As far as Ben goes there is no rush at the moment.

Also a good weather forecast - based selection.

When Ben Brown gets a next chance at least give the guy a fair go on at least a dry-ish day.   Playing him in possibly wet conditions will tell him and the coaches nothing on his role and capacity.

Im guessing Trac will spend time fwd.

Viney can run with Merrett, Harmes to Parish and Hibberd on Stringer should get the job done.

6 minutes ago, DeeZee said:

Viney can run with Merrett, Harmes to Parish and Hibberd on Stringer should get the job done.

Not sure I'd stick Viney on a run with role considering he's missed 8 weeks.

Essendon would take advantage of that and blow him up.

Also can't see why we can't just back our mids in instead of having to tag Parish and Merrett at the same time? If a Oliver or Petracca is standing next him, I'm putting money on their sheer size and strength in being able to use that as an advantage.

Essendon will be much more wary our midfield if anything.

Max Gawn and Luke Jackson are going to make the Bombers rucks really work hard. it'll be interesting to see if they're able to go with them around the ground. 

I quite like the mix that's going on without the extra tall, i'd imagine there is a likelyhood that Viney spends a good amount of time forward 

 

I suspect it's a horses for courses selection. Essendon's backline isn't that tall but has plenty of run. If we had Weideman or Brown (either of them) playing, we could be exposed when the ball hits the ground. An extra smaller forward might help block Essendon's run off the backline. On the other hand, if one of Weideman, Brown or Brown were dominating with consistent mark-taking, they would probably be selected. But as they are not doing so, they become too much of a liability when the ball hits the ground.  

Very happy with this team selection get back to your game plan Dees, strangle them with pressure, pressure, pressure and then put them out of their misery . One Game at a time, we need six wins to tie up a top four spot make this the first one.

Go Dees….!!!!!!!!

4 minutes ago, Dwight Schrute said:

Max Gawn and Luke Jackson are going to make the Bombers rucks really work hard. it'll be interesting to see if they're able to go with them around the ground. 

I quite like the mix that's going on without the extra tall, i'd imagine there is a likelyhood that Viney spends a good amount of time forward 

 

To be honest Max needs to lift. He's been poor this year and I watched young Sam Draper last week who was very very impressive. I have more concerns around Max then I do with their rucks.

Draper is a huge ruckman who loves the physical side. Something Max doesn't like. 

Just now, dazzledavey36 said:

To be honest Max needs to lift. He's been poor this year and I watched young Sam Draper last week who was very very impressive. I have more concerns around Max then I do with their rucks.

Draper is a huge ruckman who loves the physical side. Something Max doesn't like. 

I'm pretty confident he will Daz, i think the bye has probably helped a few players dealing with Niggles (I'm assuming that's the case with Max) 

 

15 hours ago, loges said:

A lot of responsibility now falls on TMac to have a good game. He either needs to have a lot of score involvements or hit the score board.

I think he's had a pretty great season.  Would love to see him replicate the Richmond game, leading all over the place in the wet and having more grabs than the coalition front bench.

Not sure about the call to leave Brown out if he is fit.  The weather shouldn't matter, the bloke kicked 80 goals a year playing a winter sport, so that shouldn't be a problem.  Incidentally, anyone else have issues with the way "shouldn't" is spelt?

Hope Jackson has another big one too, could see him confusing the hell out of the Essendon defenders.

This has been my preference for a while now to leave out the other tall.

Neither Brown or Weid are playing good enough footy right now to deserve a spot.

Jackson has been building nicely this season. He's spent less time in the ruck of late and looks more and more imposing up forward. He's been taking strong contested grabs on the wings and I think the coaches believe this could translate to better marking contests deeper inside forward 50.

Max/Jackson to spend more time on ground switching between forward/ruck.

This is my favourite mix so far this season. We should see Bailey and Trac more involved as targets as well.

Edited June 25, 20214 yr by Yung Blood

1 hour ago, dazzledavey36 said:

To be honest Max needs to lift. He's been poor this year

Sorry, Dazzler, objectively that is simply not true.

Max has been incredible this season. Sure he seems to have flagged a bit in the las few games but even in them he has been extremely influential  nd the amount of work he does is crazy.

One indicator of his level this year is that he is number one in the AFL by a mile in contested marks, which is particularly impressive given how much [censored] illegal spoils and blocks he has to fight though.

But better evidence of his level this year is that he is 7th in the coaches award, the best measure of performance in my opinion. Coaches don't give votes to players who have been poor.

Here is the top 15 as it stands atm. Some bloody good players in this list, and all in top form:

68	Clayton Oliver	MELB
66	Marcus Bontempelli	WB
60	Ollie Wines	PORT
55	Hugh McCluggage	BL
55	Darcy Parish	ESS
52	Touk Miller	GCFC
49	Max Gawn	MELB
48	Zach Merrett	ESS
48	Samuel Walsh	CARL
44	David Mundy	FRE
43	Rory Laird	ADEL
42	Dustin Martin	RICH
42	Nic Naitanui	WCE
42	Christian Petracca	MELB
42	Jack Steele	STK

Edited June 25, 20214 yr by binman

14 hours ago, WERRIDEE said:

I think the reason they aren't play Ben Brown is because of Viney. Viney will be underdone and I doubt that he will play more than 60 per cent of game time. Ben Brown is in a similar boat so he is in need of form and fitness in the reserves.

Viney will not play as if he’s underdone, ultimate professional