I have thought for a while that our "small" forwards are our achilles heel. We have options re our big key forwards but with the exception of Picket (sometimes) & Fritsch the cupboard is bare. Compare our other 4 fwds this year with the 4 fwds from our 88 & 2000 Grand Final sides.

2021 - Fritsch, Picket, Jordon, Neal Bullen

1988 - Lyon, Flintoff, Williams, R Jackson

2000 - Robertson, Green, Powell, Farmer

Forwardlines irrelevant - pressure, elite mids and defence win big games, people will switch on soon enough 

Edited July 8, 20214 yr by adonski

56 minutes ago, adonski said:

Forwardlines irrelevant - pressure, elite mids and defence win big games, people will switch on soon enough 

Surely not irrelevant - goals still need to be kicked.  Unlike soccer we don't have nil all draws.

1 hour ago, adonski said:

Forwardlines irrelevant - pressure, elite mids and defence win big games, people will switch on soon enough 

Agree with this.

Also think our forward lines biggest weakness is with our talls. None of them are good in the contest. All look ok when leading into space but pretty much none of them take marks in contested situations, and most don't do a great job of even halving contests and bringing the ball down into dangerous spots.

Unless we apply pressure up the ground and let our forwards work in space we have little chance of kicking big enough scores to win it all. This is also exacerbated by the fact that we don't get a lot of goals out of our mids (we do get quite a few points).

1 hour ago, adonski said:

Forwardlines irrelevant - pressure, elite mids and defence win big games, people will switch on soon enough 

So you take Reiwoldt & Lynch out of the Tigers flag sides or Kennedy & Darling from WC & it makes no difference ?   

3 hours ago, Cranky Franky said:

I have thought for a while that our "small" forwards are our achilles heel. We have options re our big key forwards but with the exception of Picket (sometimes) & Fritsch the cupboard is bare. Compare our other 4 fwds this year with the 4 fwds from our 88 & 2000 Grand Final sides.

2021 - Fritsch, Picket, Jordon, Neal Bullen

1988 - Lyon, Flintoff, Williams, R Jackson

2000 - Robertson, Green, Powell, Farmer

1998- Neitz Lyon Schwartz Farmer

Never seen a more potent forward line in my time. That finals system robbed us. How on earth you can belt the eventual premiers and not make a GF is mind baffling!

3 minutes ago, Cranky Franky said:

So you take Reiwoldt & Lynch out of the Tigers flag sides or Kennedy & Darling from WC & it makes no difference ?   

Kennedy and Darling still going strong and the eagles are [censored] house

7 hours ago, adonski said:

Kennedy and Darling still going strong and the eagles are [censored] house

You didn't answer the question.

 

8 hours ago, Doug Reemer said:

1998- Neitz Lyon Schwartz Farmer

Never seen a more potent forward line in my time. That finals system robbed us. How on earth you can belt the eventual premiers and not make a GF is mind baffling!

Because its the midfield... if they don't fire the ball doesn't get to the forwards....as for the GF, done by the final system of the time.   Missed opportunity 

16 hours ago, Cranky Franky said:

I have thought for a while that our "small" forwards are our achilles heel. We have options re our big key forwards but with the exception of Picket (sometimes) & Fritsch the cupboard is bare. Compare our other 4 fwds this year with the 4 fwds from our 88 & 2000 Grand Final sides.

2021 - Fritsch, Picket, Jordon, Neal Bullen

1988 - Lyon, Flintoff, Williams, R Jackson

2000 - Robertson, Green, Powell, Farmer

Spargo is more a forward than Jordon!

16 hours ago, Doug Reemer said:

1998- Neitz Lyon Schwartz Farmer

Never seen a more potent forward line in my time. That finals system robbed us. How on earth you can belt the eventual premiers and not make a GF is mind baffling!

The 1998 finals series did my head in too DR! Melbourne finished the home & away season 4th that year, beat Adelaide in the first final but didn't get to go straight to the Preliminary! 

The McIntyre Final Eight System in use at the time really disadvantaged teams who were good enough to finish the home and away series in 3rd and 4th positions.  This article by Tim Lane in the Age: Eight A Lucky Number For AFL Plodders, finally explained to me the farcical changes made to the AFL finals series in the 90's as the competition expanded and added new teams. The AFL really struggled to find a fair finals system during this time...

After much criticism, the McIntyre Final Eight System was replaced by the current AFL Finals System in 2000. IMV it provides the fairest reward for sides good enough to finish the home and away series in the top 4.

Let's hope the Dee's make top 4 or even better top 2 this year and take full advantage of this simpler and fairer system. 

 

 

18 hours ago, Doug Reemer said:

1998- Neitz Lyon Schwartz Farmer

Never seen a more potent forward line in my time. That finals system robbed us. How on earth you can belt the eventual premiers and not make a GF is mind baffling!

+1. In he air and on the ground the quartet would be the best I have seen in 60 years. On their day and at their best they were each capable of kicking bags of goals, if not necessarily all at the same time. They had ability, skills and footy smarts in abundance. And in that series they had Travis feeding them.

1998 - we was robbed.

 

On 7/9/2021 at 8:18 AM, AC/DeeC said:

The 1998 finals series did my head in too DR! Melbourne finished the home & away season 4th that year, beat Adelaide in the first final but didn't get to go straight to the Preliminary! 

The McIntyre Final Eight System in use at the time really disadvantaged teams who were good enough to finish the home and away series in 3rd and 4th positions.  This article by Tim Lane in the Age: Eight A Lucky Number For AFL Plodders, finally explained to me the farcical changes made to the AFL finals series in the 90's as the competition expanded and added new teams. The AFL really struggled to find a fair finals system during this time...

After much criticism, the McIntyre Final Eight System was replaced by the current AFL Finals System in 2000. IMV it provides the fairest reward for sides good enough to finish the home and away series in the top 4.

Let's hope the Dee's make top 4 or even better top 2 this year and take full advantage of this simpler and fairer system. 

 

 

Couldn't agree more. I was 12 in 98 and in 96 when I was 10 I had no idea how the finals system worked.. We lived in brisbane at the time and used to "follow" the bears mainly to go. I rememeber being adamant North were knocked out after week 2 ? When in reality they were straight to the Prelim.