17 minutes ago, Rusty Nails said:

This is crucial to whether BB in eventually clicks for us IMO.  Keep BB mostly deep?  Macca roaming higher but playing a fair % of time at CHF for structure especially holding that CHF position whenever 666 is in play.

Then there's Dogga.  Do we use him as the decoy out wide to the non-Fritta flank or does he just ruck for when Gawn is on the bench and at other times he is also covering for BB and Macca when rested?  I tend to prefer this latter option while he is a rookie in order to keep him as fresh as possible off the bench while he continues to build a tank and muscle over the next few seasons.  And his marking ability/confidence.

Great post especially re Jackson. Imho I have noticed he has been too far up the ground even when not rucking. We have been a fwd down . And he needs to stop going for marks against our other talls as hes not the strongest pair of hands just yet.

On 7/17/2021 at 10:54 PM, SPC said:

Need to move Salem or Rivers to the midfield. 

I wouldnt mind Spargo in their. Gutsy with great decision making.

10 hours ago, Smokey said:

I know it’s way too early to think about dropping Brown, but he’s on notice for mine. Yes, doing some good things, but if he doesn’t start clunking a few and kicking true I will start to question his spot in the team again

Brown's key responsibility in the side (IMO) is to nail his set shots.

He's made a living off his accuracy (67% career conversion) which is so much better than any of our other forwards.

But on Saturday night he kicked 0.2 from gettable set shots and didn't do a great deal to be honest.

We all thought Brown's inclusion was key to T Mac taking his game to another level, but the ordinary T Mac returned on the weekend with just 3 marks and a goal.

Brown should be given 2 or 3 matches for sure, but if the Hawthorn game is his stock standard 2021 performance, than it's pretty underwhelming.

1 hour ago, monoccular said:

Ezra Poyas was the last one I remember. 

Ezra Poyas is not of Polish descent. He is of Israeli Jewish extraction. ??

5 hours ago, DeeZone said:

I am also really looking forward to BBB kicking 3-4 goals in a game just to show that he is still up to it. I like the structure that he brings to our forward 50 but he Tmac and LJ need to maintain some separation . We want multiple choices not all jumping at the same ball.

Go DEES…!!!!

I'm torn on this. I don't mind the multiple talls jumping for the same ball. Obviously not spoiling each other ideally, but as strange as that sounds, it makes our ball movement even more predictable for our smalls. Ideally we get it 1v1 on a lead, but if not, it's not the worst result IMO.

I think it's only a matter of time before BBB gets on the end of 3 or 4. I hope it's this week!

If the Bulldogs still fail to get through us that bodes well for finals. I have a feeling we'll be playing Bulldogs the first week. 

Edited July 20, 20213 yr by A F

31 minutes ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Brown's key responsibility in the side (IMO) is to nail his set shots.

He's made a living off his accuracy (67% career conversion) which is so much better than any of our other forwards.

But on Saturday night he kicked 0.2 from gettable set shots and didn't do a great deal to be honest.

We all thought Brown's inclusion was key to T Mac taking his game to another level, but the ordinary T Mac returned on the weekend with just 3 marks and a goal.

Brown should be given 2 or 3 matches for sure, but if the Hawthorn game is his stock standard 2021 performance, than it's pretty underwhelming.

Brown's key responsibility is to be a good forward. That might mean kicking goals one week, but if he's not kicking goals he needs to be leading, making contests, being a threat, etc., to help release pressure on TMac/Fritsch and to bring our smalls into play.

Given how we played vs Essendon and GWS, I remain of the view that we can't go into games with just TMac as the tall, and Fritsch/Jackson as support. We need, IMO, a second tall.

Our options really are Brown or Weideman.

Brown's now had five games, the same as Weideman, and his stats are now almost universally better than Weideman's for the season. Weideman averages more tackles per game and more defensive half pressure acts, but Brown otherwise is doing more: he gets more disposals, has more kicks, generates more inside 50s, has a higher disposal efficiency, gets the ball at ground level more (ground ball gets), takes more marks (contested and uncontested), kicks double the goals, and has more shots on goal per game.

So in my view, we have two options, and the one currently in the side is outperforming the other one, and we need one of them in the side, so there shouldn't be any debate right now about Brown holding his spot, not unless/until his performances are inferior to what we'd expect from Weideman.

1 hour ago, leave it to deever said:

Great post especially re Jackson. Imho I have noticed he has been too far up the ground even when not rucking. We have been a fwd down . And he needs to stop going for marks against our other talls as hes not the strongest pair of hands just yet.

They all tend to go up and clump together in the LH forward pocket (when looking at the goals from the center) and attempt to mark the same ball Deever.  They do it as wrote as that's where we tend to kick it to most of the time.  The opp does the same no doubt also under instruction and you end up with 5/6 players or more all attacking the same drop.  We are too easy to defend when we don't mix things up a little more looking for other leads/targets up the guts or on the opposite fat side.

This is all fine if the opp is missing a fair number of chances on the rebound but if they convert accurately (a la the Hawks on Sat night) even lowly to average teams are capable of beating us as we've witnessed on a number of occasions.

Edited July 20, 20213 yr by Rusty Nails

Harmes for Viney. Bowie for Brayshaw.  If we were playing a p.ss weak side then we should make a mandatory five changes. 

 

21 minutes ago, COOLX said:

Harmes for Viney. Bowie for Brayshaw.  If we were playing a p.ss weak side then we should make a mandatory five changes.

Harmes is doubtful.

 

2 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Brown's key responsibility in the side (IMO) is to nail his set shots.

He's made a living off his accuracy (67% career conversion) which is so much better than any of our other forwards.

But on Saturday night he kicked 0.2 from gettable set shots and didn't do a great deal to be honest.

We all thought Brown's inclusion was key to T Mac taking his game to another level, but the ordinary T Mac returned on the weekend with just 3 marks and a goal.

Brown should be given 2 or 3 matches for sure, but if the Hawthorn game is his stock standard 2021 performance, than it's pretty underwhelming.

Give me a confidence boosting Brown over a Weeds anyday

Edited July 20, 20213 yr by picket fence

1 hour ago, Lord Nev said:

Harmes is doubtful.

 

Keep Bulldogs guessing mate. ?

29 minutes ago, A F said:

Keep Bulldogs guessing mate. ?

Keeping us all guessing - 

21 hours ago, BW511 said:

We are an infinitely better side with Brown in, there is no way he goes out.

Of the players on notice, I think he'd be well behind a few others.

Why isn't Brown on notice in your view? 

He is a key forward who should be taking marks and kicking set shots. He hasn't done either really. 

Saying we are infinitely better with Brown feels like a huge exaggeration. We were 6-0 before he even got his first game, and during this period we started Richmond on their downward spiral with a big win and accounted for Geelong comfortably. Brown then failed to fire in games against North, Sydney (who weren't red hot at this stage of the season) and Carlton. Since then, he failed to kick a score vs Port and got a lucky one vs Hawthorn. 

I like the balance he brings to the team, no question. He draws a good defender or two every time, I get that. But in the end of the day, if he can't clunk the odd contested mark and kick his set shots then he isn't as valuable as people make him out to be. Based on that I don't see any problem with the view that he should be on notice over the next few weeks. 

Kick some bloody goals, Ben ... 

 

16 minutes ago, Smokey said:

Why isn't Brown on notice in your view? 

He is a key forward who should be taking marks and kicking set shots. He hasn't done either really. 

Saying we are infinitely better with Brown feels like a huge exaggeration. We were 6-0 before he even got his first game, and during this period we started Richmond on their downward spiral with a big win and accounted for Geelong comfortably. Brown then failed to fire in games against North, Sydney (who weren't red hot at this stage of the season) and Carlton. Since then, he failed to kick a score vs Port and got a lucky one vs Hawthorn. 

I like the balance he brings to the team, no question. He draws a good defender or two every time, I get that. But in the end of the day, if he can't clunk the odd contested mark and kick his set shots then he isn't as valuable as people make him out to be. Based on that I don't see any problem with the view that he should be on notice over the next few weeks. 

Kick some bloody goals, Ben ... 

 

I hear you, but the whole team is well down. Don't care that we beat Port, our last 6 weeks have been ordinary at best.

Brown needs a 4-5 week stretch of games, if he isn't producing, we can worry then. I believe he is incredibly valuable for exactly the reasons you listed above. He draws a good defender away from T-Mac or Fritta, he makes teams nervous with his height and as the weather improves towards finals, the marks will come. 

A firing big forward would be the icing on the cake for us, so we need to give him a chance to be that. Heading into finals, he is more critical to our structure than ANB, Kossie, Melksham or Fritsch will ever be. You can't just make a bloke taller

 

 

59 minutes ago, BW511 said:

I hear you, but the whole team is well down. Don't care that we beat Port, our last 6 weeks have been ordinary at best.

Brown needs a 4-5 week stretch of games, if he isn't producing, we can worry then. I believe he is incredibly valuable for exactly the reasons you listed above. He draws a good defender away from T-Mac or Fritta, he makes teams nervous with his height and as the weather improves towards finals, the marks will come. 

A firing big forward would be the icing on the cake for us, so we need to give him a chance to be that. Heading into finals, he is more critical to our structure than ANB, Kossie, Melksham or Fritsch will ever be. You can't just make a bloke taller

 

 

I get what you're saying re Brown. Give him a few more weeks to find some continuity with the team. Hopefully some consistency can be found in how we deliver the ball to him.

But not sure if I would go as far as to say he's more critical to our structure then ANB, Kossie and Fritta will ever be. Apart from kicking 72 goals between them they are crucial to our forward line structure especially defensively which is how we have generated most of our scoring this season. Definitely need to see more from Brown to warrant a spot come finals. Some signs starting to show the last few weeks that might come to fruition. Fingers crossed!

Teams in an hour.

Any known changes?

On 7/21/2021 at 1:08 PM, Yung Blood said:

I get what you're saying re Brown. Give him a few more weeks to find some continuity with the team. Hopefully some consistency can be found in how we deliver the ball to him.

But not sure if I would go as far as to say he's more critical to our structure then ANB, Kossie and Fritta will ever be. Apart from kicking 72 goals between them they are crucial to our forward line structure especially defensively which is how we have generated most of our scoring this season. Definitely need to see more from Brown to warrant a spot come finals. Some signs starting to show the last few weeks that might come to fruition. Fingers crossed!

Brown is a lock for the rest of the year. 

we need a key forward to play that role, and Weid has proven beyond all doubt that he can’t be trusted for this year at least. 

On 7/20/2021 at 12:37 PM, leave it to deever said:

wrong thread

'Wrong thread'? Are you talking about Goodwin again?

 

6 hours ago, Deemania since 56 said:

'Wrong thread'? Are you talking about Goodwin again?

 

Ive been good.

Anyone else feeling this will be a breakout game for bbb?

1 hour ago, leave it to deever said:

Anyone else feeling this will be a breakout game for bbb?

The weather forecast says no.

5 hours ago, Jaded said:

The weather forecast says no.

That’s a detailed forecast! 

‘There’s a high pressure system that will bring some rain, keep Ben Brown from kicking a goal, and ruin the marriage of one of my neighbours. 

Find out which one after the break’