6 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Who's that?

Not sure to be fair Dazzler! Last year we had Max, TMac and Jacko doing that...

 I wish they had named Melky just to see the Dazzling one go bananas (sorry Mr.Leg).

Edited June 22, 20223 yr by Longsufferingnomore

Back up ruck is the role Sam plays well in my view. Less pressure to be the focal point, his ruck craft is good for a part timer, and it gets his mindset to be more competitive around the footy.

3 minutes ago, rpfc said:

Back up ruck is the role Sam plays well in my view. Less pressure to be the focal point, his ruck craft is good for a part timer, and it gets his mindset to be more competitive around the footy.

Let's hope so

The fact is we need a forward to stand up.

We can rely on Fritta to sneak couple  but if if BBB or Weid kicks 4 - we win

49 minutes ago, old55 said:

I can't see your logic here. We've added a small for a tall. We'll be better off for midfield rotations.

I can see in the named side only 9 players that have consistent and good experience in the middle and that includes the wingers. There are two others that are presently named on the bench that we could run through there on limited occasions and these are Bedford and Pickett. Both of thee guys have vey limited experience in the middle.

I would rather have seen Dunstan named instead of Bedford as I think the balance would be a lot better and may allow out midfield to run out the game better

I believe that for success we need to have a depth of 10 or 11 players in the team that can rotate through the middle.

That is my logic.

Not sure of our line up. Without Hunt our backs might not be able to handle the Lions forward speed, even though Bailey is out. Neither Harmes or Jordon are quick.

We have to make the aerial battle a 50/50 break even or better.

Our method between wing and F50 must be much smarter and sharper.

Make inside F50 a groundball battle - let Bedford, Spargo and Kozzie run amok.

Close game, could easily go either way.

We need to go shopping for a key forward. 

2 hours ago, WERRIDEE said:

Like the changes just thought Sparrow is a tad lucky don’t know what Dunstan has to do to get a game 

Dunstan needs to play well when he gets the chance.  He has been underwhelming when he's been given an opportunity.

Montagna had some fantastic vision on AFL360 of Melbourne’s forwards against Collingwood. It seemed that when we generated a turn over in the middle, our forwards were too far up the ground and were just generally disorganised. He hypothesised that our forwards were overcompensating for our defence. Most of the vision was in the 3rd qtr when our defence was short so it’ll be interesting to see if our forwards hold their structure tomorrow better with May back.

Edited June 22, 20223 yr by At the break of Gawn

2 hours ago, WERRIDEE said:

Like the changes just thought Sparrow is a tad lucky don’t know what Dunstan has to do to get a game 

100%.  Should have been in.  Sparrow is a long way off the level at the moment and Dunstan bludgeoned the door down last week.  Not saying he'd be massive improvement but at this level you need to take every advantage you can get.

With Salem & Hibb back and Bowey still in this frees up Gus to go back to a wing/HF.  Would love to see him get a bit of time in the middle with Harmes covering for short stints on the wing to see what, if anything, that change up might bring.

Also think we need to see a Bedford/Kozzy change up at some stage through the middle if Kozzie doesn't fire up forward in the first quarter and a bit and if our mid field set up is having another ordinary night.

However, with Bowey, Salem & Jordan we also now have an excess of dour types across HB.  That is unless Salem can get back on his bike to some run & carry form we saw in 2021.

Might've been worth bringing Rivers in for Bowey who's lost a bit of form of late.  Rivers could potentially offer a bit more spark/quicker ball movement/transistion off HB, giving the forwards a few more looks vs the pedestrian up the line transitioning we've seen far too much of this season IMHO. 

Our super slooow predicable transition off HB is a massive momentum killer and i would hate to have been a forward watching the likes of Salem, Jordy & Bowey with ball in hand the last two to three weeks.

If we play this way for much of the game tomorrow night and refuse to switch, handball accurately forward to player/s on the move and/or pull the 45 trigger when it presents, this will play right into the Lion's 'you beauty' play book and we'll be in for our fourth dissapointing result.

23 minutes ago, Roost it far said:

We need to go shopping for a key forward. 

Yep .... might need two if BB doesn't start producing.  One of them a tallish bullocking pack marking/busting option that can kick goals from 45-50 out with relative ease.

Aside from Macca and few cameos from Fritta & Kozzie this forward line up has been a massive fail (so far).  Will need to turn it around in a big way in this second half if we're to have any chance of making a Prelim.

2 hours ago, ding said:

 

The role of a witches hat ?

Support the Dees do you?

2 hours ago, brendan said:

Need to get back to absolute manic pressure no excuse after a week off

Yes get back to being the hunters and damaging the opp on the turnover from dangerous parts of the ground.  Very little of this so far this season compared to 2021.

Part of that is also being able too lock the ball in our 50 for decent periods during a game.

Thought we did that against the Pies for a good 10 minutes or.so in the 2nd quarter.  However, apart from maybe one goal to Dogga we failed to capitalise/convert on the scoreboard.

That 10 minutes or so with little to show for it seemed to take alot out of the crew in general then the Pies began to take over, gradually finding more holes in our high D and sling shottting it down forward pinging the ball around nicely and then finishing off inside 50 with some very nice kicks to players in space or out the back (some lovely precision kicking inside 50 vs our constant bombs away... coach killer/team deflating method!)

Edited June 22, 20223 yr by Demon Dynasty

This might have been the game to change some things especially since our forward line has been so ineffective in the last 3 matches. I would have liked to have seen Hunt in the line up playing out of the goal square and would have dropped BBB. Without Gawn, we really had no other choice but to play Weideman as back up ruck.

Edited June 22, 20223 yr by Star of the 80s

55 minutes ago, Roost it far said:

We need to go shopping for a key forward. 

I know just the place.  They're having a sale, too!

Fair enough changes, it's not like M Brown was doing anything to hold his spot and there's no other tall forward we could play in his place, so we're going smaller. Major pressure on B Brown, Weid when forward, Jackson when forward and Fritsch to create genuine marking contests. When Weid's rucking, we'd better have a reasonable plan for what we're going to be doing with our inside 50s because we can't have Andrews and Adams intercept marking our attempts to kick to a double-teamed B Brown.

Would like to see Hunt or Tomlinson the sub for some positional versatility.

3 hours ago, Lord Nev said:

Fixed.

To be fair, both B Brown and Weid need to stand up, and both B Brown and Weid need to play their role.

3 hours ago, John Crow Batty said:

Gardiner out is big as well. He is their second tall key defender. 

Third: Andrews and Adams are their two key defenders.

Great to see Bedford back.  Tipping a big game from the kid

2 hours ago, At the break of Gawn said:

Montagna had some fantastic vision on AFL360 of Melbourne’s forwards against Collingwood. It seemed that when we generated a turn over in the middle, our forwards were too far up the ground and were just generally disorganised. He hypothesised that our forwards were overcompensating for our defence. Most of the vision was in the 3rd qtr when our defence was short so it’ll be interesting to see if our forwards hold their structure tomorrow better with May back.

That's a classic by-product of not having the leg power to burst forward on the counter attack.

 

1 hour ago, titan_uranus said:

When Weid's rucking, we'd better have a reasonable plan for what we're going to be doing with our inside 50s because we can't have Andrews and Adams intercept marking our attempts to kick to a double-teamed B Brown.

Might be worth playing Dogga at CHF for most of the match.  Weid mostly in the ruck.  Let them share the two roles.  Roughly Weid 60% Ruck/ Dogga 60% CHF and reverse for the other 40% excluding time on the bench of course.

I reckon Weid is ok at holding his own and neutralising many of the ruck contests.  I recall him playing nearly a whole quarter there in one match earlier in the season and we did alright out of the middle. 

The oppo also wont have much intel on Weid rucking & in theory they wont be able to read/steal his taps as often.  Something we've seen the oppo mids do quite a bit against Maxy & Dogga this season.

Doubt the above will happen but wouldn't mind seeing Weid play a fair % (at least 50% or so) in the ruck tomorrow night.

1 minute ago, Demon Dynasty said:

Might be worth playing Dogga at CHF for most of the match.  Weid mostly in the ruck.  Let them share the two roles.  Roughly Weid 60% Ruck/ Dogga 60% CHF and reverse for the other 40% excluding time on the bench of course.

I reckon Weid is ok at holding his own and neutralising many of the ruck contests.  I recall him playing nearly a whole quarter there in one match earlier in the season and we did alright out of the middle. 

The oppo also wont have much intel on Weid rucking & in theory they wont be able to read/steal his taps as often.  Something we've seen the oppo mids do quite a bit against Maxy & Dogga this season.

Doubt the above will happen but wouldn't mind seeing Weid play a fair % (at least 50% or so) in the ruck tomorrow night.

No thanks.

lets back Jacko in for 80% ruck, and be able to make a fair assessment of what we can do with a ruck playing as an extra midfielder :-  Have a strong feeling we will all be pleasantly surprised. 

 

10 hours ago, At the break of Gawn said:

Montagna had some fantastic vision on AFL360 of Melbourne’s forwards against Collingwood. It seemed that when we generated a turn over in the middle, our forwards were too far up the ground and were just generally disorganised. He hypothesised that our forwards were overcompensating for our defence. Most of the vision was in the 3rd qtr when our defence was short so it’ll be interesting to see if our forwards hold their structure tomorrow better with May back.

Yeah I said this in the game day threads plus post match forums and asked the question, how can our forwards expect to kick goals playing defensive side wings?

8 hours ago, YesitwasaWin4theAges said:

That's a classic by-product of not having the leg power to burst forward on the counter attack.

 

That's exactly right. 

And critically, it's not just our forward who are not getting back quickly enough, or in enough numbers, it's the mids, wingers and half back flankers.

No swarm and wave running.

When you look at that footage showed, it is all one on one in our forward line as theball arrives

The point montagna fails to mention, is our offensive model relies on our swarm and running in waves of mutiple players, some of whom get ahead of the ball and create a numerical advantage inside our 50. So, often, mutiple free Ayers inside our 50.

No swarm equals forward entries and forward line not working.

As an example of tbat swarm, a poster (apologies to them I can't remember who) pointed to that brilliant goal Sparrow set up for fritter in the goal square against the lions.

Ironically, montagna showed that vision at the time  to highlight the incredible running the dees do ' Sparrow started that scoring chain from deep in our defence, and tracked the ball all the way down the ground running flat out. As did 3 or 4 other players.

He also pointed Sparrow's opponent simply could not go with him, and mutiple giant's players were haunches over completely spent. This was in round 3, so the giants would have been at peak fitness 

I think it was nibbler wee o kicked it deep to tbe pocket out in front of Sparrow, but whoever Iit was had three free option he could have chosen.

That is how our offence worked.

It is so simistic to simply blame our forwards, as montagna did in thst spot the other night - particularly given selwood broke the rule and dared to mention the impact of loading.

I mean c'mon , montagna knows that's the cause, but doesn't say it because fox, seven, the radio stations and the afl fear being honest with footy fans will hurt ratings.

 

It's a throwback to rounds 1-6 last year when (due to injuries) we went with just TMac as our tall forward, Fritta as the mid-size forward then a bunch of smaller players. 

We won all 6 games and averaged over 90 points a game, so it certainly can work. 

13 minutes ago, binman said:

That's exactly right. 

And critically, it's not just our forward who are not getting back quickly enough, or in enough numbers, it's the mids, wingers and half back flankers.

No swarm and wave running.

When you look at that footage showed, it is all one on one in our forward line as theball arrives

The point montagna fails to mention, is our offensive model relies on our swarm and running in waves of mutiple players, some of whom get ahead of the ball and create a numerical advantage inside our 50. So, often, mutiple free Ayers inside our 50.

No swarm equals forward entries and forward line not working.

As an example of tbat swarm, a poster (apologies to them I can't remember who) pointed to that brilliant goal Sparrow set up for fritter in the goal square against the lions.

Ironically, montagna showed that vision at the time  to highlight the incredible running the dees do ' Sparrow started that scoring chain from deep in our defence, and tracked the ball all the way down the ground running flat out. As did 3 or 4 other players.

He also pointed Sparrow's opponent simply could not go with him, and mutiple giant's players were haunches over completely spent. This was in round 3, so the giants would have been at peak fitness 

I think it was nibbler wee o kicked it deep to tbe pocket out in front of Sparrow, but whoever Iit was had three free option he could have chosen.

That is how our offence worked.

It is so simistic to simply blame our forwards, as montagna did in thst spot the other night - particularly given selwood broke the rule and dared to mention the impact of loading.

I mean c'mon , montagna knows that's the cause, but doesn't say it because fox, seven, the radio stations and the afl fear being honest with footy fans will hurt ratings.

 

100%.

This has been my thoughts this week watching King, Montagna, Ross Lyon etc all fail to mention the obvious loading impact, and instead add fuel to the fire of the “are the wheels falling off” thematic. 

For whatever reason clearly a media agenda :- probably adds more interest to have the average punter thinking/hoping that the dominant/best team in the league has suddenly forgotten how to execute it’s very successful plan. 

Edited June 22, 20223 yr by 1964_2