1 minute ago, Sydney_Demon said:

At this stage, all that Melbourne has done is rest Grundy for a week (Casey have the bye) and boosted our forward line (JVR to ruck up forward). Far too early to read anything into it long-term, but I guess that's what journalists are paid to do. In particular I don't listen to anything Damian Barrett says ever.

Agreed. It may just be a tactical change for Brisbane. We may see a Gawn + Grundy tage team against other opponents. 

Also, Gawn will retire before Grundy. Grundy may well be prudent succession planning for the ruck stocks.

Grundy has been at least as good as Gawn, he impacted last week but to be honest looked out of form, fumbling a fair bit and dropping marks. I hope this is a rest. 

When playing for Casey, I hope they play Brodie as a forward. Let the young rucks develop as rucks and Grundy develop as a forward

16 minutes ago, adonski said:

Grundy to Norf to coincide with Goldy's retirement. A good kulcha setter for Norf, too.

Lobb to the Dees for cents on the dollar.

 

A decent example to start the thinking.. I thought Lobb said on leaving the West he didn't want to ruck

On 9/13/2022 at 6:42 PM, rpfc said:

Yes, this fascination to make our AA ruckman a forward is lost on me, I can understand him training his replacement but Grundy is only a year younger. We should either target a young developing ruckman who can also get better as a target or a forward who can ruck. 

I don’t understand investing in another established ruckman in their last 4 years of AFL footy.

Why don’t you say this before the trade then?

Oh wait…

Apologies, you prescient handsome devil.

Stupid me thought we would occasionally use them both as part of the kick out strategy with one either side or similar but we didn't even try that.

You're not going to develope forward craft all of a sudden at 29 years of age at VFL level.

I was always against the move from the start and was worried we'd get to this point where it simply hasn't worked and we have to leave one out to get team balance right.

I must admit, I have felt Brodie's ruck work and follow up at ground level was much better then Gawns. I know they can't drop a captain but I had to pick between the two on form then I'm picking Grundy.

Intrigued to see how we'll go tonight. Only takes Gawn to go down and then we're left with JVR as our main ruckman.

Grundy has given us what I expected this year. Last week, he dropped a few easy marks he should have gobbled up and he was not moving as well as earlier in the season.

The issue with playing two ruckmen we have is that Gawn is no longer playing like an elite AFL player. We can play both if he gets his form back and starts dominating the air. I am also not convinced Gawn, Grundy and Brown works because it makes us too slow.

21 minutes ago, rpfc said:

Why don’t you say this before the trade then?

Oh wait…

Apologies, you prescient handsome devil.

Do you hold scheduled meetings...or just ad lib between yourselves......    asking for a friend....

19 minutes ago, Diamond_Jim said:

Stupid me thought we would occasionally use them both as part of the kick out strategy with one either side or similar but we didn't even try that.

I think we did in some of the praccies...   it was just to oobvious a ploy not to try I would have thought...silly us eh...

28 minutes ago, adonski said:

Grundy to Norf to coincide with Goldy's retirement. A good kulcha setter for Norf, too.

Lobb to the Dees for cents on the dollar.

 

Why would we want Rory Lobb? He turned 30 in February this yearand has failed as a forward. Grundy hasn't worked as a forward option this year but he's still a high level ruck (unlike Lobb) and is 14 months younger. 

22 minutes ago, No. 31 said:

Also, Gawn will retire before Grundy. Grundy may well be prudent succession planning for the ruck stocks.

Definitely that's partly why we brought Grundy in. He's 2 yrs 4 mths younger than Max. Who knows how much longer Max will be playing for?

11 minutes ago, Stiff Arm said:

When playing for Casey, I hope they play Brodie as a forward. Let the young rucks develop as rucks and Grundy develop as a forward

Disagree. Grundy hasn't worked as a forward for us so far. He probably hasn't been demoted long-term and when he plays for Melbourne again it will be combined ruck/forward so he needs to keep doing both. Also, Casey have both Schache & Jefferson up forward and it's particularly important that they keep developing (especially Jefferson). Scache is not far away from senior selection IMO. Casey aren't playing this week and Grundy may not even get to play for them! 

18 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

Do you hold scheduled meetings...or just ad lib between yourselves......    asking for a friend....

Look I won’t lie; my present self and my past self have a pretty strained relationship. 

Wherever I enter a room he immediately leaves, and it’s probably best that way.

38 minutes ago, Diamond_Jim said:

Stupid me thought we would occasionally use them both as part of the kick out strategy with one either side or similar but we didn't even try that.

My thoughts exactly 

very disappointing

when it's worked it's been good

why he wasn't 'managed' for the super wet games i don't know

I'm hoping they set Grundy up against Tomlinson and Turner (if fit) in a fair session over the weekend. They don't need to teach him leading patterns, but body positioning. Our rucks should really be leading up forward, but making sure they are crashing packs and not getting out marked, which I think Grundy gets too often as he hasn't played a heap forward and it's a different kick than what you get around the ground. 

If it works, they could potentially give Gawn a week off as well to do the same (say against Nth), then have 3 weeks to get the 2 of them back in the team together. Gawn is a better lead to the kick than Grundy but that doesn't mean they can't both be effective forward targets, which means more time on ground for both giving the rest time to the explosive mids.  

Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. Two AA ruckmen has proven to be one too many in any team.

As for their forward craft, neither are convincing. It makes if worse when both are in the forward line contesting for marks with JVR or BBB. Unless Grundy can show that he is able to fill a tomahawk style role (take marks, kick the occasional goal, contest ruck contest in the forward line) he might be redundant.

Not too late to rejig our ruck and forward strategy. One dominant ruckman around the ground and a selection of contesting ruckmen in the forward line (eg JVR, BBB) to prevent the oppos getting easy access.

If Maxie needs a rest, JVR has shown that he can compete as well as take marks. Let it rip.

1 hour ago, rpfc said:

Why don’t you say this before the trade then?

Oh wait…

Apologies, you prescient handsome devil.

Yeah look, I had this exact same feeling around trade time as well.

We're spending 650k on a ruckman to learn forward craft at VFL. 

Even if we couldn't get a forward at the time I too would have preferred to get a young back up ruckman and save the 650k for extra cap space to go hard for a Ben King or even Aaron Naughton.

Anyway, it is what it is.

 

It will definitely be interesting to see how many minutes Brodie plays forward for Casey and how many minutes he rucks.

1 hour ago, beelzebub said:

Do you hold scheduled meetings...or just ad lib between yourselves......    asking for a friend....

You could say that friend is your other self amirite! 

22 minutes ago, old55 said:

It will definitely be interesting to see how many minutes Brodie plays forward for Casey and how many minutes he rucks.

He shouldn’t take any ruck contests outside of the forwardline. What’s the point then? We know he will dominate the ruck at Casey. I don’t need an AA ruckman getting ruck practice against low quality rucks. He can practice ruck craft at training with Gawn. 
He has to play forward for the whole game or this whole exercise will be pointless. 

If anything I’d be working hard on getting Schache to do more rucking. It’s the only way he is getting a regular senior game. 

Edited July 14, 20232 yr by Jaded No More

40 minutes ago, whatwhat say what said:

very disappointing

when it's worked it's been good

why he wasn't 'managed' for the super wet games i don't know

Couldn’t agree more. The absolute frustration for me is that they played them both in games against Geelong & GWS that were played in really wet, slippery conditions that Max was never going to take a mark, and he didn’t, yet tonight which is perfectly dry, they pull the trigger. 
Brodie’s style of ruck play is much more suited to wet/slippery conditions, but they didn’t have the courage to make the right call which would’ve been to manage Max, or make him the sub, in case of an early injury to Brodie. 
The original plan was for Brodie to play predominantly on-ball and Max play predominantly up forward, but as no surprise to knowledgeable supporters, the Club and Max has belatedly realised that Max isn’t a 65% forward. 
It is also just as certain that Brodie hasn’t been, and will never be an impact part game forward. 

Max’s body language has appeared to be a little dispirited lately, really looking forward to seeing how he responds in a lot of different ways tonight  

2 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

You're not going to develope forward craft all of a sudden at 29 years of age at VFL level.

I was always against the move from the start and was worried we'd get to this point where it simply hasn't worked and we have to leave one out to get team balance right.

I must admit, I have felt Brodie's ruck work and follow up at ground level was much better then Gawns. I know they can't drop a captain but I had to pick between the two on form then I'm picking Grundy.

Intrigued to see how we'll go tonight. Only takes Gawn to go down and then we're left with JVR as our main ruckman.

Port dropped their captain. 

2 hours ago, Bay Riffin said:

Grundy has been at least as good as Gawn, he impacted last week but to be honest looked out of form, fumbling a fair bit and dropping marks. I hope this is a rest. 

Maybe, given that Casey ain’t playing, this is a rest and just maybe Max will get a rest in coming weeks depending on match ups. 

2 hours ago, Stiff Arm said:

When playing for Casey, I hope they play Brodie as a forward. Let the young rucks develop as rucks and Grundy develop as a forward

 

41 minutes ago, old55 said:

It will definitely be interesting to see how many minutes Brodie plays forward for Casey and how many minutes he rucks.

I can tell you now - zero minutes as a forward, a ruckman or as a water boy   
Thanks to the bloody VFL specialty bye but coming our way AFL thanks to Gil and his Tasmanian obsession. 

Edited July 14, 20232 yr by monoccular

6 minutes ago, ANG13 said:

Port dropped their captain. 

The Port Captain doesn’t quite have the credibility of Max, in fact, he doesn’t have the credibility of any AFL captain. 

Dropping Grundy to work on his forward craft at Casey WHEN THE VFL HAS A BYE is the epitome of stupidity and sums up our selection committee this year.

I don't think the Gawn and Grundy partnership has been great, but we've also not played to either of their strengths. Grundy has been better than Gawn this year. It's Gawn who's had a big drop off in form and probably needs a spell. He's been ineffective both up forward and in the ruck, where as Grundy has been decent in the ruck.

Our midfield has performed better when Grundy has been around the ball too with our contested numbers being the best we've seen since our 2021 peak. That tells me we need to find a different role for Max, not Grundy. Why they haven't tried other tactics with the pair such as one front half one back half, Gawn ruck Grundy mid, or Max behind ball and smaller forward line etc is beyond me. It appears we've wasted the year to experiment and now we're just going to hope for the best come finals time. But hey what do I know!

Edited July 14, 20232 yr by Lord Travis