I suspect that the Gawn/Grundy combination has multiple aims.

After reading the threads about us needing to recruit a 200cm forward to replace BBB i

now believe that Max is that player down the track. It would the make the decision to pursue the shorter

more moblie Georgiades. We then develop JVR, Verrall and Jefferson, which covers Forwards and Ruck

53 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

There’s 3 factors with Grundy being Drested this week that haven’t been mentioned:

1. He went missing in the Cats game for a chunk of time that’s yet to be explained, he might’ve been carrying something since then and they’ve been eyeing an opportunity for a week off OR scared of being further damaged on 2 short breaks.

was undergoing hia

24 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

@binman @A F - this is what I've been crying out for. I have wanted to see someone from the club say something to support your theories that we added training volume through the middle of the year. Here it is.

 

Ok.

But essentially that is exactly what Selwyn Griffiths said in the DL interview podcast way back in March that i have referenced multiple times. 

14 minutes ago, A F said:

I interpreted his quote to mean him saying we hadn't had 3 10 day breaks in a row before, which is true. 

It’s certainly how I took it, listening to the audio of the interview (I dictated it to post here).
 

To me, Yze was implying that they will risk top 4 to make sure we’re fresh for finals. We went a little too hard to guarantee top 4 last year and burnt ourselves out. He goes on to say later that even with a top 2 spot we fell out in straight sets, but Brisbane who finished 5th made the prelim. 
 

I don’t think it means we haven’t been loading mid-season in previous years. More that it’s being done with less focus on winning individual games, and keeping players fresh and primed in September. 

Edited July 13, 20231 yr by Stu

3 hours ago, Melb16 said:

Plenty of narrative going around that 2 rucks don’t work. How many rucks did we play in 2021?

Yes, short memories. And the top team, currently very short odds for the flag, play two rucks

It's going to be very interesting to see how this season plays out.

Can Collingwood and Port continue their form throughout the end of the season and finals? I think Collingwood definitely can given last year, but I've got a feeling Port will crash and burn, which would be nice if it happens to see Kane Cornes have a whinge.

Will Brisbane be able to go one better than the last few years, or will it be same old for them? I think the jury is still out and without a home final it could be curtains.

Will our intense training bloke throughout the byes pay dividends? Who knows how big a difference this will make come the finals, but there is something liberating about being the underdogs and just going out there and playing footy.

5 minutes ago, DistrACTION Jackson said:

Will our intense training bloke throughout the byes pay dividends? 

I like that new nick name for Selwyn, @DistrACTION Jackson.

I also like what you say there about the liberation of not being the hunted again and underdogs. I think this will help us and potentially hinder Collingwood and Port. Something @binman has said multiple times on the podders.

Edited July 13, 20231 yr by A F

27 minutes ago, A F said:

7 clearances is BOG ordinary? Righto, Pulpy.

I'd like to watch his disposals again, my impression on the day was that most were ineffective.

3 minutes ago, loges said:

I'd like to watch his disposals again, my impression on the day was that most were ineffective.

At the ground, I thought he was one of our better players in the first half or so. I reckon his game was externally underrated last week. The last quarter was slow going, but he was clearly buggered by then.

24 minutes ago, Stu said:

It’s certainly how I took it, listening to the audio of the interview (I dictated it to post here).
 

To me, Yze was implying that they will risk top 4 to make sure we’re fresh for finals. We went a little too hard to guarantee top 4 last year and burnt ourselves out. He goes on to say later that even with a top 2 spot we fell out in straight sets, but Brisbane who finished 5th made the prelim. 
 

I don’t think it means we haven’t been loading mid-season in previous years. More that it’s being done with less focus on winning individual games, and keeping players fresh and primed in September. 

That's almost exactly what Scott said last year- tgough he said they were prepared to miss the 8 to give the cats the best chance of winning the flag.

The big change to last year's program is replicating the cats squad approach and managing mutiple best 22  players like jvr, bowey, bb, Hibbo, chandler, grundy and spargo (something we didn't do hardly at all last year)

 

7 hours ago, rpfc said:

Can we just ease up on the Grundy disrespect?

Kind of falling into the self-hating MFC supporter trope.

I see the big remour today rpfc is Grundy to be rested  this week!  I would have thought it was Gawn who needed the rest.

2 minutes ago, binman said:

That's almost exactly what Scott said last year- tgough he said they were prepared to miss the 8 to give the cats the best chance of winning the flag.

The big change to last year's program is replicating the cats squad approach and managing mutiple best 22  players like jvr, bowey, bb, Hibbo, chandler, grundy and spargo (something we didn't do hardly at all last year)

I'm sure we would have liked to rest Trac had we had a fit Clarry to cover for him. So I'd say Trac will be rested forward over the coming month or so instead.

But obviously, Clarry will hopefully be fresher to hit the finals with a bang.

Likewise, hopefully Fritta can get over the foot problem entirely that was already plaguing him prior to his current foot injury.

So come the finals, the following players will be as fresh as possible: Clarry, Fritta, JVR, BB, Bowey, Hibbo, Chandler, Grundy and Spargo. That's 9 of our best 22/23.

And I'm sure we haven't seen the last of resting players this season. Will Tomlinson (and maybe even Turner) get another game so Lever or May get a rest? Will McVee have a week off? 

If Clarry comes back at say Round 21-22, that might enable us to rest Sparrow and/or Gus in Round 23.

There's obviously a balance to strike here, because you also want continuity in your line up too, so it'll be interesting to see how we play it.

1 hour ago, titan_uranus said:

I suspect we are taking an opportunity to rest Grundy and to play a slightly more mobile side against Brisbane on the G.

This IMO doesn’t necessarily signal the end of the two ruck strategy. However, if we beat Brisbane, it’s going to create an awkward situation trying to get Brodie back in. 

Whatever the reason or outcome, those who have bagged Goodwin for “playing favourites” or “being stubborn” or for not rotating players in 2022 should be happy with this and should support it. 

You make a good point here and this plan also gives me confidennece that the Match cttee are thinking strategically about every game. Goodwin said this at yesterday's presser but I didn't believe him.  Horses for courses is not a bad approach.

Still think Grundy is key to out future acors next few years.

Todays makes it clear Grundy is correctly not considrede a tall forward.  So we now have that set in place. 

1 hour ago, DistrACTION Jackson said:

It's going to be very interesting to see how this season plays out.

Can Collingwood and Port continue their form throughout the end of the season and finals? I think Collingwood definitely can given last year, but I've got a feeling Port will crash and burn, which would be nice if it happens to see Kane Cornes have a whinge.

Will Brisbane be able to go one better than the last few years, or will it be same old for them? I think the jury is still out and without a home final it could be curtains.

Will our intense training bloke throughout the byes pay dividends? Who knows how big a difference this will make come the finals, but there is something liberating about being the underdogs and just going out there and playing footy.

All good points.

But with the pies, why the confidence they will continue their form till the end if the season (I'm assuming you mean to the gf?)?

Tbey didn't ladt year, losing two of their three finals and bowing out in the prelim 

1 hour ago, A F said:

7 clearances is BOG ordinary? Righto, Pulpy.

Rowan Marshall absolutely killed Grundy last week. Grundy was physically very poor and that is being nice.  Maybe he just needs a rest. 

3 minutes ago, binman said:

All good points.

But with the pies, why the confidence they will continue their form till the end if the season (I'm assuming you mean to the gf?)?

Tbey didn't ladt year, losing two of their three finals and bowing out in the prelim 

Tbf to the Pies they lost by 6 points to the premier and 1 point in the prelim, so we can't question their ability to perform on the biggest stage. Sometimes results don't go your way, which was interesting because they won every close game in the regular season from memory.

I just think they showed they can continue to perform into the finals, though past history isn't a guarantee of future performance as all investment ads tell us....

Port on the other hand have a history of choking in finals, the best example being one of the most insipid performances in recent memory against the Dogs in 2021. But again, thinking history will just repeat is too simplistic a view.

Not unhappy with the switch from Grundy to JVR.

We haven't scored over 80 points since the Hawks in round 9, so maybe having two proper tall forwards rather than one + resting ruck will help turn that around.

(Statistically speaking, getting Oliver back would help too as we also haven't scored more than 80 since the game he was injured 😔)

Edited July 13, 20231 yr by JTR

48 minutes ago, old dee said:

I see the big remour today rpfc is Grundy to be rested  this week!  I would have thought it was Gawn who needed the rest.

I suspect both will be rested, perhaps a couple of times before end of year. We play 5 bottom 10 sides so should use some capacity to manage players

And Fritsch probably won't return, so resting them gives room for a bit of Key Fwd building

1 hour ago, binman said:

Ok.

But essentially that is exactly what Selwyn Griffiths said in the DL interview podcast way back in March that i have referenced multiple times. 

Out of interest, what is your understanding of what the 'loading period' included? From a numbers perspective? There are so many question I would love to ask Selwyn.

E.g. in an average week player X does 60 mins at zone 2 + 20 mins in zone 4 (excluding game time). Therefore the loading period increased the running minutes for player X by? P.s. these numbers are totally made up. If we could find out the additional minutes or kms the player ran (even very roughly), there is plenty of normalised data you can use to predict an increase in aerobic performance. 

Did Selwyn speak about what the loading involved? Assuming it's purely low heart rate base running (zone 2). 

 

 

1 hour ago, old dee said:

I see the big remour today rpfc is Grundy to be rested  this week!  I would have thought it was Gawn who needed the rest.

I think the term ‘managed’ needs a rest first, OD

6 hours ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

No, rpfc. No they can’t. Even in matters other than footy. For example, I didn’t drop/dump my ex. He was being managed for a while then unfortunately in September last year he was delisted. 😁 I told him not to hang up his boots just yet since he’s not too old to be picked up by another club. 😁

Hilarious, wcw, you are a hoot!

I think a fully fit Grundy will be a valuable asset to us either in the finals this year or next year.

I don’t believe he has been fully fit all year , hence opposing ruckman getting off the leash in a few games.

So we rest him and try something else with JVR as the stakes are starting to get much higher and we need to start to see what out best side looks like.

When Clarry comes back it’ll be a luxury to leave Trac up forward and we will really stretch some sides.

Hopefully Fritter returns a week or two before finals and we can really do some damage, but we just need to bank a few wins to finish top 4 and give us the best chance to succeed.

 

I have to say, I'm really hanging on the official team announcement - the most interesting possibilities for quite a while.