1 hour ago, Ghostwriter said:

After our win over Freo someone on here said how watching the match live showed things you don’t see when watching on TV. and in this case it was about Kolt and how enthusiastic he is out there, how he’s involved in setting up zones and he routinely yells to his teammates.

I told him this was said about him and he said he wasn’t really aware he does this. He said he’s just being himself out there and this is true since he’s like this at training.

We really do need Kolt out there. His youth and exuberance is valuable and his confidence is infectious. We’re a better side with him in it.

6 hours ago, DeeBlood said:

Sharp had 4 in the last quarter by comparison

FWIW. In my team

Fritsch stays FF, Petty CHF

JVR needs to get goals or assist from general play before returning. Set shots in reserves not enough to warrant return cos reserve backs arent much markingoppostion. Appears to be lumbering in general play. Not good at ground level. He seems to clutter the forward line leads straight but not able to dip and dart around or change direction quickly enough. Won two straight without him.

Melksahm.is experienced and can mark high as can Kozzie. With Fritsch, Melksham Jefferson as mid-sized talls and Petty the main tall, forwards are flexible and mobile.

Petty is a confidence player great mark but can get the yips kicking. If that happens can swing him back for Turner or MacDonald, both proven marks and forwards

Turner in plays back, to swing forward if Petty not doing it and given time..not in and out

Kozzie to do his thing as mid or forward

Viney primarily tags best opposition mid. This week Reid

Tholstrup needs to go to reserves and rip it apart...Living on faux reputation at present.

Doesn't compare to Langford or Linsey at all.

Melksham, with experience and footy smarts is in our best team at HFF takes Kolts place this week

Sharp remains sub

Rivers plays Half back, not doing it as mid, as should Windsor..both to run and carry and when they have it, the running and overlap kicks in in various unpredictable chaos directions

Salem and Bowey remain the distributors

May doesnt kick it out. Provides pack mark target with MacDonald or Max if required from kick out when no solo target in space and marks his man. Bowey/Salem kick out as distributors. Then May back to last line of defence

Pressure forwards Pickett, Chandler Sparrow Spargo

Langton and Lindsey wings

In Melksham Jefferson

Out Tholstrup Fullarton

Lineup:

Bowey May McVee

Rivers MacDonald Salem

Langton Oliver Lindsey

Chandler Petty Pickett

Spargo Fritsch Melksham

Gawn Petracca Viney

Langford rotating centres/ halfforwards

Sparrow rotating centres/ halfforwards

Windsor rotating centres/ hallfbacks

Jefferson rotating half forwards/ff

Sharp sub

No clear 2nd Ruck..maybe Petty with Jefferson to CHF while that happens and MacDonald when it's back

Hmmm??

Sorry, Left Turner out of line up..He's in for Jefferson

7 hours ago, DeeBlood said:

Sharp had 4 in the last quarter by comparison

FWIW. In my team

Fritsch stays FF, Petty CHF

JVR needs to get goals or assist from general play before returning. Set shots in reserves not enough to warrant return cos reserve backs arent much markingoppostion. Appears to be lumbering in general play. Not good at ground level. He seems to clutter the forward line leads straight but not able to dip and dart around or change direction quickly enough. Won two straight without him.

Melksahm.is experienced and can mark high as can Kozzie. With Fritsch, Melksham Jefferson as mid-sized talls and Petty the main tall, forwards are flexible and mobile.

Petty is a confidence player great mark but can get the yips kicking. If that happens can swing him back for Turner or MacDonald, both proven marks and forwards

Turner in plays back, to swing forward if Petty not doing it and given time..not in and out

Kozzie to do his thing as mid or forward

Viney primarily tags best opposition mid. This week Reid

Tholstrup needs to go to reserves and rip it apart...Living on faux reputation at present.

Doesn't compare to Langford or Linsey at all.

Melksham, with experience and footy smarts is in our best team at HFF takes Kolts place this week

Sharp remains sub

Rivers plays Half back, not doing it as mid, as should Windsor..both to run and carry and when they have it, the running and overlap kicks in in various unpredictable chaos directions

Salem and Bowey remain the distributors

May doesnt kick it out. Provides pack mark target with MacDonald or Max if required from kick out when no solo target in space and marks his man. Bowey/Salem kick out as distributors. Then May back to last line of defence

Pressure forwards Pickett, Chandler Sparrow Spargo

Langton and Lindsey wings

In Melksham Jefferson

Out Tholstrup Fullarton

Lineup:

Bowey May McVee

Rivers MacDonald Salem

Langton Oliver Lindsey

Chandler Petty Pickett

Spargo Fritsch Melksham

Gawn Petracca Viney

Langford rotating centres/ halfforwards

Sparrow rotating centres/ halfforwards

Windsor rotating centres/ hallfbacks

Jefferson rotating half forwards/ff

Sharp sub

No clear 2nd Ruck..maybe Petty with Jefferson to CHF while that happens and MacDonald when it's back

Hmmm??

Sorry, Left Turner out. He's in on the bench for Jefferson, rotating backs and forwards

BTW.

What's with Jefferson's hand? It'll be 5-6 weeks by next Sunday. Omitted from last injury list.

2 minutes ago, DeeBlood said:

Sorry, Left Turner out of line up..He's in for Jefferson

Sorry, Left Turner out. He's in on the bench for Jefferson, rotating backs and forwards

BTW.

What's with Jefferson's hand? It'll be 5-6 weeks by next Sunday. Omitted from last injury list.

I don't mind your 22 there, but I won't have Fritta and Melky in the same team. One or the other. 🤣

38 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

Geelong have ordinary rucks, we do not. There's no need for us to do this. However, what we could do is play Max and Campbell as I believe @Harvey Wallbanger and perhaps @Slartibartfast have suggested...

There's a chance we could sit Campbell on the bench when Max is in the on the ground, and vice versa.

We also don’t have a Blicavs to reliably play any position we like on the ground alongside Max in the ruck.

1 hour ago, Adam The God said:

Geelong have ordinary rucks, we do not. There's no need for us to do this. However, what we could do is play Max and Campbell as I believe @Harvey Wallbanger and perhaps @Slartibartfast have suggested...

There's a chance we could sit Campbell on the bench when Max is in the on the ground, and vice versa.

That's it Adam, but Max doesn't have to sit on the pine when TC is rucking. Max's engine, plus his marking ability means we can keep the relatively short forward line we played last week and Max can push forward. He still needs his 6/7 minutes rest per quarter but if TC is rucking well, Max can spend some more time elsewhere. What we cannot afford is a second string ruck who gets mauled whilst Max rests, leading to momentum for the oppo, a la the last 12 minutes on Thursday night.

10 minutes ago, Harvey Wallbanger said:

That's it Adam, but Max doesn't have to sit on the pine when TC is rucking. Max's engine, plus his marking ability means we can keep the relatively short forward line we played last week and Max can push forward. He still needs his 6/7 minutes rest per quarter but if TC is rucking well, Max can spend some more time elsewhere. What we cannot afford is a second string ruck who gets mauled whilst Max rests, leading to momentum for the oppo, a la the last 12 minutes on Thursday night.

We've been here before though with Grundy. I was hoping we'd sit Max behind the ball when Grundy rucked. We could do that with Campbell too, but we've shown we didn't want to do that. But I guess we could try the Max forward again.

Campbell is a much cheaper Grundy, that's for sure.

It's JVR or TC for me now.

I suspect we'll go for JVR this week.

14 hours ago, LePig said:

Just going off of a few things I’ve seen on here, I’ve got that one wrong clearly

lol research 101

Fair enough - but play a guy out of form and risk ruck domination when he rucks. I would rather that TC "gets a taste" soonish. The day will come (I hope not), and it could be this year, when we need a short term, full time replacement for Max. It has to be a ruck who "can do it all game". Isn't that why we brought TC in? And against West Coast would be a good time to trial it, rather than against Hawthorn, Brisbane, then Sydney.

3 minutes ago, Wizard of Koz said:

lol research 101

Hey I’m happy to be wrong, had seen a couple things and just assumed he was a bad kick. I’d much rather he succeeded and have a place in the team going forward. From what I’d seen of him up foward last year I really liked, I only caught the second half of the Casey game this week so couldn’t make my own judgement of him down back.

7 hours ago, Adam The God said:

Trac definitely went to Chandler afterwards.

It was definitely hyperbole on my behalf. That all happened right in front of me and saw the other boys go straight up to Chin. At the time I was wondering why it took so long for Trac to get over to him but its quicker in the clip.

Classy goal all round.

PS I love a good smother. Better than a bump or tackle. And when the lads shepherd, well I go weak at the knees.

OUT: Fullarton, Sharp

IN: JVR, Turner

Sub: Spargo

I’d like to use the WC game to try a couple of things:

I’d give Campbell a game to assist Max - and make the mix work.

I think Sparrow and Chandler are showing what our forward pressure should be like, and I’m afraid Fritta hasn’t added this to his game yet so I’d let him learn this back at Casey for a couple of weeks. The obvious replacement would be Melksham, but I’d rather go a different route and try a younger player in Sestan. I know he has been playing very well in the backline, but his DNA is as a forward. His backline “learnings” will have him bring the defensive pressure we need up forward from all players, and he certainly knows how to kick a goal. So I’d play him in Fritta’s spot in the pocket.

Turner to return to the backline, JVR to get another go, Rivers moved to the mids, and Windsor to the wing where he belongs.

Spargo and Tholstrup to lose their places not because they were poor, but because they didn’t do enough.

McVee, May, Turner

Bowie, TMac, Lindsay

Langdon, Viney, Windsor

Sparrow, Petty, Chandler

Kossie, JVR, Sestan

Gawn, Tracc, Langford

Bench: Campbell, Rivers, Salem, Oliver

23rd: Melksham

Out:: Spargo, Fullarton, Sharp, Tholstrup and Fritta out.

In: Turner, Sestan, JVR, Campbell, and Melksham sub.

Five changes is probably too much, but it’s what I’d like to see happen.

gawn is in the best form of the year - there's no way they'll mess with that by bringing a second big ruck to limit his time to work over his oppo ruckman

jvr or aj for fullarton would make some sense

other than that, it's hard to see anyone in the vfl forcing their way into the team based on the cakewalk they had over the richmond vfl team

I've read enough.

Sestan in. Now.

15 hours ago, Dee in a Kilt said:

Interesting @M_9, does this mean Meek was confused who to ruck against at each contest around the ground?

Exactly. Meek was keeping an eye on Stanley oblivious to the fact that Bilcavs was taking the boundary throw ins.

14 hours ago, DeeBlood said:

Sorry, Left Turner out of line up..He's in for Jefferson

Sorry, Left Turner out. He's in on the bench for Jefferson, rotating backs and forwards

BTW.

What's with Jefferson's hand? It'll be 5-6 weeks by next Sunday. Omitted from last injury list.

If Jeffo is STILL having problems with that broken hand it would explain his form of the last couple of weeks, has anyone got some intel??

On 25/04/2025 at 19:41, Deespicable said:

Given what happened last time we played them, we have to make sure we don't underestimate what they can do.

Thankfully Yeo is still likely to be out so stopping Harley and Elijah Hewett will be key along with nullifying Liam Baker's infuence.

I thought Goody made some clever moves late against the Tigers, resting Gawn and May to preserve them along with making sure Lindsay, Langford and Kolt weren't in danger of burnout.

In so doing, it should have highlighted the need to have at least one more tall in our line up - sure we got away with against Fremantle when we lost Turner and we got away with it against Richmond because we had such a healthy lead and we might get away with it against the Eagles, but it's certainly not the right way of doing things when we come up against the good sides in the next few weeks.

And it's not fair on Gawny to expect him to have to be everywhere and keep presenting. The Eagles have two rucks and Flynn will definitely try and maul him and Jack Williams has a huge leap and looks promising. They also have a dangerous forward in Waterman and Gov is still a gun, albeit an old one. And Harry Edwards adds to their wealth of height, even if they lack a bit of talent. So it's time Goodwin looked after Gawny and if the big fella tells him that playing two rucks doesn't work, then he just has to ask himself what's his midfield going to look like without an injured Gawny. And what's mega frustrating is that Tom Campbell was so impressive all pre-season and it counted for nothing because we keep fearing another another Gawndy scenario. But the problem with Gawndy was that Gawn came first and played ruck when Grundy can only play one position and it ain't forward. What we need to do is start TC and then sub him out at three quarter time.

Thankfully now we have all seen Fullarton and Jefferson (first two weeks) in action so that we don't have to ever play them again until they have muscled up. It's not a crime if they can't - some guys just don't have the bodies and physicality to make the AFL.

I think we all have now seen enough of Harry Sharp that we can say that his light frame also doesn't allow him to break tackles or stick them well enough. He's a great runner and maybe there will be a game or two in weeks to come where he can tag someone, but as a small forward/wingman he's limited. It's time for Goody to move on this one.

In: Turner if fit (JVR if not), TC, Melksham

Out: Fullarton, Sharp and one of the teenagers (rested and told they will play against Hawthorn a week later).

B: Bowey May T.Mac

HB: Rivers Turner Salem

C: Windsor Viney Lindsay/Langford

HF: Chandler Langdon Fritsch

F: Spargo Petty Gawn

Ru: Campbell Petracca Pickett

Int: McVee, Sparrow, Tholstrup, Oliver, Melksham (sub)

Good thoughtful assessment 👏👏

14 hours ago, Harvey Wallbanger said:

That's it Adam, but Max doesn't have to sit on the pine when TC is rucking. Max's engine, plus his marking ability means we can keep the relatively short forward line we played last week and Max can push forward. He still needs his 6/7 minutes rest per quarter but if TC is rucking well, Max can spend some more time elsewhere. What we cannot afford is a second string ruck who gets mauled whilst Max rests, leading to momentum for the oppo, a la the last 12 minutes on Thursday night.

And people forget that when Max goes fwd he completely freaks out the oppo defence. That coupled with our new found fwd pressure is gold

51 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

And people forget that when Max goes fwd he completely freaks out the oppo defence. That coupled with our new found fwd pressure is gold

He just can't kick, so hopefully he'd play as a decoy.

1 hour ago, Mouseymoo said:

I've read enough.

Sestan in. Now.

Who..

15 hours ago, Harvey Wallbanger said:

That's it Adam, but Max doesn't have to sit on the pine when TC is rucking. Max's engine, plus his marking ability means we can keep the relatively short forward line we played last week and Max can push forward. He still needs his 6/7 minutes rest per quarter but if TC is rucking well, Max can spend some more time elsewhere. What we cannot afford is a second string ruck who gets mauled whilst Max rests, leading to momentum for the oppo, a la the last 12 minutes on Thursday night.

Agree 100 per cent. I am not an academic but I’d get the best mathematical bloke we can find . Task him with the precise formula based on

Keep Max in game for another 3 years

Max game time total

Game time as a percentage between rucking, on the pine and in goalsquare.

2 hours ago, jnrmac said:

And people forget that when Max goes fwd he completely freaks out the oppo defence. That coupled with our new found fwd pressure is gold

Maxy also freaks out when kicking for goal which is not great for a resting forward.

6 hours ago, Neil Crompton said:

I’d like to use the WC game to try a couple of things:

I’d give Campbell a game to assist Max - and make the mix work.

I think Sparrow and Chandler are showing what our forward pressure should be like, and I’m afraid Fritta hasn’t added this to his game yet so I’d let him learn this back at Casey for a couple of weeks. The obvious replacement would be Melksham, but I’d rather go a different route and try a younger player in Sestan. I know he has been playing very well in the backline, but his DNA is as a forward. His backline “learnings” will have him bring the defensive pressure we need up forward from all players, and he certainly knows how to kick a goal. So I’d play him in Fritta’s spot in the pocket.

Turner to return to the backline, JVR to get another go, Rivers moved to the mids, and Windsor to the wing where he belongs.

Spargo and Tholstrup to lose their places not because they were poor, but because they didn’t do enough.

McVee, May, Turner

Bowie, TMac, Lindsay

Langdon, Viney, Windsor

Sparrow, Petty, Chandler

Kossie, JVR, Sestan

Gawn, Tracc, Langford

Bench: Campbell, Rivers, Salem, Oliver

23rd: Melksham

Out:: Spargo, Fullarton, Sharp, Tholstrup and Fritta out.

In: Turner, Sestan, JVR, Campbell, and Melksham sub.

Five changes is probably too much, but it’s what I’d like to see happen.

no need to try anything new, this is a danger game. if we only decide to play for one qtr will we get smashed

3 hours ago, picket fence said:

If Jeffo is STILL having problems with that broken hand it would explain his form of the last couple of weeks, has anyone got some intel??

As opposed to when he didn’t have a broken hand and was banging down the door in scintillating form (never) ?

IN: JVR, Adams
OUT: Fullerton, Sharp

19 hours ago, Adam The God said:

Geelong have ordinary rucks, we do not. There's no need for us to do this. However, what we could do is play Max and Campbell as I believe @Harvey Wallbanger and perhaps @Slartibartfast have suggested...

There's a chance we could sit Campbell on the bench when Max is in the on the ground, and vice versa.

A ruck contest is simply a way to restart the game.

Winning a ruck contest has become completely irrelevant.

Gerard Healy said exactly this on Saturday after analysing the third quarter of our Thursday night game.

Only one of Max's hit-outs in the third quarter, which we dominated, was a hit to advantage.

Max has been the best player on the ground by a country mile in our last two games.

Was his ruck work of any benefit to us as regard clearances?

Marginal in round 6; zero benefit in rounds 4 and 7.

Hitouts v Dockers +12. Clearances +5

Htouts v Tigers +8. Clearances 38 each

Hitouts v Cats +7. Clearances 32 each. A team with 'ordinary rucks'.

We do not need Max to be involved in ruck comtests all over the ground.

Edited April 27Apr 27 by M_9