I expect this game to be similar to our 2019 encounter at Marvel.

The lead ebbs and flows for three quarters, we kick the first couple of the last quarter to hold a 2 goal lead but then lay down and surrender as St Kilda kick the last 5 of the game.

I actually want to persist with Jeffo but do want Kolt dropped. The latter just plays a nothing role as a low possession, low impact half forward. The former has potential to influence a game.

I reckon we missed Sparrow’s contested marking in his high half forward role that creates an outlet coming out of defence.

Just now, Random Task said:

Out: May, Tholstrup, Lindsay (rest), Sharp

In: Petty, Sparrow, Billings, Laurie/spargo

Petty to replace May in the backline. Don't think Adams is quite ready yet.

For the third week I'll say that Tholstrup needs to be played at Casey. Second week recently where he's been subbed early in the third after having not much impact. Give him the rest of the year at Casey in the guts.

Sparrow is clearly seen as best 22 by the footy department and will come in fitness pending his concussion.

Billings has been in hot form at Casey and if we're serious about winning games then he plays over Sharp.

Laurie and Spargo both played well at Casey. Laurie's cards seemed to have been stamped so we'll probably see Spargo return.

Johnson for Jefferson no doubt to be discusses at match committee but hope Jefferson gets another crack at it.

I think Billings deserves another run

23 minutes ago, DubDee said:

Jumbo, usually like your work but this is crazy.

Like saying Neitz stifled other key forwards coming through. Ruck is a specific role and he is one of the best ever.

Tell me, how could he have groomed a young ruck in 2018 to come through the ranks?

DD, all I'm saying is that there needs to be a transition plan and I'd like to see Gawn more involved in this process

And, fwiw, JVR is a F50 player and needs to stay there

Grundy was a disaster, but was there ever any compromise?

42 minutes ago, jumbo returns said:

DD, all I'm saying is that there needs to be a transition plan and I'd like to see Gawn more involved in this process

And, fwiw, JVR is a F50 player and needs to stay there

Grundy was a disaster, but was there ever any compromise?

I hear you.

I’m asking how do you do this? he is 33 and still AA. Who is to say he won’t be AA at 35. how does he get a young ruck to come up? No ruck wants to play Casey for years

Gawn 100% compromised with Grundy. Any coincidence it’s the only year in 9 years he wasn’t AA??

McVee - Petty - Turner

Bowey - McDonald - Salem

Langford - Oliver - Langdon

Chandler - Jefferson - Petracca

Melksham - JVR - Fritsch

Gawn - Pickett - Rivers

Viney - Lindsay - Windsor - Mentha - (Sharp)

Out: May (inj/sus), Tholstrup

In: Petty, Mentha

Petty should be in defence, he has no future as a forward. Mentha fills a need and this is the right time for a debut even if he didn't set it alight at Casey today. Lindsay has had his rest and can play the full game. Sharp is only good as sub.

13 hours ago, Pirlo said:

If we lose this one, I have a feeling he's closer to the sack than he's ever been.

Delusional. If we lose this one (and a few more), the list of players to be traded/dumped will get longer.

To paraphrase Bill Clinton, it's the list, stupid.

Tongue in cheek but we need another 3 Kozzies so 2 can play mid and 2 forward. How good would that be. Seriously though we desperately need some speed, class and good decision makers. Any of those in the twos can come in but not sure we have them. If I was a selector about 10 would be dropped but it won't happen. May out so I'm going Petty in. Kolt has to go and in would be Billings whilst Sharp is not an AFL player and is out with either Bill or Spargo in. Would like to find spots for AJ, Howes and Campbell.

B: Turner, Adams, McVee

HB: Salem, McDonald, Bowey

C: Langdon, Oliver, Windsor

HF: Petracca, Johnson, Langford

F: Fritsch, Petty, Melksham

FOLL: Gawn, Viney, Pickett

IC: Howes, Chandler, Rivers, Kentfield

SUB: Spargo

6 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

I have some questions about Gawn but I don’t see how in any way he’s to blame for Verrall being not very good and the club not developing good back ups. Plenty of teams have dominant number 1 rucks and still have good back ups coming through.

If we lost a good 23 year old back up it would be a fair concern but we don’t.

But Grundy on the other hand!

Changing my teams:

B: Turner, Adams, McVee

HB: Salem, McDonald, Bowey

C: Langdon, Oliver, Windsor

HF: Petracca, Johnson, Langford

F: Fritsch, Petty, Melksham

FOLL: Gawn, Viney, Pickett

IC: Howes, Rivers, Sparrow, Chandler

SUB: Spargo

Casey

B: Smith, Freeman, Sestan

HB: Bonner, Fullerton, Lindsay

C: Billings, Laurie, Woewodin

HF: Tholstrup, van Rooyen, Sharp

F: Mentha, Kentfield, Jefferson

FOLL: Campbell, Hardie, Culley

IC: Verrall, Brown, Cross, Baldi, Yze

Edited July 20Jul 20 by WERRIDEE

9 hours ago, DubDee said:

I hear you.

I’m asking how do you do this? he is 33 and still AA. Who is to say he won’t be AA at 35. how does he get a young ruck to come up? No ruck wants to play Casey for years

Gawn 100% compromised with Grundy. Any coincidence it’s the only year in 9 years he wasn’t AA??

You both have valid points .

A question emerges ... which is the greater.. Gawn or the team ? I don't ask it glibly btw.

11 hours ago, DubDee said:

are you aware Salem has been in the best the last couple of weeks?

450m gained each week

with high kicking efficiency - unlike the rest of the team

always takes soft option doesnt hurt the opposition plenty of dinky short kicks but agree his intercept marking was good on the weekend

12 hours ago, DubDee said:

are you aware Salem has been in the best the last couple of weeks?

450m gained each week

with high kicking efficiency - unlike the rest of the team

Yesterday man.

If Goodwin guides us to two losses against St Kilda in the one season he should hand in his resignation on Sunday evening.

The Saints have won 2 of their past 14 games - he shouldn't be able to survive that, particularly not on top of winning just 11 of our past 33 games.

10 minutes ago, 48 Year Now said:

Yesterday man.

You may be very right in a way. To me Salem doesn't do a lot wrong. Others suggest he plays a lot of footy in "safe' mode. Not altogether a bad thing but given his part of the ground is often the preserve of attacking rebounding you might be wanting to ask if we now have players who can play that position better, with more dynamic impetus, creating more 'dangerous' passages of play ?

He's become very vanilla.

4 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

You may be very right in a way. To me Salem doesn't do a lot wrong. Others suggest he plays a lot of footy in "safe' mode. Not altogether a bad thing but given his part of the ground is often the preserve of attacking rebounding you might be wanting to ask if we now have players who can play that position better, with more dynamic impetus, creating more 'dangerous' passages of play ?

He's become very vanilla.

Thanks, you expanded on my thinking

Jed Adams to debut this week

4 hours ago, jackaub said:

always takes soft option doesnt hurt the opposition plenty of dinky short kicks but agree his intercept marking was good on the weekend

being in the top 3 for metres gained two weeks in a row means he is hurting the opposition

Don't get beaten by what you know. Wilkie dominated us last time and Melksham was no threat at all. I'd be bringing in AJ for Tholstrup and play with an extra tall. It'll be a dry game and Wilkie is too good for Melksham even with all his smarts. AJ can take Wilkie and be an aerial threat. This will leave Melksham to play on someone like a Stocker.

Sharp to play a lockdown role on NWM.

Petty to come in for May

Ins: AJ, Petty

Out: May, Tholstrup

5 hours ago, beelzebub said:

You both have valid points .

A question emerges ... which is the greater.. Gawn or the team ? I don't ask it glibly btw.

which is more important? team of course. And one of the best parts of our team is our ruckman and captain

we will most likely have to trade in a ruck when gawn is finished unless White comes on very quickly. To say Gawn is selfish for not giving room for development of young rucks is a poor argument imo as he is doing his job and doing it better than anyone in recent history in the league

16 minutes ago, DubDee said:

being in the top 3 for metres gained two weeks in a row means he is hurting the opposition

Does it ? Seriously..

Doesn't necessarily translate if the next movement is ineffectual. Just another stat really.

We seem to win a lot of these 'stats' yet somehow lose the games.

Salem isn’t damaging anymore. Just isn't.

Be great if he got back that element of his game.

4 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

Does it ? Seriously..

Doesn't necessarily translate if the next movement is ineffectual. Just another stat really.

We seem to win a lot of these 'stats' yet somehow lose the games.

Salem isn’t damaging anymore. Just isn't.

Be great if he got back that element of his game.

one of the knocks on Salem is sideways dinky kicks not advancing us forward

and he generally kicks effectively. If we had a few more of these types we'd win games

The Blues game really did feel like a kick in the guts. I understand Goodwins anger. Now we get more salt on the wound and have to play at bloody Colonial. Against the Saints. Cannot stand that team.

Very likely we will continue to play the kids, so winning unlikely. That being said, shutting down NWM will help - a lot.

Putting the short-term aside, I'd like to see Petty sent back to the backline and Spargo come in for Sharp. I think Sharp adds real value when the team is going well but a liability when things are tough.

I'd love to see Adams get a go at some point. If we are going full rebuild, Id drop TMac and bring him in, but thats a little unfair to Tom. Alternatively, Howes for TMac or Judd. Judd has been getting a few touches and kicks well, but defends poorly. The small and mid size forwards have been killing us.

I like the idea of dropping Kolt for AJ - or even Luker. Kolt just seems to be freaking out, out there. Needs to actually pay attention to his errors, address them, and get some confidence.

That being said, I reckon Luker probably needs another pre season before he's cherry ripe. Still, no complaints if he got a go.

27 minutes ago, DubDee said:

one of the knocks on Salem is sideways dinky kicks not advancing us forward

and he generally kicks effectively. If we had a few more of these types we'd win games

This is where I suppose an element of spectator assessments comes into play. It's everything in context. To me much of footy falls into the "no man is an island" focus. By this It's often more meaningful to appraise any act if taken as part of a group of actions and ultimately the result/no-result of that passage.

Salem's talent, imho, used to be that he could make a pretty good fist of seeing what was, or could, unfold upfield dependent upon his disposal. He often found a player or a space that put the ball to advantage and the opposition caught out of position or off guard. That subsequent disposal was often a scoring assist or a mark/free with shot on goal. He was very good at that.

I don't see this hardly any more. Salem's kicks ( invariably a kick, and not often a turnover as he can kick... one of the few ) now are more often to a VERY safe option. But that option seldom has much momentum potential.

Salem often start passages that were quick and fluid. Now the conundrum, is it this manner of play now that is of Christian's own doing or is it an absolute dearth of talent available to utilise his passes ? I really don't

When watching I used to get excited/intrigued when Salem had ball on half back going forward as I'd be thinking... something will happen here.

Now...I just wait for the 'safe' pass and stall in play.

Maybe just me.

Edited July 21Jul 21 by beelzebub

Out - May , Kolt, Sharp

In - Adams, Sparrow, Culley

As much as confidence fluctuates in watching Jeffo at the moment I don't see any reason to drop him.

We have absolutely nothing left to lose this season and might as well get some games into him.