Lions don’t have a good key fwd and it didn’t stop them going back to back, a top end key fwd is not a requirement for flags, small and mid size fwd are however and that is something we are trying to address in this draft

It wasn't that long ago that we were inviting teams to bomb it into our forward line ... with May, Petty & Lever taking mark after mark or spoiling to good effect (along with players like Salem, Bowey & Rivers taking possession & rebounding on the counter)

Of course, we kept bombing it in often just looking for a forward line stoppage when it was obvious that that tactic was becoming obsolete

It's a tough gig being a key forward these days as all the teams plan their defensive strategies* for the long kick forward. And progressing the ball forward with efficiency has always been an option which the Pies enacted to good effect in 2023

Right now, the list is still a bit top heavy with regards to tall forwards (due to contracts?)

*A good example being GWS in round 1 of 2025. We went in too top heavy up forward and GWS just waltzed the ball out of their backline. Lost that game at the selection table

Edited November 20Nov 20 by Macca

11 minutes ago, Garbo said:

Lions don’t have a good key fwd and it didn’t stop them going back to back, a top end key fwd is not a requirement for flags, small and mid size fwd are however and that is something we are trying to address in this draft

I'd say Logan Morris is already pretty good, kicked 53 odd goals this year at age 20. Daniher was pretty decent in his last season too...

But I actually agree with you. A top end forward isn't a requirement to win flags as long as you have a group of 3-4 players that can consistently hit the scoreboard.

Still jeffo, kentifield are a long way off?? Will they make it?? Johnson is a stop gap tall. I think you need one consistent tall to compeat. Lions only made the grand final in 2024 because Daniher dominated the last quarter.

FWIW our best 2 week period for the year was against Brisbane and Sydney where we looked like a genuine top 8 side those games. We beat the premiers away and were far too good for a depleted Sydney, but played a high quality brand of footy that day.

Our forward line hummed on both days and it comprised: Petty, Fritta, Melksham, Johnson and Kozzie.

No JVR or Jefferson.

2 hours ago, biggestred said:

JVR will be fine, especially when we arent bombing it onto his head in the pocket as a "game plan"

I just had brutal flashbacks to Lance Whitnall constantly having to hit the brakes on a lead and run back the other way because the garbage Carlton midfield was apparently watching the game via satellite on a 3 second delay.

We should recruit him as an assistant just to yell at midfielders to think about their inside 50 kicks.

He's known to have a good footy brain and it would be good for the soft cap because I suspect he'd pay us just for the chance to unload.

4 hours ago, Ted Lasso said:

Tall forwards are overrated

Yep it's 1990s thining

6 hours ago, biggestred said:

JVR will be fine, especially when we arent bombing it onto his head in the pocket as a "game plan"

Spot on, and you can add the forwards in general.
If we have fast movement and dont just dump it on top of a guys head then they will be more productive.

as much as i believe that our forward problem has mainly been due to delivery by our mids/wingers and coaching style (surely!), i think that this led to our forward not leading correctly and also getting in each others way. a strong forward coach would have stamped that [censored] out from day one, but it somehow persisted in a professional setting.. fingers crossed something changes. i am hopeful as a hell of a lot will have changed since mid-2025.

Lions should have three peated in 2023 - 25 but in the opinion of many they were robbed by the umpires in 2023. Daniher was massive for them during their 23 & 24 seasons. In 25 they won it of the back of their mids & small / medium fwds but then went and picked up Oscar Allen (all be it cheaply). Yes the game has changed to being much faster but to suggest key fwds are overrated or surplus to needs is ridiculous. Does anyone think Miohcheck is overrated or we wasted our time picking him up? Key forwards have a role to play you just don’t trade the farm for them or spend a high draft pick unless they’re undoubtedly going to make it.

We have enough tall forwards. Taking aside our terrible delivery to them, the main issue is that we have nothing when it comes to ground. Kozzie is only 1 player. Rarely are our players in the right positions to take advantage of it. Was this goodwin coaching, I dont know. But its frustrating to watch not having a dangerous small forward at the drop of the ball which the successful team have,

We need smart small forwards who can read the play and kick a goal. I went with that with 2 this draft. Watching the videos ont he draft they went with Pickett as he will will own it kick a goal.

On 21/11/2025 at 11:08, Ugottobekidding said:

Still jeffo, kentifield are a long way off?? Will they make it?? Johnson is a stop gap tall. I think you need one consistent tall to compeat. Lions only made the grand final in 2024 because Daniher dominated the last quarter.

I think Kentfield will surprise a few with his contested marking and Jeffo can be the second or third forward when he's in the team.

1 hour ago, darkhorse72 said:

We have enough tall forwards. Taking aside our terrible delivery to them, the main issue is that we have nothing when it comes to ground. Kozzie is only 1 player. Rarely are our players in the right positions to take advantage of it. Was this goodwin coaching, I dont know. But its frustrating to watch not having a dangerous small forward at the drop of the ball which the successful team have,

We need smart small forwards who can read the play and kick a goal. I went with that with 2 this draft. Watching the videos ont he draft they went with Pickett as he will will own it kick a goal.

I would say yes but we have a new coach now I don’t buy into the it takes years to learn a new gameplan. We showed last season it stages we can be dangerous when we play quick attacking footy. King will release the shackles, o think we’ll surprise quite a few teams this year.

I think I'm just reiterating what multiple people have argued already, but I'll point to an analogy;

In the current game, Fraser Gehrig would be a borderline liability. It would be a balanced equation between his contested marks and his goalkicking accuracy on the one hand and the sheer number of easy rebounds made possible by his lack of agility to chase, and lack of versatility in how to create goals. Mark on the powerful lead or mark overpowering a one-on-one... then dust. Even Jack Darling, whose strengths are superficially similar, became a dramatically more mobile and flexible player who could get involved in other moments.

The contrast with Gehrig would have to Tom Hawkins, whose sustained a decade of top quality football when he parked the traditional 'forward ego' and became a really effective, smart team player. There are multiple seasons where he was the standout lead in score involvements and he never dropped out of the top-10 of that rank, alongside and ahead of the likes of Bontempelli, Petracca, and Martin.

The only other key forwards to get into that range include Jeremy Cameron consistently and then Taylor Walker and Charlie Curnow when they are in good form.

Fun fact - there are multiple seasons where Hawkins and Cameron went 1 & 2 for score involvements at Geelong. In the premiership season they went one and three for the whole competition, with peak Petracca slipped in between.

A well organised system with players who believe in it will get you the results. It helps if they are athletic beasts but it is not crucial. What matters most is that they are still useful when their proverbial one-wood can't be part of the play.

As a side note. Tom McDonald's successful, premiership-crucial, foray as a forward was built on second efforts and chasing and staying involved. He led our 2021 goal assists, was third in score involvements, in the top handful for tackles inside 50 (as well as Ben Brown which is unexpected and supports the argument), and was our highest ranked non-defender for 1%ers (again with Brown in the vicinity).

Get tall forwards who can play like they aren't only tall forwards, and you're going to do well. Get medium forwards who can also play like they are tall when needed, and you are going to do well.

[rant over] [apologies]

On 30/11/2025 at 11:43, Bombay Airconditioning said:

I would say yes but we have a new coach now I don’t buy into the it takes years to learn a new gameplan. We showed last season it stages we can be dangerous when we play quick attacking footy. King will release the shackles, o think we’ll surprise quite a few teams this year.

I agree, a game plan can be learnt in one preseason, they are full-time professional footballers. Give them home work :)

I would say yes but we have a new coach now I don’t buy into the it takes years to learn a new gameplan. We showed last season it stages we can be dangerous when we play quick attacking footy. King will release the shackles, o think we’ll surprise quite a few teams this year.

Here here BAC

And Trelly Tommy and Chin plus Mentha and any other under 165/170 cm human being forward of the arc ( including Kossie) can ensure that at least half of them are positioned for crumbing around the pack.

The exceptions are Tommy who because of his marking skills has an allowance to fly within the arc and Kossie also sometimes (50%say) as he tries to take mark of the century at least a half a dozen times each game.

Not sure of TRelly’s marking feats yet so he is a work in progress.

Let’s sit back and see some proper football played within 50m of goal and reap the rewards. Every time we kick a crumbing goal we reward JT with a $100 bonus on the he scoreboard and sing Country Roads or some other such popular ditty as a feature./ reward. ( including finals whoever which home game it is!!!)

Forward Plan 101 from 2026 on.

On 21/11/2025 at 07:48, dice said:

And yet the team he came from relied on 2 brilliant key forwards in Cameron and Neale (both in the top 15 Coleman)

I’m really hoping King has his own ideas on how to evolve the game to get the best out of our list. If he’s cut and pasting a current model we’re already playing catchup. Remember he’s likely/hopefully planning for us to be seriously competitive and playing with a competitive advantage at a point in the future. I’d imagine he’s looking at Brisbane and Hawthorn and thinking how do we beat them as well as getting ahead of the chasing pack. At the end of the day a Prelim final is a high pressure contest and defence game.

JVR in 2025 just lost his confidence dropped a lot of marks that he had clean hands to that he was marking in 2024. He is very similar to Logan Morris, Morris has the advantage of some pretty good ball users and decision makers kicking the ball to him. I like JVR when he is on the move running higher and working back, hopefully he can build a tank to do this, we need better options transitioning from defensive half.

If we can get cleaner faster ball movement through that centre third it will give our forwards more space to work into, slow predictable ball movement enables your opponents to block up space create out number

On 21/11/2025 at 07:21, dice said:

And here is last year's output from the tall forwards we do have:

Petty - 20 goals from 19 games

JVR - 16 goals from 16 games

Jeffo - 4 goals from 7 games

Johnson - 3 goals from 5 games

Heath - 3 goals from 4 games

Kentfield, White - 0 goals from 0 games

Only Mihocek had a decent return last year of 36 goals from 22 games. But he will be 33 in Feb.

So @Ugottobekidding has a point. We need a key forward that can take a mark and kick goals!

It's clear that people don't understand how a fwd game is played. They days of bombing a ball on the head of a key fwd are mostly gone. Thats what we have done for the past 4 seasons. We had butchers in the middle who blindly kicked it. Calling for a key fwd to fix this problem has gone the way of 'kick it to snake'

Go and watch two videos,

1 Jeff White breaking down where Melbourne has failed - and he compares this with Geelong who are the number 1 team for fwd craft. King will bring this IP to our game, I am fairly confident of this.

2. Watch Mihocek's 40 ish goals from last year. There is a video on the COllingwood website. Takes about 4 minutes. Around 80% of his goals are leading at the ball carrier, marking and kicking a goal.

Once you have done your homework get back to me.

40 minutes ago, drdrake said:

JVR in 2025 just lost his confidence dropped a lot of marks that he had clean hands to that he was marking in 2024. He is very similar to Logan Morris, Morris has the advantage of some pretty good ball users and decision makers kicking the ball to him. I like JVR when he is on the move running higher and working back, hopefully he can build a tank to do this, we need better options transitioning from defensive half.

If we can get cleaner faster ball movement through that centre third it will give our forwards more space to work into, slow predictable ball movement enables your opponents to block up space create out number

JVR in 2024/25 tried to wrestle with the backs and failed. He's a good kid with pretty good attributes. But we have had no effective fwd coach for him to learn off. His leading patterns are non-existent and he doesn't know how to 'lose' a close checking backman. Expect this to change this year and he will flourish.

On 21/11/2025 at 10:37, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Not specifically related to taking a KPF at the draft, but:

A lot of people can't stand Petty but his season as a forward was slightly underrated, and if anything his stint as a defender in the early rounds was what let him down this year.

Sure he only kicked 20 goals from 19 games which doesn't look good.

But if you take a further look under the hood - he only played 13 games as a full time forward, 1 game (GC) where he was concussed before half time and 1 game (Ess) where he played up forward for a cameo appearance. So if he played all 23 games as a full time forward he's kicking 34 goals for the year which is quite satisfactory IMO.

We have a number players (around 5 or 6) who have kicked 30 goals in a season. Compare that to GC who have only 3 players on their list (King, Long and Jamarra)

Added to this Petty played some good games late in the year as a forward.

I think Petty is too slow to play in defence. He has lost pace and the game has changed since 2021.

6 hours ago, jnrmac said:

2. Watch Mihocek's 40 ish goals from last year. There is a video on the COllingwood website. Takes about 4 minutes. Around 80% of his goals are leading at the ball carrier, marking and kicking a goal.

Once you have done your homework get back to me.

Yeah, Mihocek is a good key fwd who leads, marks and kicks goals. Exactly what we didn't have this year. And the key fwds we did have couldn't lead, mark or kick goals (generally speaking). And there were plenty of opportunities for them to do so.

I think Mihocek is a good addition but he is 33 in Feb and we will be lucky to get half a season from him. We need to blood some decent key fwds as it looks like Roo, Petty and Jeffo aren't good enough as key fwds. I would love to see Disco as our main key fwd because he is a good mark.

Are you saying there is no need to have a key fwd in today's game?

On 21/11/2025 at 05:28, dazzledavey36 said:

JVR, Jefferson, Mihocek, Johnson, Kentfield, White, Heath, Melksham, Fritsch.

How many more tall forwards do you want?

One that is actually good at their craft. For me the big hope is Kentfield. The others are nearing the end or never will be's.

1 hour ago, dice said:

Yeah, Mihocek is a good key fwd who leads, marks and kicks goals. Exactly what we didn't have this year. And the key fwds we did have couldn't lead, mark or kick goals (generally speaking). And there were plenty of opportunities for them to do so.

I think Mihocek is a good addition but he is 33 in Feb and we will be lucky to get half a season from him. We need to blood some decent key fwds as it looks like Roo, Petty and Jeffo aren't good enough as key fwds. I would love to see Disco as our main key fwd because he is a good mark.

Are you saying there is no need to have a key fwd in today's game?

I agree with you. There is a lot of belief that our ball movement is slow and for 22, 23 and 24 Id say it was and it showed in the numbers. But this year our ball movement was actually above average in more than a few ways. Eg. Our transition to score and defensive half to score was all in the top half of the comp. Obviously it can be better, but thats not where our gap to the rest of the comp was.

Our marks inside 50 per entry was 2nd last (only freo worse). And our smaller forwards in melksham, chandler, pickett fritsch all had close to career highs for marks inside 50 per game as a result of the ball movement.

So theres more than enough evidence to suggest yes, our key forwards set up isnt right either in personnel or instruction. The good news is i dont think King is as stubborn in the 'process' as Goodwin was so if we dont get forward half impact he'll switch things around a bit.

14 hours ago, Jjrogan said:

I agree with you. There is a lot of belief that our ball movement is slow and for 22, 23 and 24 Id say it was and it showed in the numbers. But this year our ball movement was actually above average in more than a few ways. Eg. Our transition to score and defensive half to score was all in the top half of the comp. Obviously it can be better, but thats not where our gap to the rest of the comp was.

Our marks inside 50 per entry was 2nd last (only freo worse). And our smaller forwards in melksham, chandler, pickett fritsch all had close to career highs for marks inside 50 per game as a result of the ball movement.

So theres more than enough evidence to suggest yes, our key forwards set up isnt right either in personnel or instruction. The good news is i dont think King is as stubborn in the 'process' as Goodwin was so if we dont get forward half impact he'll switch things around a bit.

Interesting to note that Freo were the worst for marks inside 50 yet apparently they have some of the best marking key forwards in the game. With Oliver and Petracca gone I’ve no doubt we’ll be looking to vastly improve our kicking patterns inside 50. It’s been our Achilles heal as has been discussed here for 3 years.