On 16/03/2026 at 18:22, bing181 said:

Without any inside knowledge so could be well wide of the mark, I don't believe that the decision to play Kolt on NWM came from any one person or any one process. It could have started with a question to the fitness staff, and King mentioned Kolt's fitness profile as making him ideal for the job (fast enough, but can run all day). I would imagine that even the development team got involved. etc. etc.

You sure you have no inside knowledge? Cos this is exactly the case. Kolt talked about this today at Gosch’s. He said the coaches (plural) showed their faith in him and began discussing the proposition three weeks ago, and that Cub (our Head of Development) and Selwyn were involved right from the outset. It was definitely a group initiative. And the way both Cub and Selwyn greeted Kolt this morning kinda confirmed it. #KoltGotTheLove 🙂

Something I'm going to be interested to see with King is whether he goes down the path of picking his idea of the best 23 or whether he will go for more horses for courses style, to match up against other teams. Something I felt we didn't do enough of last season (and previous years) was picking players who could play specific roles vs other teams. I genuine feel like that could be a scenario this week with Freo's tall list. Heath has had a solid pre-season, would be good to see him get some games early.

Sparrow would be the only one I'd probably take out at this point.

1 hour ago, Pates said:

Something I'm going to be interested to see with King is whether he goes down the path of picking his idea of the best 23 or whether he will go for more horses for courses style

Meanwhile in another galaxy, far far away ...

On 16/03/2026 at 13:08, poita said:

McDonald & Heath for Lever & Sparrow. Lever turned the ball over on multiple occasions and had about ten contested marks taken on - mostly by midgets. Straight swap for McDonald.

Heath required to combat Jackson & Darcy, and Sparrow contributed nothing (again).

Lever started out very shaky on Ryan. But Ryan, Owens and Wilson were the only Saints forwards to take contested marks, one each, total three. IIRC only Ryan outmarked vs Lever.

As @bing181 noted, Lever led intercepts and 1%s by 2.

Yeah his kicking is dodgy, same as it ever was, even when AA and our new style exacerbates this.

He has his physical limitations but it's hard to tell from the outside the importance of his defensive organising skills.

I'll be amazed if he's not playing vs Freo.

On 16/03/2026 at 19:24, old dee said:

I agree on tmac but I don't think it will happen. I think he has been told he is an emergency for injuries only.

I thought Tom was happy to retire a couple of years ago, so I don’t think he would have played this year if he was told that.

I think he would have expected the side to be picked on form.

If he didn’t deserve a game then so be it.

8 minutes ago, Redleg said:

I thought Tom was happy to retire a couple of years ago, so I don’t think he would have played this year if he was told that.

I think he would have expected the side to be picked on form.

If he didn’t deserve a game then so be

8 minutes ago, Redleg said:

he's on 249 games?

2 hours ago, old55 said:

He has his physical limitations but it's hard to tell from the outside the importance of his defensive organising skills.

His organization is required in the post May era.
Disco/Petty will need to grow into this role

13 hours ago, Demonland said:

Media's reaction ot Longmuire's comments have been ridiculous. Everything he said was correct and no one engaged with his actual point in good faith.

Quite a few on the Freo boards are calling for Darcy to be dropped and Cox to be brought in.

That would give them Cox and Jackson to take on Max.

Surely it would make sense to bring in the Moose to give Max a chop out?

Max will be cooked by round 6 if he keeps trying the hurculean efforts each week

4 hours ago, jnrmac said:

  4 hours ago, Redleg said:

I thought Tom was happy to retire a couple of years ago, so I don’t think he would have played this year if he was told that.

  4 hours ago, Redleg said:

he's on 249 games?

Well maybe that influenced him.

6 hours ago, old55 said:

Lever started out very shaky on Ryan. But Ryan, Owens and Wilson were the only Saints forwards to take contested marks, one each, total three. IIRC only Ryan outmarked vs Lever.

As @bing181 noted, Lever led intercepts and 1%s by 2.

Yeah his kicking is dodgy, same as it ever was, even when AA and our new style exacerbates this.

He has his physical limitations but it's hard to tell from the outside the importance of his defensive organising skills.

I'll be amazed if he's not playing vs Freo.

I think it is importantly to remember that this was the first official game of the year for us. Players will always be a bit rusty, and there was no doubt Jake made an absolute Clanger whilst kicking inside the centre square.

However, my memory of his kicking is that generally pretty good. I have tried to do an analysis of his kicking efficiency using AI and statistics.

This is the result

Career Kicking Accuracy: His career kicking efficiency generally hovers around the 80% mark.

There is little doubt psychologically that our impressions are skewed by recent clangers, and ignore more solid facts.

Hayden Young out with more hamstring issues via Sammy Edmund SEN

On 17/03/2026 at 17:03, Harrisonrules said:

If you want to drop sparrow, bring in Laurie he deserves a try.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

7 hours ago, jnrmac said:

Quite a few on the Freo boards are calling for Darcy to be dropped and Cox to be brought in.

That would give them Cox and Jackson to take on Max.

Surely it would make sense to bring in the Moose to give Max a chop out?

Max will be cooked by round 6 if he keeps trying the hurculean efforts each week

Jax vs Max!

On 17/03/2026 at 08:43, binman said:

we won't be in better shape at any pont in the season than we are this week with one game under our belt.

what about after a block of loading?

Young’s a very handy out.

He was under a cloud Vs Geelong and therefore clearly shouldn’t have played…much to our benefit.

On 17/03/2026 at 19:08, DeeSpencer said:

His ball use scares me more. That kicking seems terminally stuffed.

Lever is vulnerable 1:1, not a good overhead mark, tends to leave his man for a contest he does not impact effectively, a poor kick, slow decision maker, not strong physically and not overly athletic. He has no weapons and was a liability in the first half against the Saints.

His 1-Wood was as an intercepting defender, being able to rely upon May to shut down the main forward threat. May is gone and Turner and Petty are learning to be the pillars of our defence.

He is the weakness in our backline and in time (sooner than later), hopefully XT will replace him.

On 16/03/2026 at 13:13, Greg Schneider said:

The first thing King does this week is tell Jake Lever you have NO license to go for the inside kick - putrid

All I'm waiting for is a coach to have at least three forwards, not go past the half backline at any stage, and shut down the easy transfer of the ball.

On 15/03/2026 at 19:19, seventyfour said:

Ask any Hawthorn supporter and they'll tell you that Jiath is a lemon. He was very poor today, ran around defending ghosts and did nothing to hurt the Saints offensively.

I'd be happy to go with no change but I would prefer McDonald.

You obviously didn't watch the game he was okay didn't do too much wrong took a few good marks

14 hours ago, melborn4vr said:

I think it is importantly to remember that this was the first official game of the year for us. Players will always be a bit rusty, and there was no doubt Jake made an absolute Clanger whilst kicking inside the centre square.

However, my memory of his kicking is that generally pretty good. I have tried to do an analysis of his kicking efficiency using AI and statistics.

This is the result

Career Kicking Accuracy: His career kicking efficiency generally hovers around the 80% mark.

There is little doubt psychologically that our impressions are skewed by recent clangers, and ignore more solid facts.

People only see the bag kicks, a players can have 20 kicks have 18 good ones and turn over 2 kicks and they'll be called a bad kick, specially Defenders because their turnovers are in dangerous areas of the ground

11 hours ago, Demon Disciple said:

Lever is vulnerable 1:1, not a good overhead mark, tends to leave his man for a contest he does not impact effectively, a poor kick, slow decision maker, not strong physically and not overly athletic. He has no weapons and was a liability in the first half against the Saints.

His 1-Wood was as an intercepting defender, being able to rely upon May to shut down the main forward threat. May is gone and Turner and Petty are learning to be the pillars of our defence.

He is the weakness in our backline and in time (sooner than later), hopefully XT will replace him.

Now this is why we need a Demonland Premium site so that only people who are knowledgeable about football matters are allowed to post 😁.

Lever is gun, an AA & will lead our defence for years to come.

10 minutes ago, Cranky Franky said:

Now this is why we need a Demonland Premium site so that only people who are knowledgeable about football matters are allowed to post 😁.

Such a site would only comprise @picket fence