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Beaten at the selection table, again....

Have been told Wagner been playing a forward roll in scratch matches recently and will be playing that roll this week. Omac a good in to cover extra talls and lever can play intercepter and he hasnt been confident to do so when had opponent to look after last two weeks. Rivers straight swap for Lockart. Brown more mobile than McDonald. Jones to apply pressure and Gawn a gun. Theres a positive spin on the changes

Massive complaining about lack of defensive effort from forwards, Fritsch out. St Kilda plays a tall forward line, Omac in. Worries that we’re not resting enough players, Lockhart - young player- out. Endless complaints about tmac, -dropped. Bemoaning - why isn’t Brown getting a game? Brown selected. Wagner has his playing career on the line, he will play the game of his life. Jones at the end of his, a proud man, will play out of his skin. Hold the negativity until we lose Demonlanders. Dees by 15

Old binman saying: When you need a win, bring omac in

J Wagner and O Mac into the team. Didnt bring in ANY speed [censored] me. See you all in 2021 folks.

On the face of it... I don’t like it. Lockhart dropped?! Horrendously harsh IMO, the more so given he was surely a good match up for Butler.

Not really. Preuss in for Gawn (a given), Sparrow injured, Fritz a naughty boy, TMac and Harmes out of form and Lockhart probably a bit stiff. Jones was going to play last week until he was injured at the last minute. The others are being rewarded for their training/scratch match form. No conspiracies required.

I don’t want to ruin your rant, but Tmac has been dropped... please carry on

I just cannot fathom why Lockhart has been dropped. Is there something more to that? Absolutely flabbergasted, and that’s got nothing to do with my views on OMac and Wagner either.

We bemoan Goody for not making changes, then are gobsmacked when he brings in 6. We are a fickle bunch!

Happy with the changes. O Mac to the resting ruckman May to King Wagner deserves his chance by the sounds of things and surely can’t do any worse than what Harmes has been dishing up. I’d also rather Rivers over Lockhart

If we win or lose it will not be because Fritsch has been omitted for failing to remember he's a professional athlete allowed to travel to another state because he is there to play elite sport.

With the season and possibly Goody’s career on the line, this is a mind boggling selection.

With Tomlinson playing KPD which I believe is his best position. I think acquiring Atkins would be a smart move for the left wing. - He is a FA so nothing needs to be given in return. - Vandenberg as an injury prone player, means we need depth for the wing position. - Jones is currently our back-up, and as much as we all love him, we need a contingency plan in place given this is possibly (most likely) his last year - Penny may have finally dropped for Goodwin not to play Brayshaw on the wing so this reinforces why we need depth in this position - During their grand final year, Atkins was considered to be in All Aus form, and as a left footer, he can play as the left footed winger, leaving Langdon for the right. - I daresay that with the early announcement that Atkins is exercising his rights to FA, he has already found a club, and I selfishly hope it is us

It's a line in the sand game - if you can't see that then you need a visit to the optometrist. There was absolutely no way Max was not going to play. No players are at "100%" at this time in the season - all are carrying some sort of niggle.

No chance they cut nev. For the reasons you note would be crazy. Another is the obvious thing, if he is keen, is for him to transition to a well being role once he retires. Hard to do if you sack him. Only chance of him not playing on is if he calls it a day. And whilst he has seemed off the pace this season i think the whole covid and hub situation has to be factored in. Who knows how it is impacting individual people. Nev has a young family and is leader in his community, a community that is a massive risk of being disproportionately impacted by the covid crisis from both a health and economic perspective. So he as a lot on his plate. Perhaps next season he can get back to his best.

What?!

he's definitely a midfielder not a forward-type these days when he was in the forward rotation for the tigers he was in and out of the side, and was really inconsistent since becoming a permanent mid with edwards injured / not in the hub he's been outstanding he's worth a first round pick to the tiges i would think as he's a vital part of their side and i doubt very much that they'd give him up

Hope they all have stand out games tomorrow. Will need to.

Just to add to the Harmes debate: He got 9 coaches votes as a midfielder in round 23 2018. (V GWS) He got 8 coaches votes as a midfielder in the week 1 elimination final 2018 (V Geelong) Now our master mind of a coach drops a valuable midfielder who’s been playing out of position since August 2019.

I was very, very close to heading to the Alice in the morning. I'd selected my flights and accommodation for tomorrow night and just as I went to push the "Confirm" button, something told me that this was a terrible idea and I closed the screen. Having seen the side, I now realise I have made one of the most cost effective and face-saving decisions of my life. I would have been slinking off to the gents at 3/4 time, removing my Melbourne polo shirt, rolling it up under my arm and surreptitiously walking back to my hotel and drinking alcohol until I blacked out. Instead, I can stay at home, turn the TV off at 3/4 time and go to bed without publicly embarassing myself AND save about $1200! I call that a win.

If finals weren't on the line I'd think we are tanking!

Don't entirely hate the selections. I think for the most part its about putting the fittest team on the park especially with a 5 day turnaround. Lockhart stiff but can't help but think it might be a fitness thing perhaps as he's looked sore since the corky against the crows. Rivers gives you a different look, better ball used and more dash off half back. I imagine Jay will be back for Thursday. We've been carrying Harmes and Tmac all year. I like the call to cut them finally. Tom has looked off the pace and Brown gives you more versatility. Will be interesting to see who pinch hits in the ruck between Brown/Tomlinson/Weid. As others have noted Omac in to look after their resting ruckman up forward. I imagine we'll see more Tomlinson up the ground. Jones for experience I guess.... Wagner been playing consistently in the practice games. Will be very interesting to see where he will play as he's being spending more time up the ground on practice games. Fritsch really hurts. Been arguably our most consistent forward. Apart from his wayward kicking he's been our best target all year and works well with Weid. Sigh....

It's like the Nuremberg trials in here for the Wagners. Give them a [censored] chance.

That is the most utterly disgusting team we have picked all year. The ins include slow wet wags, I like the way they drop Lockhart and don't bring in someone to play on Butler. What is going to be. Tomlinson ?????? St Kilda would be wetting themselves looking at that side.

As long as we win that makes my life better than the Pandemic CF. A win is the best medicine.

Good to hear Goodwin mention this in his press conference. It's an absolute joke that Neal-Bullen gets 4 weeks and then Dahlhaus gets a fine. Really we should've challenged it, but that's life. The AFL really are a joke when it comes to these decisions and there is no consistency. In my mind there should be two parts to the decision: 1. The action - there should be a certain number of weeks for the action. For example, both Neal-Bullen and Dahlhaus should have an automatic 1 or 2 week suspension for the action. 2. The result - I am comfortable if Neal-bullen were to get an additional 1 or 2 weeks as a result of the outcome with a player being concussed as opposed to Dahlhaus not. I think this would be a lot more easily understandable for players and supporters alike.

Life could be worse, Franky. We could be in the midst of a pandemic.

This sums us up in a nutshell. Whenever we are favs or slightly better than a 50/50 we usually play like rabbits in the headlights at some point during that match. When the going gets tough too many players go missing instead of stepping up and taking it to another level when challenged (and i'm talking small percentages here, not expecting miracles across the board). Does this mean we should win this week given we will surely be going in as rank underdogs? Unfortunately i reckon we can match speedy skilled teams for about a half as we did last week, winning enough inside contests and clearances to balance the losses on the outside, at least to that point. Once that effort/skill drops away a little (skills usually fairing the worst here) after half time and the game opens up a little with the opp starting to win their fair share of clearances and contested, they're then able to spread and use their better skills on a more regular basis, as well as intercepting more of our awful turnovers, to rip us a new one with multiple unanswered goals. Weight of numbers on the outside overwhelm us once our "inside" intensity, skill levels and ability to run down the opp drops away in the second half (against those clubs who have the speed and skills i mean). It doesn't help that we also don't seem to react to this in the box and try and shut down one or two of the main offenders from the opp. The box also appearing to freeze like a rabbit in the headlights. Ok so maybe we don't have the answers on the day as we just don't have the outside speed / chase down ability to go with the opp. But surely that's by design both at a list level and at the selection table (to various degrees). I can't say i've witnessed us doing much of anything such as... ? Attempting to close down the opp's spread / movement by going man on man for short stints before reverting back to a zone method once/if we get the game back on our terms. And i'm not talking about waiting until the 4th, 5th or 6th goal in a row is kicked either. A good box should be able to recognise we're losing control of the ball / losing control of the match early on into an opp's run on and swing the change ups quickly ; ? Slowing our own ball movement down to bore the opp and let them cool their heels, putting a halt to their run on. ? Down by 5/6 goals or more and time's running out to turn things around? How about throwing some caution to the wind with player positions / roles and giving yourself and the opp a different look / feel. Look at the Bombers match yesterday, swinging Hooker from HB up forward and instructing their blokes to handball on the angle, then kick long to one on ones once they got in the clear. Sure it was only a few minor tweaks but it shows that sometimes a few tweaks (whether it's actually the tweaks themselves having a direct effect and/or the mere psychological effect upstairs, maybe a bit of both) can have a major effect on the outcome of a match, including massive turnarounds on occasions even if history would show your chances of doing so are slim. As per the late John Kennedy's famous cry "Do something, don't just think....DO!"

We hadn’t done our learnings then. We’ve learnings now though.

Just because he has tape on his knee doesn’t mean he is not ready to go

I am really annoyed that a number of teams are now announced on Friday. Thursday team selections go back to forever. Who can forget Lou Richards, Jack Dyer & Bob Davis on Thursday nights. Its annoying & makes tipping difficult. Alan Richardson mentioned that the team had been selected yesterday afternoon so there are no excuses for the delay.

Desperation stations !!!!! Six changes !!!!!!!! [censored] me !!!!

I think there's a major cultural difference between being late to training and a mistake (albeit a big one) in the middle of a game. i'm not excusing vandenBerg, btw - indeed, I am not sure he should be playing right now given his output and the clangers/turnovers outweighing the positives he brings. As to Harmes, I agree. I am firmly of the view he shouldn't have been moved to the backline and I think he probably should have been tried as a forward/mid before being dropped.

I'm not his biggest fan, but that's pretty harsh on Hunt given he leads the Dees for tackles inside 50.

Pretty ordinary propaganda, mate.

Butthead.

A coach who is clueless on game day will never get this club a Premiership. Goodwin is holding the list back and needs to go ASAP.

We have had so many line in the sand games in the last few years that they start to blur into one another. But that does not change the fact this yet another one. And perhaps unlike other since Goody came on board more is on the line for the team and in particular him than any other game. The Chariman has made it publicly clear making finals is the minimum expectation from the board. Our good run with injury takes any excuse of the table. The COVID situation is one all clubs have to deal with so that's off the table too. Lose this game and finals are close to impossible. Lose and goody's future comes into sharp focus. Lose and there will be a tsunami of fugazi, to stretch the Japanese imagery as the media will be all over goody's future.

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You're misunderstanding it. This is how teams defend because they can cover more space this way because the ball takes time to travel through the air. If you're kicking to a stationary player only 50 metres away, the ball would take up to 3.5 seconds to travel from the kicker's boot to the target. If you add the time it takes the player to kick the ball then that's over 4 seconds to get the ball to a team mate 50 metres away. If the ball is being kicked to a stationary target inside a zone 50 metres away, how far away do the defenders need to be if that player can mark the ball uncontested? 30 metres away Otherwise you're just send hospital kicks. If the ball got there faster then they would have to stand closer to the 'free' player. A shorter kick (say 30m) will have about 2.5 seconds from hand to target, so a defender only need to be 10 or 15 metres away from the target to effect a spoil. That's why a zone works.

Great stuff Engorged Onion, its fascinating to get those insights especially the possible downsides of mindfulness within an elite program. The interface between game plans, fitness programs etc and the players who carry them out can be easy to overlook from all the way up on level 3. I was speaking with someone who had recently been working in strategy/analysis at an A League club. As part of this role he would put together videos every week for each player on their likely match ups with strengths/weaknesses and the like. With all the other things players have to do while at the club they were loaded on to i-pads for the players to go through in their own time. From memory he told me only about half would be watched.

Daniher almost single-handedly won the game against the (admittedly mediocre) hawks yesterday. It will be interesting to watch this space over the rest of the season. He clearly hasn't lost any athleticism. I don't think we're in the race, and granted there are still significant questions over whether he can stay on the park. But if we couldn't win a flag with a spine of Daniher, Weid, Gawn, Petracca, May and Lever, we might as well pack up and go home.

Membrey always lines up for his game of the year against us! Seems to take 100 marks.

I'm reminded of the story about Ablett Jnr, earlier in his career when he was a dangerous forward pocket, being told by his teammates that he could be the best player in the competition if only he worked harder. Ablett was shocked and affronted because he thought he WAS working hard. Of course he later discovered what working hard really was but he wasn't able to know what working hard felt like until he actually had already done it. This happens with a lot of players and some unfortunately never cross that barrier, or it happens too late for them. The suburban leagues are filled with talented former AFL listed footballers who never quite got it.

I wouldn't be overly concerned. We won't finish in the 8.

69yo next year...certainly brings calm and wisdom to an organisation. If he was up for it, would love him on board. If he wasn't looking for a full-time job next year he would also be the right person to carry out an independent review of our club. Couldn't think of anyone more qualified and we should jump at the opportunity.