Deespicable

And to keep Werridee happy, here's our Rd 1 team based off today's session (and the one I saw last week as well). Overlooked because not training with main gp yet: Fritsch, Petty, Oliver, Pickett, Smith. Assumes Sydney will name three talls up front with Logan McDonald, Amartey and McLean - hence T.Mac is named to play on McLean. B: McVee May T.Mac (Turner or Hore if Swans go small) HB: Rivers Lever Bowey C: Billings Sparrow Langdon HF: Kolt Fullarton (or Ben Brown) ANB F: McAdam Van Rooyen Spargo RU: Gawn Petracca Viney Int: Brayshaw, Salem, Hunter, Woewodin sub: Laurie

Was nowhere near as prominent but during the mid-forward transition game was involved in possibly the best play of the morning - got the ball near centre, changed direction and then went long with a 55m kick that just got over May's head and into the arms of the intendee McAdam who had to dive backwards to reach it, such was the depth of the kick. He doesn't have Kolt's swagger, but he looks classy - but he may have to wait a while to grab a spot on the wing in place of Ed. I suspect he will also have to work hard on his defensive game - the stars at junior level often don't have that area covered initially.

No sign of Saty - I think he went back to England. But I watched for about 90mins and while it was all light drills, it was good to see the new faces and there were quite a few of the old brigade - gees Gawny's a good leader and he had his understudies Trac and Lever there as well. Sallo was also there which is good after last year was a bit of a wipeout for him. Maysie on a boys golfing trip to SA I believe. Petty may have been there, but I didn't see him. The three teenage newbies all looked switched on and I was interested to see that Koltyn could match renowned runner Kynan Brown and speedster Caleb Windsor in their handful of repeat run-through sprints. The two standouts, in my view, were McAdam and Roo, who both led and finished well in the wet conditions - but don't get too excited, these early training drills suit the finishers and with Fritta on light duties they will get plenty of chances. I was initially impressed with how much more balanced Adams was - gone is the gangly kid - but then he went and did another horrific spray left footer in the rain that made me think he still may be another year away. It is way too early to be confident that positional moves will stick, but T-Mac was doing defensive work - maybe they've decided that with Petty forward, they need another tall defensive back-up.

While I agree with you that any suggestion the Pies were worthy of an A when they picked up two later order players who are both regarded as quick movers is a massive suck up to Pies job. They were probably a B, given they gave away their first pick for Schultz who if you have seen him, is a very classy player and will play round 1, unlike many other draft picks. But as to what we did, it is hard to get excited. Windsor and Tholstrup are both quick players and so is Kynan Brown, so we made sure our ageing side is replenished with youthful speed - that's a big tick. But we completely blundered the trade swapping game - clearly we are missing Josh Mahoney's input here and we all should be querying the role Tim Lamb had in those pick swaps and overall list management. The first decision to offload picks 14, 22 and 33 to advance up the order and get pick 11 should go down as one of our worst efforts in history. Clearly we thought by having pick 5 and 11 we could get Harley Reid, but it proved a flawed philosophy. Whilst i am quite happy with Tholstrup, we almost certainly could have got him for pick 14 anyway as only Collingwood seemed aware of his talents and their picks was much later. And even if we'd lost out and some club snaffled him at pick 12 and 13, we could have got Leake from Tas and the jury is still out as to which of him and Tholstrup is better. Then our list manager mucked up how many players we needed on our list (kept Schache, T-Mac and Brown) and that meant we had to offload pick 42 just before the draft for a bag of peanuts. Stupid is as stupid does.

I'm actually also tipping a switcheraoo on draft night - but not in the Harley Reid way. With Curtin still available at pick 6, Eagles agree to trade their No.1 pick for next year and pick 23 this year and in return we give them our No.1 pick for next year. The outcome of that is we take: Pick 11 - James Leake Pick 23 - Aidan O'Driscoll Pick 42 - Vigo Visentini Plus Kynan Brown either via being forced to give up 78 or as a rookie. And next year we will most likely have a pick in the top four, depending on where the Eagles finish up.

And thank christ for that. I have no idea why it has taken so long for the club and the Brown family to be united on the wisdom of this. But I did have a chat to dad Nathan at training during the school holidays when Kynan joined in with most of our sessions and he was your typically proud father sitting well back observing from under a tree on the Punt Rd side of Gosch's, but one well aware of the difficult road ahead. For those of you too young to remember, Nathan was one of the fittest blokes going around in the early naughties and provided great run off half-back and had some memorably duels with Stephen Milne and other small forwards. He wasn't a thumping kick but he was mega courageous and my guess is that his son is imbued with the same qualities which were pretty much on display all year for Oakleigh and Vic Metro. His dad told me Kynan's much faster than him and a better kick and can play inside as well which basically means he's well worth drafting. Given the lack of hype around him, it does sound like he will go just after our pick 42, which is a bonus. Delisting Kye Turner gave us four picks and hence three draftees plus Kynan would be a good result.

At a time when we as a club are clearly on the nose, Brodie's comments, especially his lack of ill-will, were almost life-saving. They show that the club communicated the situation to him clearly throughout, even if they can't clearly communicate what's going on internally to their fans. I still think we missed a golden opportunity this year by the late-in-season decision not to play him and to go smaller than any side in the history of the modern game up forward, but that's a knock that the match committee will have to take into next year. But Brodie's comments also show that no matter what rumours and innuendo surround Goody, the facts are that the majority of players like him or at very least respect him to want to keep playing for him. All our big name players have signed extensions under him and only our peripheral players have wanted to move on. That's way different to Bevo. Thank you Brodie for restoring the faith with your words.

Yes, if this was the first and only video of Caddy then he'd be lucky to make Bell Park's list. But have a look at his VFL game for the Blues or one of the other games they have on video. There's a reason why others have suggested he's a likely top 10 pick and with Sanders earmarked for the Dogs at No.5. we have to look closely at him.

Curtin is sliding and I reckon Geelong and Essendon will have tricky times deciding whether to take him if the more versatile Caddy ain't available - so he could yet slip to our pick 11. O'Sullivan looks good - is he good enough for our pick 6? I reckon Adelaide may take him at 10. If not he'd be a great project get for us at 11.

How about the universe where we need a potential key forward more than anything else. Having watched his highlights, we will take Caddy at No.6 because we can't risk him being taken at 7, 8, 9 or 10. The only reason we won't is that he may yet go to North at pick 3 - his agility makes him impossible to overlook.

Unlike other posters, I actually think Billings would be a good get, provided his manager is realistic with his asking pric e and St Kilda don't want anything more than a future third rounder or this year's pick 42. Being a left-footer he holds some value and he is back-up wingman should Hunter get injured or is forced to take a few weeks away. He also could be given a chance in our rejigged midfield - something he has always craved and never been given an opportunity to play at St Kilda. And with Oliver potentially out, we may need another clever body in there. Billings has great endurance and is hardly slow and we all know he's clever. The question is whether his body can cope with the buffeting that come with AFL. As I said, if we could get him on a two-year deal at around $400K a season, at worst he's a very handy depth replacement for Jordon and Harmes and at best, he's still got the smarts to be a topliner. One last thing on him, I think his character is fine - he ain't a [censored] and he will help redress the balance of good, healthy and smart guys on our list.

Did I just dream this or was this in the rumour file? Dees given up on trying to snare No.1 pick and Harley Reid. Now all into luring Nick Larkey from Kangas. With cap space created by Grundy/Harmes/Brown, will sign him on mega four-year deal worth $4M. North to receive picks 5 and 13 plus Paul Spargo. Dees to solve forward issues for next few years with van Rooyen and Petty further up field and Larkey and Fritter near goals.

I think we will look back on this year as the one flag we should have won - a bit like 1990 when there was no clear standout and we were arguably a better side than the Pies and got knocked out after having to wait an extra week because the Pies drew with the Eagles - back then the draw meant a replay. But there were certainly some major positives. 1) Rivers, who had an ordinary finals series, stepped up to become a genuinely good player who now needs a spot in the midfield. My season highlight was his two accurate inboard passes in our freakish come from behind win over the Lions. 2) Sparrow showed he is now physically capable of matching it with anyone and is a wonderful tagger in the Harmes 2018 mould. 3) Smith showed he can play at AFL level ... and can play pretty much anywhere. With McAdam coming in, he is the obvious replacement for Rivers down back because of his versatility. 4) JVR got plenty of experience, as did young McVee. And for those trying to blame him for that final goal, remember this - Tom Stewart was badly beaten by Dustin Martin in a crucial late play on the wing in 2017 QF. The Tigers went on to win that game and the flag, but Stewart has ended up a pretty damn good player. 5) Our trade value as a club has gone up. Jayden Hunt was fourth in the B&F at Eagles, Toby Bedford could end up playing in a GF, Oskar Baker got games at the Bulldogs (unlike at Melbourne) and Sam Weideman showed in his three VFL games at Essendon as a backman that he could be a regular after all. Not to mention his five-goal AFL game against the Cats. 6) And after picking the smallest forward side in the history of AFL finals, we showed that such a strange selection could still end up producing scoring shots and was one way to force players to look at the short option. So our loss to the Blues may end up shaping our game style for 2024 and could also force Goody to drop his attack up the wings mentality. Sadly we say goodbye to Hibberd and it sounds like Grundy, Harmes, JJ and Tommo will join them. And in my opinion, the rise of Moniz-Wakefield and McAdam's signing means that at least one or possibly two of our small forwards has to go to get gametime - and yes I know they are all contracted. But so is Grundy.

6 May - Had Curnow's measure on all but one play. It was almost like watching him blitz Buddy last year. This time he almost got us over the line. 5 Kozzie - A couple of moments of madness but just a spark all night. 4 Hunter - From the word go realised his role was to negate Acres and just was so smart. Voss had to switch Acres wing late. 3 Viney - Always working his butt off, although not quite as damaging as previous weeks. 2 Petracca - A couple of errant shots at goal, but gave our forward line some real spunk and won a few clearances in the second half when moved back into the middle after halftime to try and curb Carlton's centre square dominance. 1 Salem - Hard to believe after his insipid form of late, but Sallo was back to being clever with his chip kicks and went back to providing us with run out of defence.

Simon Goodwin has always made a clear distinction between the roles of big and smalls. Bigs fly for marks and are responsible for bringing the ball to ground. Smalls are there to crumb and tackle and link and never fly for marks (yes, Kossie does break the rules) unless they are the only option. Even down back the distinction is clear - May, Lever and Tomlinson (when playing) are to deny opponents in the air, while Bowey, Salem, McVee are to protect the ground and provide the smarts when coming out of the backline. Rivers, being a swingman height, is allowed to fly on occasions. In 2021 when everything fell into place. the Dees played three bigs down back (May, Lever and Petty) and went with three bigs up forward (Brown, T-Mac and Jackson). In 2021, Fritsch was the dangerous swingman and Sparrow’s tackling ability pipped Melky for the last spot in the 22, and it was balanced with three small forwards - ANB, Spargo and Kossie. Since 2021, Goody has altered his preferred forward model, partly because both Ben Brown and T-Mac have often been injured and are now the wrong side of 30. The result was that last year we often toyed with four genuine smalls. For example in our Rd 11 first loss of 2022 to Fremantle, Goody decided to try Toby Bedford with our three premiership smalls. His desire to reward Bedford, one of the fittest blokes at the club, with game time meant that Toby often played as the medical sub and occasionally played from the outset. But this year Goody took his 'small world’ to another level. Kade Chandler, after four years of VFL learnings, was finally given a go and there’s no doubt that he’s a clever finisher and hard worker. Bailey Lawrie, another who had done his time in VFL, was given a go and he definitely has AFL level smarts. Injuries to Petty, our most clever small tall Melksham, and suspension to our most mobile tall JVR has caused him to rejig even more. The result? Tonight Melbourne is fielding the smallest finals side possibly since pre-war days. But what about the Tigers of 2017 I hear you say when Riewoldt played as a lone hand and Grigg had to ruck when Nankervis had a rest. The difference is that most of the Tigers small forwards had a degree of height. Rioli is 179cm, Castagna 181cm, Lambert 178cm, Butler 182cm, Martin 187cm, Townsend 187cm, Caddy 186cm with Edwards 182cm sometimes up forward. Compare that to: Chandler 175cm, Pickett 171cm, Spargo 172cm, ANB 182cm, Petracca 187cm, Fritsch 188cm and Smith 191cm with Lawrie 179cm still a chance to be sub. Or what about the Pies of 2010. Blair 174cm, Davis 177cm, Didak 184cm, Beams 187cm backed by bigs Dawes, Cloke and Brown - hardly small by our standards. Let’s go back further - Carlton's mosquito fleet of 1981 is generally regarded as the smallest of the modern era and yet was still slightly taller than our combination and that is 42 years ago? They had Marcou 178cm, Sheldon 178cm and Wayne Johnston 180cm but they also had David McKay (191cm), Maclure (188cm), McConville (185cm) and Bosustow (185cm). Rover Buckley 175cm had the occasional rest forward as well. What we are seeing by Goodwin is revolutionary by any standards. All our smalls are hard workers who don’t mind tackling even though their size makes it harder to stick them and individually they are all players who any side would want on their list, yet the question that every Demon fan should be asking is whether this is the right balance. Some will try and argue that what option does Goodwin have given who’s out. But that view is tempered by the fact that a two-time All- Australian is sitting watching in the stands and is wanted by a host of clubs with Sydney apparently winning the battle. And it leads to two bigger questions: If Melbourne wins tonight, is Goodwin tactically more savvy with the game trends than any other coach, placing a higher priority on ground-level wins than aerial strength? Or if Melbourne loses tonight, is Goody in danger of becoming the new Bevo - the coach with the best list, yet the worst return. Genius or insane? What’s your view?

A couple of amendments to my earlier team, which was based on Harmes playing and he's now out. There are two big changes required this week. The first is to drop the red mist - a term Garry Lyon dubbed on our dump long kicks three years ago before we turned it all around in 2021 and used the short low pass to pry open defences. Moore et al had a field day with the long bombs on Thursday night and Weitering, who loves to sag back, will be salivating at the prospect of such an assault. Unfortunately our best lateral thinker - Brayshaw - will be out and our best lead-up player Melky is out. Our best two clever chip kicks from 2021 weren't around either on Thursday - Spargo (overlooked) and the Christian Salem we used to know. So the first thing to do is for Goody to have a long confidence-building chat with Salem and ask him to take the game on and take risks like the old Sallo did. And the other thing is to bring Spargo in and that means Chandler has to go - we can't have four vertically challenged guys in our forward line - it's the wrong balance. A chat with our biggest distributor Olly about looking inboard or for the lead-up option wouldn't hurt either. The second change is to the forward make-up. Three players kicked 14 goals against Richmond six weeks ago, but none of them will be playing on Friday, so it's a tricky reconfigure. But here's my fifty cents worth. We are all hoping that Grundy plays like a forward for once, but why are we doing that when we know it won't work because he's not quick enough to lead-up and he's not a great leaping aerialist. But he is a genuinely good ruckman - we saw that first hand when Gawny was injured. So, it's time to go back and playing him there and putting the pressure on the skipper to take a hit for the team. Gawn has to play a forward for almost the entire game. For once Goody has to make Grundy the main man and Gawn the key man. We all know Gawny will mark it if not held down, so Carlton will have to deploy Gov and Weitering close to him to stop him. The second change to our forward mix has already been alluded to by Goody who made it clear that Angus going down, forced him to play Trac in the middle. It didn't actually because Rivers was an option but we chose to go small with the sub, when we knew the Pies were much taller than us. The advantage with Trac is that he demands the ball and means that players will be more willing to try the chip kick when he's around up there. Ultimately the rest of the magnets don't matter so much as once you have your best two players down there, along with your two other livewire goalkickers - Pickett and Fritsch - you have a combo that will kick a winning total. But for arguments sake - Jordon has to play and in the guts. And Rivers has to be given a run in there early as well. Sparrow plays hard on Walsh, Rivers tags Cripps and follows him when he goes forward. A decision on whether to play Turner in our back mix is needed as well, although that depends on whether Durdin comes in for McKay. Carlton has bunch of quick tackling forwards who aren't much chop but because they all work their butts off, they are dangerous - Cunningham, Fogarty, Motlop, Owies and Cottrell. May takes Curnow, Hibberd takes Motlop and McVee takes the quickest who I think is Owies and if Durdin plays then Lever has a good match-up. With McKay out, TDK will play more as a forward so either Turner or Smith are required top counter his height a bit. And the choice of the sub has to be debated long and hard at the selection table. There are a few choices - we can make Chandler the sub and hope that we don't lose a big to injury early. Or if we drop T-Mac as I suspect we will, then both he or Schache may be required as sub, because that means we gone mega small and having another small on the bench is as stupid as it was the other night. The thing with T-Mac is that he's still smart, he's just way too slow. But coming on late his lack of pace is negated a bit because everyone is tired. Out: Brayshaw, van Rooyen, T-Mac, Chandler. In: Jordon, Grundy, Turner, Spargo B: McVee May Hibberd HB: Bowey Turner Lever C: Langdon Rivers Hunter HF: Smith Gawn Spargo F: Pickett Petracca Fritsch Ru: Grundy Oliver Viney Int: Sparrow (mid), Jordon (mid), ANB (fwd), Salem (def) Sub: Chandler or T-Mac/Schache - decision based on whether Carlton goes big or small - Durdin or Hollands for McKay.

The whole week will now be spent talking about our dysfunctional forward line and it's up to the boss to figure out how to reconfigure. and with van Rooyen a monte to be out, we have to do so. But to me, Grundy has to play - yes we all know he's not a forward but he allows us to use Gawny up there for a little bit and he is a big body to try and spoil. With Brown unfit, he's just got to play. He's also a tackler and we will need that with Brayshaw out. The other change is that we have to go back to playing Trac up there for more minutes - yes I know he is a clearance beast, but we have cover in that department with Sparrow and Viney and Rivers if we want, but we don't have an option now - we need someone to kick goals and Trac and Fritter and Kozzy are our three most likely. To me our seven forwards are: Fritsch, Kozzy, Trac, Grundy, ANB and then a decision on whether we play Spargo or go radical with the pace of Moniz-Wakefield instead of Chandler. And as much as people will hate it - Harmes has to play as well - unfortunately at finals time you need a mix of grunt and Chandler is classy, but just not physical enough for night games. Harmes is. The sub can be T-Mac - yes he's too slow, but at least with the pace off the game, he may be able to make an impact after half time and he at least can also play defence if we get an injury. I also left out Smith, but we just have to add him to our defence - we need his pace to help counter the over the back play that Papley (if Swans win) or Motlop (if Blues win) that the Pies exploited and the good thing is we can still send him forward if things aren't working - just as he should have been sent back in the first term against the Pies. You are allowed to swap players mid-game Goody! And by sending Rivers into the midfield rotation, we make room for Smith who can play on bigs or smalls. The only other player in doubt is Salem - he really has just not been able to get back to his 2021 form, but it's now probably too late to make the hard call on him. Out: Brayshaw, Van Rooyen (susp), Chandler, T-Mac, Lawrie (sub) In: Jordon, Grundy, Spargo, Harmes Sub: T-Mac B: McVee May Smith HB: Bowey Lever Hibberd C: Langon Sparrow Hunter HF: ANB Grundy Harmes F: Kozzie Fritsch Petracca Ru: Gawn Oliver Viney Int: Spargo (fwd), Rivers (mid), Jordon (mid) Salem (def) Sub: T-Mac

6 Gawn - Beaten in the first few plays by Cox but once Brayshaw went down just lifted and showed just amazing leadership. 5 Sparrow - with Trac and Viney quiet in the first half, Sparrow was just so hard at it and showed what a bull he is. This game showed that he is now an elite midfielder. He's not as clean as others, but he's just so tough. 4 May - just a general down back and held firm all night with one or two exceptions. 3 Petracca - quiet first half but lifted and was just amazing in the final term - albeit with a couple of generous frees. 2 McVee - Just so smooth and our only defender with the pace to go on Hill after his early onslaught. Such was the quality of his work, it makes you wonder how come Salem is getting a game. 1 Oliver - prolific so he gets a vote, but there was a lot of 2017 Olly back in his game. he didn't seemed to sense when to go forward and when not to and I am still trying to remember when he hit a forward on the lead. As for his shot on goal it just lacked confidence from the outset with a couple of stutter steps. He just has to go to bed and realise that when he's positive he's the best player in the game and he's allowed to make mistakes if he's trying to make the matchwinning pass.

Flynn would be a perfect replacement for Grundy if he was willing and didn't require too much coin. But he might want to go to a club where he's more likely to play the No.1 ruck role as he's not really shown that he can be a danger when resting forward - aka Grundy.

Jetstar or Virgin?

Love the concept and yes it's hard for most Demonlander youngsters to pass comments on some of the club greats and I only feel comfortable going back to 1972 as my series nearly two years ago outlined - The snub of Brett Lovett is extraordinary, although I suspect he will be listed among the midfielders. He shouldn't be because he made a name for himself as a defender and had been at the club for four years before he was switched into more midfield roles, usually as a classy negater. Angus Brayshaw by contrast began as a mid, played as a wingman in our flag-winning season, and has only now had two years as a defender, albeit with more than a handful of games back in the middle recently and a handful last year as well. The snub of Danny Hughes is also a bit farcicial - he was fullback in our second most successful era since 1964. He was tough, a thumping kick - a real meat and potatoes player that as has been mentioned, spanked Brian Taylor at Collingwood several times. But a few have forgotten that he was a tad slow, you may recall that John Northey was so worried about him playing on Jason Dunstall in the 1988 grand final that he reconfigured our entire line-up - sending wingman Stephen Stretch to play on him initially. But Danny is still right up there in our best 10 defenders of all-time I reckon - although I think now Steven May has played enough games for us to say that he qualifies as our greatest ever full back. Another amazing snub is Don Williams, who my father always told me was the best defender he'd seen and the real key in our Norm Smith era with his pace, marking and kicking. Maybe whoever came up with this list is so old and grumpy that they still didn't like the fact that he headed to Perth in 1960. Tony Sullivan would be a bit miffed too I reckon - he was dour, but ever reliable as were Barry Bourke and Frank Davis, not to mention Laurie Fowler who had treechunk legs but was tough as they come and won best-and-fairests in an era when Robbie was overlooked most times because he was injured for part of the season. Alan Johnson spent his first five injury-riddled season as a wingman, but once he moved to back pocket he changed the prototype because of his dash and skill so I am comfortable with that classification and he is a walk-up start for our back six. By contrast Graeme Yeats really only became a star in 1987 when he was moved to the wing. Jake Lever might go past Gary Hardeman in the next two years, but so far his superb 2021 has only been interspersed with the occasional amazing intercept marking games. Gary was a wonky kick, but he was a fast, marking back in the 70s, just behind Peter Knights in the overall scheme of best CHB in the league in his era. So Hardeman still gets the nod, but I am happy to review this in two years time. No-one here would have seen Don Cordner play, but all reports from back then have him playing primarily in the ruck and his quality clearly was supreme - he won a Brownlow Medal after all. But as with our centenary team, it's hard to get him a spot as a ruckman because that's possible our strongest position - Gawn, Stynes, White, Strawb to name but a few. So clearly the panellists who chose these names wanted to get him in somewhere, as they did in the Centenary team. The record of Noel McMahon (captain in flag years of 55 and 56) and Tassie Johnson also are impressive and both are worth of consideration on that fact alone. But for me, I'd be happy with the following back six: B: Johnson, May, Wight HB: B.Lovett, Hardeman, Williams But I reckon Tassie and Noel McMahon probably deserve gigs more based on records and as a result I'd leave out Wight and make Brett Lovett one of my interchange choices.

He was exceptional in the clearances and blessed with an amazing leap - better than Brandon Starc. We were going to take him with our No.1 pick all year in 2008, but when Jack Watts took an exceptional mark and kicked the winning goal in the U18 Aust Champs, we switched plans. And it was because we did that we ended up with big Maxy the following year. Sliding doors moment!

Ultimately it's nice for Blues given Kozzie and co cost them a finals spot last year, not to mention a few years ago when Jordy killed off their chances by taking out Cripps. So it was a bit of karma, but clearly that goal umpire should not ever be allowed to adjudicate a Blues game again - his dad probably wore No.25 on his back as a kid. In our reviews, hopefully we take note of their Port-style feral attack on the ball that Voss has instilled - from word go they were hold, pushing, scragging - and even though we were way classier, we didn't win enough clean ball because of it and a night game after quite a bit of rain is greasy and tricky. The reason why is that most likely our first three weeks of finals will be night games and unless we get lucky with a mild dry night, it's going to be similar scragging conditions. Overall our lack of size - we are smallest in league aside from maybe Richmond - hurt us. Listen to commentary and you will hear it Chandler unable to stick tackle - he's a classy player and deserves his spot in dry nights because he's a finisher but he's just not suited to that sort of encounter. Similarly Bowey's size in air down back can be exposed, and it's made more obvious because we already have Salem and McVee back there to cover smaller forwards. So basically we have to be better balanced with stronger, taller bodies - their used to be a concerns that sides were top heavy - we are a side that is 'small heavy' and there are consequences and we saw it against the Blues and if we are unlucky and have to play Port in Adelaide on a greasy night in the first week of finals, it will be a similar scenario. Please note, Chandler's skill level means he is perfect as a sub for the finals because he only needs two or three touches to have an impact. And with Smith now in and showing his value in that he can play on ruckman (TDK) as well as smalls, it may mean that Bowey has to be used elsewhere or not at all.

Just watched the replay. 6 Rivers - Good in air in greasy conditions and provided great disposal and dash and tight on opponents. Most improved player by miles. 5 Petracca - the classiest player on ground and hardest for Blues to contain scored the winning goal (which wasn't). Worked hard on defence as well. 4 Lachie Hunter - clever positioning all night. Not dangerous but always presenting and made a hue goalsquare marking contest save early. 3 Angus Brayshaw - like Trac seemed to realise Carlton's intensity was more than ours and stepped up and put his body on the line time and time again. But played on influential Cripps for a lot of night so loses points. 2 Steven May - really strong and provided offensive support with his lovely left foot. Held Coleman winner to two goals and about five kicks. 1 Jack Viney - gave it his all, but not as clean as the past three weeks, so just the one.

Great to see the two best teams at the minute going head-to-head. Since McKay's been out, Blues have gone shorter and on Sunday just had Curnow and resting ruck - TDK or Pittonet resting as they use a version of Pagan's Paddock for Charlie. May will take Charlie, but trick is deciding if Lever, Hibberd (or Smith) can cope with the ruckman. But it would be a ballsy call to bring back Tomlinson. Can't see it as Blues have so many smallish runners up there. The good thing is that with Smith back as the sub, we have options of bringing him on - even to Curnow - if we have to. Bowey (injury) is the only defender in doubt with Hibberd back in 22 and Smith the sub. Grundy has to play for Petty as we looked lost when going down line in last quarter minus Petty and it's too much to expect JVR and Melky to cope - Weitering, Kemp and Marchbank would have a field day. Then it's a case of who is out for Oliver. Sparrow, Jordon and Harmes all made howlers at times but also kept persisting against a Roos side that was majorly committed, but I suspect Harmes is the most likely to go of that three. But if Bowey's out, then it would be easier just to send Angus back to cover.