fr_ap

I'd probably say no change. Howes was good, but he'll get eaten alive in the contest at AFL level. Needs a bit more development - next year is his year. Thought Spargo did ok and whilst kozzie looked awful round the ball, he had the 3rd most pressure acts and we would desperately miss his speed and tank if he was dropped. Chandler continued his nothing form in the VFL. To be honest, AMW isn't that far behind any of our small forwards. Not sure how his tank is or whether he could play the structure as well as the others, but he's quicker than Chandler and Spargo, can jump higher, combative and seems to get involved in scoring chains. Quite mercurial. He isn't that far away. Harmes was awful I thought. Our midfield depth is a concern - our first bounce against the Lions will be Viney, Sparrow and Jordon in all likelihood. A top end midfield draft pick or two is in need before the era of track and Clarry begins to pass. It's a shame Mitch White never moved into the midfield during his AFL days. He is an absolute warrior and a terrific player, good ball user. He and Munro are critical to Casey's success.

Agreed, I thought he was really good. Have seen him play a few times and a bit ho-hum, but gee whiz today he was near impassable and impeccable with the ball hitting 50m darts Doesn't necessarily look a footballer but seems a good one

Nice to see Jed Adams starting to find his feet. You can start to see the attributes the FD saw.

JVR showing why he's in the VFL. Highmore has had the better of him. Needs to work on a lot - leading patterns, field kicking, general nous. The best way I can describe him is a super competitive, combative forward. But he's not a smart forward - not half as smart as schache for example (who conversely lacks all competitiveness) Chandler equally ineffective at this level. On this showing AMW is almost in front of him...

Expected score tonight was Stk 69 Melb 60 Happy to win but tells a bit of a tale

Look I agree with all that and truthfully we all know it doesn't look too likely....but you've got to enjoy the wins when they come. It's too long a year and too much is down to luck... Very tough to follow if all you can enjoy is a flag

You do realise that the best place for a player like that - who rarely makes mistakes - is defence right? It's a turnover sport and over 75% of them are committed by defenders. He does more for our ability to win in defense than he would up the ground

Last week we won all of that. Oh, but we lost the game. If you're only ever happy with complete dominance and victories, you're not going to be happy very often. Why follow sport at all?

Still think so? Right now he does not want to be out there.

I'm not sure how true this is, but someone once told me the place was built in the wrong direction. i.e. all the plans and permits had the stadium travelling west-east, which would have been preferable from a sunlight (grass growing) POV, but the building contractor mistakenly planned the site & laid the foundations south-north. I remember this being blamed for the significant issues they had early days getting the grass to grow (the G is also laid on concrete, that shouldn't be a factor). You got to Marvel on any given weekday and they have a million hydroponic lights fixing the turf. They've figured it out, but it must cost them a fair bit.

Why do people think Howes is ahead of him? Blake plays a less contested game in an easier position (HB), and gets less of the footy with less impact. Woey brings attributes we lack into the side - he is a good short passer of the ball and has good composure/decision making. He's also no slouch in the contest and quicker (slightly taller too) than the likes of Laurie Pleased with the debut & wondering who it is at the expense of - Harmes or Chandler I would guess.

Might just be me but I thought the clips Lyon showed barely made his point at all. Most involved risky 15-20m hit up kicks to players 45 out in the corridor. The Petracca kick to the 3 on 1 in the pocket in particular - neither of the short Sparrow or Brayshaw kicks were on & would likely have resulted in a corridor turnover leading to a score against. It's very easy to watch from afar & make a judgement on kick difficulty without any real sense of depth/difficulty/conditions. Trac assessed the options - and decided it wasnt worth the risk. This is also why neither brayshaw or Sparrow asked for the ball. I'm not saying we should never take those kicks - but there is a time and a place. Hitting them into an already flooded d50 from a slow play off the HFF/Wing is not the time. Collingwood hit them - but they hit them when they are streaming down the ground and have defenders scrambling (or off turnover). Ironically, Rivers actually took the kick Lyon was asking for to a leading Brown on the fat side in the other example, even though Lyon in that case said he should have handballed to Chandler (which I agree with). The result was Rivers missed the kick, Taylor marked and the Giants took it down the other end for a goal. Let's not pretend he is some savant footy analyst. Our gamestyle has proven effective at turning us into a top team over a long period of time. It's not perfect, and at the moment its a little broken, but we've fixed it before. Throwing all caution to the wind and trying to hit risky corridor kicks that our skill profile doesn't allow is not the way.

This might be unpopular, but I actually didn't mind how we looked with Grundy as solo ruck. We missed Gawn's marking around the ground (which could be offset if we had any decent tall forwards...), but I didnt feel an overt loss through the middle or at stoppages. Grundy was very poor defensively though in the early part of the year and he was a big reason for our Essendon loss when both Draper and Phillips (!) had career days... Nevertheless, the Grundy play overall makes much more sense to me in the solo ruck context. I'm not convinced that playing them both is doing us any favours at the moment.

That's fine. I take your point, we could try any number of different things. Personally I don't think Judd is well suited to the midfield at all. Yes he's elusive, but when he's caught and under pressure he's actually as poor a kick as everyone else. He's not going to get away in the heat of the midfield. I like the suggestion of him to the wing though - I've said a number of times Hunter is good structurally but a huge turnover merchant. Ironic given we brought him in for his apparent ability to hit targets i50. But in general, rolling a 15 game half back through the midfield for 2 rotations is not the solution to our problems

It's really not that simple, so tiring people say this as soon as someone can kick...'put them in the midfield'. In the midfield you generally do not have time to dispose of the ball properly. That's why most midfielders other than the very elite (Merrett, Bont) are considered poor kicks. Plus, all of a sudden you have responsibility for winning contested ball in outnumber situations. That's not Judd's go (yet). It's the same reason Salem doesn't play midfield. He ain't a midfielder

He's gone to absolute water since 1) the bailey smith suspension 2) signing his contract Looks like he cannot be bothered and his lack of focus is self evident. Can't hit a target, can barely possess the footy without fumbling, and just can't seem to make the right decision. All of those things used to be absolute standout features of his game. It's been an extremely sad demise. It's weird and counterintuitive, but sometimes when you 'make it' and start getting paid really well to do something you love, it kills your love of it. That's what it looks like to me. He's not having any fun and he's going through the motions entirely. Very sad.

He's doing far, far more than that. He is quite literally changing games the instant he comes on. He was on the bench first 10 mins against adelaide....comes on and the game never looked the same. Collingwoods entire winning streak started once he'd taken 5 games to find his feet. Yes he's relatively uncontested - but that matters less and less the way the game is going. I love Clarry and trac and think the world of Bont, but pound for pound, no one is impacting games more than Daicos this season. He's winning the brownlow.

It happens in other sports. The difference being in those sports, players are paid so well that they can literally flip & burn houses (through agents) and pay it no mind. To that end, if the AFLPA were to ever agree with this, I would expect it would be a tradeoff to get players a larger slice of the pie & elevate their earnings significantly.

I actually like Joel Smith for the sub. Can do a job forward or back, and in either scenario we have the flankers that can move into midfield if it's a midfielder getting subbed out.

Yeo absolutely despises Melbourne. Hates us.

Just a question - who did Tommo actually play on against the pies? A combo of resting ruck and the incredibly lazy ash Johnson? Whilst he was very good, who he played on needs to be taken into account. It's hardly like he shut down a top forward and the week before, he was well beaten by McKay. If lever is to play 3rd intercepting, the 2nd key back needs to be trusted to beat or neutralise the games better forwards - the likes of Hipwood, J Cameron, etc. We know Petty can shut these players down Tommo was to some degree lucky that Collingwood don't have that player in their current line up. Geelong have quite a few...

My degree in MFCSS says 7 days

Not only that, but to have the statistical dominance we did when free kicks are 22-13 takes some doing. That equates to 9 one on one contest wins at all points over the ground - huge differential

Whilst it wasn't a particularly enjoyable game there were aspects of the Dees brand that showed up tonight. Hard to score against, contested possession, time in forward half. Was a long way from perfect but for all the moaning about forward woes and connection, we still had 15 marks inside 50 which is an ok number. A lot of our forwards lack craft though - Fritsch is really the only semi-consistent natural dangerous forward we have. I would normally include Koz but he's way off the boil post-contract. Really hate the way he's playing, flies when he shouldn't, can't find space, flops about for free kicks and no longer wins hard balls. He looks like he's being told not to play to his hard edge instincts.

That's actually a better hit rate than the 1 goal a game we are getting from JVR and Tom...