John Demonic

By @george_on_the_outer on tonights pod? Just Kidding! I'm sure we can all agree that Hunt breaking the lines is brilliant for us when he's hitting targets, and boy was he doing it on Saturday night. Excellent by foot!

Yes. 1st in assists below.. to go with 33 goals.

A universe where Max King can kick straight? Upsets can happen. I rate the Dees a premiership threat, and they lost to the 9th placed Bulldogs...

Does Jumping ahead a couple of minutes on the delayed stream from the Curnow Mark to the Melksham mark count? I couldn't watch Curnow go back and kick it, and just wanted to see if it was over or not. Had to rewind and watch the lead up to the Melksham mark after that. I guess it's the equivalent of walking up the race, down the stairs and hearing an Almighty cheer as you're heading towards the turnstiles, but then rushing to standing room to watch the ending.

I think the difference between playing Collingwood as a 2/3 seed is a negligible enough reason to go for the outcomes that get it done. I'm done with watching other teams having to chase down % to leap frog us. As if the Saints are going to fight to the death to prevent a 30 point loss, instead of a 20 point loss that gives us an MCG final against the Swans. And id rather not play at the SCG - As I don't think the stadium is worthy of a Qualifying Final - Unremarkable spectacle on tv. Also I don't think we'll get the rub of the green. Freo is obviously the best option for us but its so unlikely its hardly worth mentioning lol

We can play Freo at the MCG if St Kilda beat Sydney and Collingwood lose both games.

I'm glad Jack Viney missed that lace out pass to ANB on the lead with 90 seconds to go. A draw as good as a loss.

Collingwood beating Sydney and then losing to Carlton next week is now our preferred method for top 2 and takes percentage out of it and gives us a home game against the Pies. Or an away game if they beat Carlton. Sydney winning by 4 goals today gets them ahead of us on % and then it comes down to the margins against the Lions and Saints, if both clubs win. Both routes are nerve wracking. Imagine having to watch Max Kings goal kicking to decide whether you're in Sydney for the first final. Then again, beating Brisbane over there and making top 4 should suffice. Let the chips fall where they may after that.

Well it would certainly be hilarious if Petracca ran through Cripps in a replica of the same incident in the opening minute of the game and got off next Thursday for the Brisbane match

I wouldn't have thought Cripps highlight tape is that long

University

It would have to be a pick swap surely. Freo's 1st and 2nd for Collingwoods 1st and 2nd, if it's say 12-14 for 16-17? and 30-32 for 34-35. Anyway, Clark is just spitballing like we are.

That seems like a pipe dream on the surface DJ, as I would assume it would be closer to 200-250 a year if we're simply allocating Jacksons dosh to Grundy. BUT what will be an interesting quandary for the Pies, is how long can they hold out on money negotiations if they need Grundy to go to prevent DeGoey DeGoing to the Saints and McStay McComing to the Pies. Would they get desperate and do the 400k deal ? What kind of pick would they demand off us? If we hold out long enough to pressure them, would they do Grundy for a late pick AND take a good enough 300-400k chunk We have some leverage to get a good deal like you said.

2 really good forwards taken with very high picks? I hope you take photo's of the secret Friday morning r23 meeting between Adam Simpson and Dogga in an airport lounge when he arrives "early" for Geelong and we fly up to Brisvegas

The implication of us having 700k or so for the next 5 years for Grundy, would seem to be that we do not have any other big KPF recruit in the pipeline for the foreseeable future. It's win now with what we have, what JVR becomes and what other smaller pieces we can acquire via free agency and trade

Injury prone seems a bit of a stretch as well. Edit: No doubt we will want to manage any particular re-occurences of his pcl going forward, but he's been pretty durable.

Grundy in our fitness program, dropping some kg's over the summer (Like Max did) would be a decent get on 700k a year, it's worth the risk if the club and medical department have had a good look and think we can do a better job of managing his body.

I don't have the CD Data, no one does - I guess we need to find out how many marks inside 50 do we average a game as Spargo contributes to 1 of those since the bye. His season avg of inside 50's is 3 and earlier form closer to 4. so 1.5-2 marks inside 50 still seems a somewhat valuable contribution as we head into the finals, if he can recapture some of that earlier season form. Anyway Good point, lesson learnt on actually diving deeper on a stat you've overheard in the media! I should actually know better considering I was harping on about CD not revealing the pressure ratings of all 18 teams!

Wasn't there a stat that said 46% of Spargo's inside 50's result in a mark, which is the best in the comp? And our next best player is Viney at 19% which is the league avg and every other player is below. Dropping Spargo sounds like a great way to fix our forward connection

The only parallel I think you can draw is how the forward line set up of 1 tall in Riewoldt and a 4-5 mosquito fleet of smalls w/ a mid-sized forward in Josh Caddy ended up failing to be enough to mount any kind of efficient come-back against the Pies in a prelim, who rattled them early with fast football that caught their defenders in 1 on 1's, The initial surge of 5-7 goals was enough to keep the Tigers at bay as the Collingwood defenders swamped Riewoldt in 3 on 1's all game. They went and recruited Tom Lynch in the off-season and the rest is history. Whatever happens this year, we will still need to go and recruit a key position forward or at worst a stop-gap kpf to replace Mitch Brown and be depth for a hopefully injury free TMAC and JVR as he develops. It's actually the opposite to 2018 for Richmond, they had a very soft run into the finals and it did not help them, it hindered them. If you can recall that Hawthorn supplanted us in the top 4 and Richmond took care of them pretty comfortably before getting the week off. Hoping this tough month right now could do the opposite for us in prepping us for the finals

Is Jordon still a lock for that wing? While I'm unable to assess his running patterns, space holding and km's run from a watchafl subscription, I found his reaction time with the ball in hand lethargic and slow paced. He wasnt manic or 'surging' enough with his disposal, which in turn meant worse entries forward., It may have been to do with Collingwoods pressure though. But harking back to the question: do we want to bring anyone else in or make positional changes again: like Harmes returning to the middle, Gus to the Wing, Hunt or Bowey in defence but also sharing some time on that wing with Gus drifting back or wherever needed ie a rotational wing etc

I hope Goodwin is not trying his best to create a 16-22 of players that missed out last year, purely out of the goodness of his heart and also in relation to the May incident ie Melksham, Smith and then persisting with Hunt, Jordon, Weid ... when there might we better options and/or positional shifts that are an improvement on their current output. I eagerly await the facepalms for that hot-take

I recall a stat for Sydney that they are 17/3 for last quarters won. I say this, as it bodes well for them ending Collingwoods streak this week and being our QF matchup away or at the G (If we win both our games)