stevethemanjordan

Correction: McKenzie did not play on Ablett last year. He held O'meara and Prestia whilst it was Jones, Vince and Howe minding Gary. My point still stands however. Would rather McKenzie not play.

That's the attitude..

Well it's a big 'if'. I know poster's like to bring up the time McKenzie did a good job on Ablett which was in 2013 if I remember correctly. But last year Ablett was best on ground with 32 disposals and two goals. McKenzie gave away four free kicks also and contributed nothing to our side when we had the ball. If Jones were to go head to head with Ablett in the centre, we know we'll get some involvement and contribution when we do have the ball. And Ablett would have to be more accountable because of it. That's just my view. I think opting to go with McKenzie as a hard tag is too risky. Yes he could do a good job, but he could also be ineffective and if that were the case, it'd be as if we were down a player on the field. We'll find out soon enough.

Sometimes I don't understand comments like this.Why does leaving him at Casey equate to developing him properly? All players have different areas to develop and will develop at different stages and in different areas. In my eyes, it's our management of first year players in the past that has greatly hindered 'development'. Angus is developing just fine. And if he gets his chance on the weekend it's because he has shown that he is ready to contribute at AFL level. It's how we manage him for the season that will be different. Just as it was for JKH and Salem last year.

I'm a glass half full kind of guy. I'd say Garland has had one really solid and consistent year, a couple of bad ones due to various reasons including injury and the rest of his career has been 'meh' to me. Improvement as a team comes from a team of improving individuals. See Nathan Jones.

I highly doubt it. I think Roos' move to play our skipper on the best mids of opposition teams proved to be successful last year. We know Ablett will get the ball no matter who is on him, but we also want him to be accountable when we have possession of the ball and he'll be a helluva lot more accountable on Jones than he would be on McKenzie as we know the quality of Jones decision making, kicking and ability to kick goals. I know there are some who hate hearing it, but McKenzie literally offers nothing offensively. I'd much prefer Jones going head to head with Ablett. It's a no brainer, really.

I'm almost certain most of them came from the Freo game for him.

Well unfortunately this is the AFL, and at his age and games experience and after a full pre-season, you'd expect him to want have a really consistent and solid season down back like Jetta or Dunn did last year. We need to live in the now. I once saw Juice Newton tear a quarter up as if he'd magically turned into superman. Does it mean we should have kept hold of him because we saw a tiny glimpse of what he can produce? If a player isn't performing consistently well at age 27 with a fair amount of games experience, it's a worrying sign. Garland needs to give the club a reason to want to keep him this year. He needs a big year.

Completely forgot about him. I'd swap him for M Jones and start Toump on the pine.

Seems many posters don't have a starting spot for Garland which I agree with. I'd be very interested in knowing how many free kicks he gave away over that NAB challenge period. To me that says he is down on confidence. The other thing that worries me about him is his lack of intensity when in and around the contest. He just doesn't seem desperate enough. I'd be starting Frost in defence and Gawn starting in the goal square. Howe and and Vince get a game regardless of 'game time' they've missed. I'd be happy for them both to be managed minutes wise and I think they can both play HB with stints forward, one of them perhaps starting sub. Brayshaw gets a game also based on his form over the last three games. Perfect sub candidate too. Start him half forward, give him a few centre bounce starts and sub him off. Those three players will give us something that a handful on our list still don't give us. 'Meaningful possessions and disposals'. I don't care if they don't accumulate many possessions, but as long as Vince splits the game open with his kicking, Howe saves some counter attacks forward for the GC with his marking and Gus' smart decision making, contested work and ability to kick a goal then I'll be happy. That is much better than having Bail running around not being able to 'impact' on the game, or Garland playing a defensive job giving away free kicks to his man and not contributing to any attack from defence etc. We need quality decision makers and players who can really impact on games even if they don't see much of the ball. We're playing a highly skilled side so we need to make the most of every inside 50 entry. Players who can't find targets by foot will be found out against GC. And no Saty, I don't mean being able to hit a sideways target 20 metres on their own. I'm talking about attacking, proactive kicking that is executed properly. Which reminds me, Kent gets a game too. So Ins: Howe, Vince, Brayshaw and Kent. Outs: Bail, Garland, M Jones and Pedo. B: Jetta Dunn Frost HB: Howe McDonald Salem C: Lumumba Tyson Kent HF: Watts Hogan Brayshaw FF: Garlett Gawn JKH Foll: Jamar Jones Viney Int: Cross Toumpas Grimes Sub: Vince With Garlett, Salem, Kent, Salem and Toumpas all having the ability to rotate, it should be enough to cover the managed time of Howe and Brayshaw whilst they're on.

I reckon if Howe and Vince play for Casey next weekend and play well enough, Roos will play them both in Round 1. We need Vince's decision making and kicking and Howe is a big point of difference player who also makes good decisions and kicks fine. Vince comes in for Matt Jones or Bail and Howe in for Garland.

I agree that the outs, (Ablett is still no certain out) as they stand obviously help our chances. But I rate Gold Coast. They have serious skill and speed. We don't. It will be our contested work around the ball and ball movement that need to be spot on if we're to win.

You're kidding yourself if you think they're nothing without those two players.Gold Coast have serious talent and good depth. We're in for a tough game whether it's with Ablett and O'Meara or without them.

Nasher, these are the kinds of comments that don't do this place any good. How as supporter's must we demand improvement if we're willing to let a 'good' season two years ago excuse average to poor form over the next few. It's nab cup and as one of our senior players we must demand more! It's as simple as that. The team simply won't get better if we're happy to see such fluctuations of form from senior individuals. I'm not writing Colin off at this stage, but the signs from his first game were shocking and last weekend's game was average from my point of view for a player who should now be playing consistently good footy whether injured during pre-season or not. I'm talking about the basics here. Desire to compete, concentration, decision making. He is 27 or 28. Not 18. Do we want this [censored] team to lift and rise the ladder? Or will we continually be making excuses for players who should be performing every week? There's a reason we have been so bad for so long. The fact that Nathan Jones is the only player I can name as someone who has consistently improved his game every year since the beginning of our dark days is extremely significant. The inconsistency in form of others over the same period who are still on our list is simply not good enough. There can be no argument for that. Frawley, Dunn, Garland, Jamar and now to a lesser extent Grimes, McKenzie, Bail. All of them should be, (and in the case of Frawley was) on notice. If they cannot consistently improve from now on in, they'll be gone.

Perhaps.I'm only commenting on what I saw. And I saw plenty of the possession hold up footy that we've been seeing over the past year that seems to be looked at in a really positive way here. Maybe it's because we actually have the ball in our hands for longer periods which is exciting for some because in the past it's been so hard for us simply get the ball. I understand that it seems like we're still in a learning phase of what to be doing when we have the ball from the backhalf during a slow play build up but at the same time it's frustrating because there are some pretty senior statesmen down there who I expect to be looking to play in a more proactive way. I agree the first half there were some really nice, quick and effective pieces of play from our backhalf to the forwardline. That was also to do with the doggies not being very accountable and we saw the difference in the second half when they did tighten up. We became stagnant again in the backhalf with not many willing to take the game on. Garland and Grimes seem to always be 'preferring' to look sideways or backwards. Even when there are definite options upfield. The question then becomes why won't they honour those options? Look at someone like McDonald, he is someone who absolutely seeks that target upfield. He has the confidence to take the opposition on and break a line with the intention of hitting the target upfield. He doesn't have the kicking precision of Vince or Watts but he seems to be more willing to attempt that attacking play when he needs to. They don't always come off, but at least you can see what he's thinking so it's not as frustrating. As for Tyson and Salem and their clangers. Of course I notice them and all clangers are frustrating. But Tyson gives so much to our team with his clearance work, quick hands, contested ball winning, goal kicking etc. When players provide so much for the team, they can be excused for clangers. Salem as well, his stronger attributes outweigh his weaker ones and whilst he made some bad decisions on the weekend, he provides for the team. Garland is the major worry for me atm and I won't be surprised at all if he doesn't make the team for round 1. Defensively, he hasn't been anywhere near it. His intensity is at an all time low and his kicking and decision making is well down.

Kicking the ball backwards and sideways most of the day is going to equate to a high efficiency is it not?JC.. I'm not bagging Grimes here but there's a difference between hitting a free target when under extremely little pressure and trying to hit up a target under pressure and with metres gained. Grimes was fine on the weekend (like most AFL players are) when he looked to switch or kick backwards to a free player. His trouble comes when looking for the pass up the field when there are not so many obvious options but there are still options. He doesn't have the confidence to go for them because he doesn't believe he can hit them. The 'positive' from Grimes performance on the weekend was that there weren't as many mistakes made from him. When he is pressured, he worries and often makes the wrong decision by either hand-balling or kicking when he shouldn't have. I don't think he necessarily played well. How does one determine 'playing well'? I think most seem to have different answers. But mine is definitely not looking at a stats sheet, seeing a player get it 20+ times at a high disposal efficiency and saying that player had a good game. His game was fine.

Kent established himself as best 22 on the back half of last year... Howe and Vince are the only ones who would slot straight in. There was a reason Pedo was playing for Casey this week. Trenners and Petracca are obviously not best 22 because of their injuries and the last two are first year players. What I should have said was, 'pretty much our best 22'.

Whether he changed things or not isn't really the point. I'm not so sure about any of that logic really. I highly doubt Roos thinks that the skill-level and effort for most of the last half is acceptable, regardless of the positives he chose to speak of in his post game interview. Posters choose to look at these games in either a positive way or a negative way. Of course there were many individual positives to come out of yesterday's game. Our new recruits for one are obviously a revelation. Lamumba, Frost, Garlett, Newton really offer a lot to the team. I'm happy Jesse is just out there, regardless of the fact he didn't have a great day yesterday. The question I keep asking myself is how we almost let a VFL standard team run over the top of what was extremely close to our best 22 is how? How does it happen? Unlike some, I refuse to even entertain the same lines being thrown around here such is 'it's a practice match', 'positions were changed', 'the coaches were experimenting with setups' etc. They are excuses disguising the fundamental and deep rooted problems that still exist at our club whether people like it or not. That is not to say that some positional changes etc may have some sort of effect on the way we match up. Of course it will. There is an inherent lack of skill and decision making when It comes to kicking the ball at our club. There is an inherent lack of concentration and discipline to compete at all times from certain players still at our club. These were the two reasons we let them back into the game yesterday. Not anything else. And once they were let back in, variables such as momentum for them and doubt for us etc became catalysts for what 7 goals to 0 in the second half (or whatever it was). The number one problem for me yesterday was the pointless over-possession of the ball when we were making a slow play, resulting usually in a turnover once any forward movement was made. You only have to look at our scoring shots, our inside 50's and our possession count/dominance to realise how much pointless sideways kicking goes on from players who will continue to do because of an inherent lack of skill. People may think I'm looking at the whole thing too negatively, but these are real issues that are the root causes for dramatic quarter or half dropouts that we see with this team. It's not anything else. We almost* our best 22 on the park yesterday. Remember that.

Garland Grimes McKenzie Matt Jones None of these guys offer enough at AFL level. None of them. I'll be very surprised to see any of them in the side for Round 1. We've got other players who do offer enough at AFL level but they all have kicking weaknesses too. It's far too many players. We don't have enough quality kickers and it continues to kill us.

Is there not a reason you can think of as to why people call him out for it?! Seriously man. You've completely lost it.

Haha. You're hilarious. It's pretty easy to pick good footballers from ordinary ones. And it's as clear as day that you are absolutely incapable of doing so.

Can't say I expected anything less. Doggies are seriously undermanned. Some positives from a lot of our youngsters. Grimes, McKenzie, Matt Jones. The sooner we upgrade, the better. How does Grimes consistently run team mates into trouble?

Fitness levels are all well and good but it's as if people speak about it being the difference between us being competitive and non competitive. We've seen we can compete. There is no question of that any longer. Look at the stats we were deplorable in from last year and they all point to one thing. Ability to hit targets quickly and often. It really is as simple as that for us at the moment.

Bar Vince and Howe, it's very close to our best 22 vs a very young dogs side without a handful of their most important players. As I'm sure there'll be those who continuously play down NAB cup, completely disregarding the way top half teams approach these challenge games vs bottom half teams and adopting the 'they're practice games so they mean nothing'. The 'they mean nothing' comments, I agree with, so far as to say we don't win or lose premiership points. But, this game on Saturday will showcase close to our best 22. We have an extremely experienced side playing. The skill level of our side continues to concern me, especially the handful of players who last week hopefully proved to some that players' individual skill-level doesn't magically change over one pre-season and doesn't change a hell over the course of their careers once at AFL level. I expect us to easily account for the doggies. And I will be seriously concerned if we don't due to the reasons I have stated.

Obviously relieving to hear he is fine, but seriously, wtf. How unlucky can the bloke be?! Look at someone like Jones and I honestly can't remember him being in doubt for a game because of inury. He just doesn't get injured. Then you get a young promising talent who takes a year to get over a serious back injury, and upon return someone stands on his foot which is serious enough to require scans.. All I can hope is that there is no trend emerging here. It's hard to relax with all the 'luck' we've received over the past few seasons.