Forest Demon

Pleased we fought back because alarm bells were ringing half way through that quarter. We don’t have enough weapons to drop off in the middle, it is our strength.

FFS, called it through the week. Let a better team than Freo win 8 clearances on the trot and we will pay the price.

Played reasonably well and should have a better lead to show for it. Agree on Fritsch, what the f@#k has happened to his goal kicking? Hasn’t been the same the last couple of years.

And don’t forget Braeden Campbell, just about best on today, and another straight out of the academy.

And I said this before last week, but I think Pickett is one of our most important players. He adds something completely different, and could win a game if he gets it 15/20 times.

Despite our win last year in Alice Springs, I’m just worried, like many, that it’s not a great match up for us with the speed at which they move the ball. We can win, but it will require a big midfield improvement. Saints defence does look gettable. It would be great to see one of TMac, Fritsch, or maybe even Jackson kick a few.

Just going by the eye test, Viney is explosive with good acceleration. I’d say he is quick over 5/10 meters, but average to slow over 100. And he also looks much slower when he is hampered by his foot injury, which hopefully he isn’t tonight. Like Jack Trengove, who sadly became an absolute plodder with his foot injury.

Must admit, that Saints team hardly strikes fear on paper in terms of names. But as usual, they have a lot of run and speed.

Our mids let Freo exit out of the front of stoppages way too easily last week. They are still getting sucked into the inside and leaving too many opportunities for opponents to get really clean clearances. Hopefully this week, we have a better balance and block off those exits a little better. If we do that, and control the midfield battle better than we did last week, we can win. Otherwise, we can forget it, St Kilda will cut us up more than Freo were able to.

Bobby Hill? I’ve either missed the joke or the game against GWS?

Tough [censored] Danger. Catch ya in Round 20 or whenever we play Geelong next. Unlikely, but fingers crossed dads army has bombed out of finals contention by then.

He’s done pretty well with what we had, but jury is still out for me on the 2017 and 2018 selections. I’ve said it in other threads, but we need Spargo, Sparrow and Jordon to become solid role players, and signs were mostly promising on the weekend. Oliver was a great selection, especially considering Parish was the safe bet at hat very selection. He came from nowhere and looked like a real gamble as a chubby country kid. Comfortably the best player from that draft.

He was pretty good Saturday, but that is the standard he needs meet at a minimum week in week out imo. Ideally he would be getting a little bit more of the ball. He’s a good user of the ball and his tackling looked a bit stronger as well on the weekend. Promising signs.

This could go either way. Everything is on the table, from no changes to Goody bringing back all his favourites in Viney, Melksham and Vanders. If it were me, it would be Viney in for Sparrow most likely, and that’s it.

Yes, Freo had the first 8 clearances, but I certainly didn’t feel like we were “dominating”. Freo’s ball use early was disgraceful, and they could have easily put us to the sword early. I think we are playing a very dangerous game if we concede clearances to that extent against better sides.

Doing the math, looks like the coaches saw it basically the same. Only difference is they had Lever and Oliver swapped around as 2nd and 3rd best on.

I think he is. Gus is solid enough, but don’t think he will get back to his best for whatever reason. Andrew is a very good young player.

Whoever gave those votes has gone off the stats sheet and clearly didn’t watch the game. Tbf, that’s basically how Brownlow votes tend to go as well, so to answer the thread title, of course not.

Looking for an improved midfield performance, especially with Viney likely back in. If we do this, we are a good chance.

Geez, there are some pretty ordinary takes in this thread. Oliver is an absolute must keep.

100% agree. Probably didn’t have a big day stats wise, but he is high impact. I said it in another thread, but he is going to be very important for us this year.

Such a weird performance where our strength was actually our weakness, but we still got the win. I’ve always said we are too reliant on contested footy and that it isn’t sustainable, so it was nice to get a win through other means. In saying that, better teams will punish us if we play like that too often. And thank god for May and Lever, they were absolutely massive yesterday.

Exactly. We know how teams are going to play our midfield, they even say it in interviews, they force us under the ball and spread away, yet we never seem to try anything to combat that.

They keep waltzing it out of the middle. Luckily we have a Lever and May shaped wall in front of our goals, otherwise Freo would be on top.

Once we matched them around the ball we got on top. Somewhat lucky early they kept butchering it.