Wiseblood

Howled down? Hardly. I thought we had a good discussion about that, and I showed plenty of respect for your position. No need to act like a petulant child.

Do people here actually want to talk about the other games, or is this just an opportunity for most to find other ways to sink the boots into the club? Dean Kent gets a couple of kicks and all of a sudden we've let go a future Brownlow medallist. Ben King kicks a few goals and then doesn't touch it in the second half and we've allowed an amalgam of Wayne Carey, Gary Ablett Sr. and Tony Lockett to slip through our fingers. To the actual game, I thought it went as expected - GC were always going to find it tougher outside of their own state, while the Cats are a 6-8 goal better side on their home deck. When Ablett, Selwood, Hawkins, Danger etc all retire in the coming years, they won't be much chop.

Maybe over the last couple of years, during the middle part of this decade we beat them on a regular basis. We generally match up well against the Tiges and I'm confident we can knock them off.

"Melbourne's Grand Final this weekend." They wish. That's Queen's Birthday, so joke's on them.

The Pies are also showing how not to use a mid/small forward line. They're bombing it in there in the hope they can pull something out of their back pocket, and it's not working. If we want our experiment to work, then we had better use it a little more efficiently than this.

Okay... but going by your opinion from earlier, you said Kozzie and Rivers are being gifted games. If that's the case, then you would believe that others deserve to be there ahead of them. Otherwise, they are there because they deserve to be and are not being gifted games at all. While I have plenty of respect for him, and think he has always given 100% during some very tough times, I think the game might be passing Jonesy by. That's not to say he can't play a role in the side, but he was awful against Carlton. He deserved to be dropped. I'm not too sure he is the answer.

Absolutely. Nothing wrong with having that opinion. I'm just taking a different one. No worries from my end. To me, I think it's terrific to see that injection of youth. Both Rivers and Kozzie are giving us something we lack - Rivers is playing the 'Hibberd' role a little and we can see that he is already confident enough to take the game on, while also doing some good work defensively. Kozzie is fantastic to watch and he already looks as though he belongs at this level. Age should be no barrier to selection, and those two are good examples of it. Just curious - who would you play instead of both Kozzie and Rivers if you had to make those changes? If they're being 'gifted games', as you put it, then I would have thought you had others in mind to play that role.

But the idea that someone is being 'gifted' games is that they don't deserve them. Clearly, both of these boys deserve their spots as they have been good at senior level so far. Rivers looks like a 10 year plus player for us, while Kozzie brings an exciting dynamic to our forward line, one we have been crying out for for a while. They have more than justified their selection in the side, and thus are not being 'gifted' games. And on form, right now, is Jetta better than Lockhart? Hard to say. I love Nev, but his form has been poor. Lockhart probably didn't do a whole lot better on the weekend so they would cancel each other out. No, Bennell isn't a better option than Kozzie. Kozzie has already proven that. While Harley is a slick ball user, he can't run out games and doesn't do nearly the amount of defensive work that Kozzie does. So, in my opinion, those three you mentioned are not being gifted games at all. While Lockhart would need a better game than last week to potentially keep his spot, his pre-season form and his game against the Eagles suggests that he has earned the right to get games. Rivers and Kozzie are, to me, already best 22 players and will be for a long time to come.

What 'kids' are being gifted games? And no, Lockhart isn't in that boat. While he made a few mistakes last weekend, his pre-season form was excellent, as was his game against the Eagles prior to the shutdown. Even Goodwin said he was unlucky to miss the Carlton game. What other kids are being 'gifted games'?

Its my only minor problem with selection. I do think we need that extra tall in the side to complement T Mac. Otherwise the side is fine. We can moan about no Bennell all we like, but it ain't changing much.

He is a young tall, and one who showed some good signs at the end of 2018. With Hogan on the way out we needed to ensure that we kept those young players around. I still have some faith left that we can turn him into a player, as he is still pretty young and some talls take more time than others. The coaching staff must want him to work on some things before he gets a run in the seniors, and with a full list to pick from I'm not surprised that they might go for someone like Brown ahead of him at this point in time.

To be fair, our back six has been good so it would be tough for Jetta to get a look in. Jones was awful against Carlton so I'm not surprised that they haven't brought him back into the side just yet. While I'd be happy to see Weid given a run, I think right now Brown would offer more forward, while Jackson can also ruck and then leave Tomlinson to play a full game in his natural position. Spargo is a 'meh' selection but I highly doubt he'll play.

While I'm far from confident, I highly doubt we'll be 'smashed'. Our defensive unit, at the very least, has been terrific since we came back from the break. I'd expect that to continue this week.

Spargo won't play. It will be Brown or Jackson in for possibly AVB. Goodwin spoke of continuity, so I can see us making just the one change and adding a little extra height to the side. That's fine with me. We can whinge about Spargo coming in all we like (even though he won't play), but Jones and Jetta were both way out of form and Bennell could barely get through 50% of a game while avoiding as much contact as possible. I know that's to be expected after so long out of the game, but they clearly want him to get some of that confidence back before they give him another dip at AFL level. Changes are fine by me as we're potentially adding in a tall player, which is what we need.

Goodwin was spot on with a few things in that presser. Our defensive work has been terrific. No doubt about it. We are working well around the contest and generally with our pressure, which we know is something we pride ourselves on. We do need some continuity in our side. And, yes, our use forward of the ball needs some work. I think the main issue for most of us is this - Goody can see what isn't working, but does he have the capacity to make the right changes to fix it? I think at the very least they are trialling a smaller, speedier forward line, but the problem is that we are still kicking it inside 50 like we always do - long bombs to a contest and we rarely lower our eyes and look for the right option. This idea of a contest, bringing the ball to ground and locking it in there is sound in principle, but it clearly isn't working for us. It might be time to change that aspect up a little. Either way, I'm interested to see the changes this week and how we go against one of the better defensive units in the competition.

What were we screaming out for a few years back? A proper back up ruckman for Max. So we went out and got one and gave him a contract that would keep him around. He can't do anything else but play in the ruck to be fair, but we got what we wanted. When he plays on his own he can do enough to make up for what we would lose in Gawn.

I might be...

Not too dissimilar to our performance against Carlton a few weeks back.

This is it for me. No doubt they have improved since last year, but they've had arguably the easiest run out of any team so far in the comp. We will see their true improvement when they face a few real tests in the coming weeks.

We recruited him as a wingman. Bit harsh to judge it on three games where he has been far from our worst. He'll be fine.

Not to mention that we held both teams 'goalless' in one of those quarters, while generally keeping them to only 1 or 2 goals in the other. Our defence, and the players we traded to get in there, are far from the problem right now. It's what's happening further upfield that is the greater concern.

If May is considered 'elderly' then I'm a certified grandpa.

Spot on, Pennant. People will bemoan the trade, we gave up next year's first rounder and blah blah blah. Pickett is exactly the type of player we need. Rivers has made a terrific start to his career and, while Jackson will take time, he is the prototype to the modern AFL player. Tall, agile, smart and a good user of the footy for a kid his size. He will develop and become a major part of our side down the track.

If we continue on the path we are heading, then I would say we could start a thread that says 'not many involved at the club are the right guy', as you would expect heads to roll if we were to finish bottom 6. However, who knows what this season holds right now? Fixtures are up in the air, hubs are creating chaos... we have no idea how much of the season there is left to play, and what standard it will be if it goes ahead. The only thing in their favour right now is that we have three games to go on. One was a loss out West before restrictions took place (thus, the Eagles were a different proposition to the one now stuck in a hub). We rolled Carlton by a point, and lost to the Cats by two. Granted, we probably only played 2-3 quarters worth of watchable football out of the 8 played, but I think we need a bigger sample size before we start chucking these guys off the West Gate. But questions will get asked, and rightly so, if we can't get our game together. That will fall on Goodwin first, but you would assume others like Mahoney might step away as well to help give the club a bigger refresh at admin level. I wouldn't be opposed to that as it would make sense. To me, there is still some water to go under the bridge until we reach that point, but there isn't a whole lot of water left.

With WERRIDEE picking the side five weeks in advance?