Wiseblood

Let's be honest - we're not the cleanest side at the best of times, and this dew is playing havoc with us at the moment. Can't fault the endeavour one bit, but if we don't clean it up a little, then we can't win this game of footy.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, he is the WORST special comments person on air. Loves the sound of his own voice, points out the bleeding obvious and can't say it succinctly. Has to waffle on and on to make his point. Can't stand the bloke.

Two players stood out the most: Tim Smith. Clunked some marks and used it pretty well. Can he cement a spot as a third tall? And I've loved Goodwin's move of giving Hibberd the job on Martin. He's kept Dusty quiet while also winning a bit of the bill himself. Great to see Goody trying a few different things.

Loved that first term. More pressure, better use going forward and I feel like we tightened up defensively. The test will be to keep it up for three more quarters, but the early signs are good. One thing we need to fix is the bomb out of defence. You can't always be precise, but we can't allow them uncontested marks with repeat entries. They'll score from them eventually.

How good was that? Took the right options, worked hard to get forward and lowered our eyes. Great work.

I'm currently keeping one eye on a three month old in a bouncer, one eye on the game and one eye on here. I've got three eyes somehow.

I also think the opposition plays him with more respect than some of our other players, and that helps as well. Takes a player away from the contest a little.

Jeffy was superb then. The vision to go back into the middle set this shot for goal up.

Classic Melbourne.

Jay has found the lock to my hart.

I like Jay Lockhart's start as well. Very handy indeed. Pressure is good, but we'll see how we go when the Tigers settle a little.

Bull Smith has started superbly.

Frost shoved. No free. Brilliant.

I saw that and thought instantly 'I wonder which poster will bring that up on Demonland?'. You didn't disappoint. Means nothing. We did it last year and lost, so it makes no difference.

Depends how we use it going forward, and how often we make a contest. If we can at least break even in a marking contest and get it to ground, you would hope the additions of Garlett and Lockhart would go someway to helping us create some pressure and to keep the ball locked in there, which is what we want. But if we bomb it to 2 or 3 on 1s, then we're in trouble. Big trouble.

Sucked me in too! Thought for sure it was a late out!

I know it can still happen after they finalise the teams, but they said 30 minutes or so ago that there are no late changes for either side. Edit - just saw the tweet was less than 10 minutes ago, so it sounds like we have lost someone in the warm up.

I'd love to see T Mac down back tonight. I know he has the odd brain fart moments, but he brings some experience and we know he can match it with the best. It might help to bring back some confidence in his game as well.

It's ugly anyway when Tiger supporters are involved.

Dees by 1 point. ANB to pick up a ground ball cleanly, break two tackles and slot it from the boundary from 50 metres out with 5 seconds left. The kick sails so far into the stands that it smashes Alex Rance in the face.

And that's okay by me. I see it as a problem, but I have our fitness levels, pre-season and availability of key players as a bigger problem for me. Our gameplan does work, but we need the players to not only implement it, but to be able to run out games to do so. We are far short of that at the minute. I'm not discounting the skills and pace aspect, but when we were on last year, we didn't look like a slow side at all due to how well we could move the ball. Right now we aren't running or hitting contests hard enough, and that is down to the injuries and poor pre-season we've had. But I know supporters see it differently, which is more than okay. If we all agreed all the time this board would be very boring!

I hope that's not me, as it wasn't my intention to try and suggest you're wrong. I just probably don't have it as high on my 'need to fix' list as you do. Nothing wrong with that.

And those are fair points too. Hindsight in terms of how we've drafted is always something that comes up. Who knows how such players were viewed in the inner sanctum? Petrucelle had a ripper on the weekend, but had done little prior to that. He may go on to be a mainstay in the Eagle side, or her may not. Time will tell. I appreciate the robust discussion on the topic, though. It's made a pretty bland Wednesday a little more enjoyable before the game!

True - I'm not saying either will make it, but we've drafted in some pace. Clearly, the club identified that our key position stocks in the back half was a major issue. Many on here agreed. Now we're getting stuck into the club that we didn't address the fact that we need more pace. We can't necessarily do both in one hit. Not only that, pace can be overrated in terms of what that player can bring to the side. Outside runners, to me, are far more hit and miss than anywhere else on the ground. Cale Morton bring a prime example.

We had one first round pick - how long has the club been crying out for a proper key back? Posters have been pleading for it for years, so we added May for the Hogan pick, and obviously we got Lever into the club as well. Guys like Butters, for example, were therefore not available to us. Sparrow doesn't exactly look slow on the minimal stuff I've seen of him, although as you say, he came to us more as a contested player. If we had gone into this season with just Oscar and Frost as our key backs while we wait for Lever to return, most supporters on here would be getting stuck into the club for not addressing that need. Instead, we traded for it, and now we are bemoaning not going to the draft to get more pace. Pace is a minor part of our problem and, to address it, you need players to come in who have the stamina to use that pace all day. The only bloke out there available to fill that role for us was Polec, and North threw a war chest at him which no one else could match. We also drafted in Bedford as that project small forward with pace, and we did also add Oskar Baker the previous year. But, right now as a club, we can't do anything right. We did what so many wanted - get in a key back to push one of Oscar or Frost out of the side. Now we are upset we didn't bring in pace and skill.