titan_uranus

As a reminder of the importance of these early season wins: We have 15 games to go, and of those 10 of them are against the current top 8.

Dogs struggling to get away from a pretty average Essendon. Everyone's waiting for the Dogs to start a fightback to save their season. I'm not convinced it's going to happen. Right now it seems the best sides in it outside of us are Fremantle, Brisbane and Sydney. That may well be the top 4. Geelong has a whole lot of weapons but can't stop sides scoring. St Kilda and Carlton are 5-2 but neither is convincing.

So just to be clear, your summation of those players' games would be to highlight singular mistakes each one made?

6 - Gawn 5 - Petracca 4 - Oliver 3 - Viney 2 - May 1 - Bowey

Trac and Pickett can be selfish a bit too much, agree with you there, but to lump Fritsch and Brown in with them is harsh IMO. TMac right up there with the first two unfortunately. I can understand how TMac's mistake marking Harmes' goal happens, but it really shouldn't have (he was under zero pressure, it's not like he was worried it might have been spoiled or marked).

Smith will miss through injury - Petty takes his spot if he's ready to go, Tomlinson I suppose if Petty's not ready. If Sparrow, Pickett and Jackson are OK to come back, they come straight back. I reckon the FD will value TMac's positional flexibility, and they may well have considered Weid the true Jackson replacement given Weid did the relief ruckwork. Melksham makes way for Sparrow, but that then leaves a tough question on who makes way for Pickett. Bedford is the positional replacement but it would be tough to drop him. Does he hold his spot over, say, Dunstan?

My point about Smith and Hunt is that both can be loose and aggressive and when they're both doing that at the same time it presents difficulties with our zone and coverage. It's been a weakness for us all year when both have been in the side. Ideally we'd only have one player like them in the back six, and I suspect we'll see that again when Petty comes back to presumably place the injured Smith.

Having had the chance now to watch the replay, I walk away impressed by that performance despite the indicators that it wasn't near our best. Hawthorn approached us tactically in a way that I expect other capable sides to do this year. Faster ball movement and leaving forwards deeper. But to do both of those things requires you to be able to play near-perfect football for four quarters and Hawthorn can't - as a result, their turnovers gave us goals in the first half and then our stoppage game got going in the second half, which I'm sure was in part because they kept deep forwards rather than rolling players up to stoppages. Better sides will do it for longer and that will present big tests for us. But last night we managed to stem the tide, absorb the punches against us, and then counter, a hallmark of ours, despite missing 6 best 22 players and Lever seemingly not fully fit. Gawn and Trac were great, Oliver worked through his tag pretty well I thought. Langdon copped a tag and whilst he didn't get any of the ball I rated his defensive work. May had a lot on his plate with Lever seemingly not fully fit, Smith poor before injury and TMac again having to plug a hole. Really liked Bedford's approach, showing his wares with a full game. The half volley collect for Brown's snap goal was amazing but by and large he is still not clean enough at ground ball and that's a big area in which he needs to improve. Forward line work still not fully right. Brown did well to kick 4 (don't be fooled by three coming from frees, two of those frees were blatant and a result of Brown taking front position and the third was probably there, if a little lucky) with the way the ball was coming in and with usually both Frost and Sicily covering him. Had chances for 2-3 more goals but some of the kicks inside 50 were just no good, again. Fritsch and Weideman didn't ever appear to be able to get separation inside 50 and even though Bedford worked hard, he didn't have the sort of spark when the ball hit the deck that we might usually get from Pickett. Still, as I said earlier, with the disruption mid-week, the number of changes, and the aggression Hawthorn showed, that's the sort of game we'd be forgiven for dropping. Pocketing another win in those circumstances is huge IMO.

ANB won't be ready to go, will he? Only entered the protocols on Friday so won't be able to train mid-week.

I've only seen highlights but some early thoughts: These are the sorts of games we're "supposed" to be losing. We had five changes from last week, we have seven premiership players out (six of whom are clear best 22 players), we had three key forwards playing in the same side, none of whom are ruckmen (yet we asked one to ruck), we had Smith and Hunt in the same backline, we're playing Melksham who for long parts of the last 12 months has not been at AFL level form. But we're not just banking wins, we're doing so at a percentage of 146% We conceded 11.15. That's 26 scoring shots. That is the most any side has had against us since Round 20, 2019. Obviously 2020 was shortened quarters but that's a worse result than all of our premiership year. The 81 points against was the worst since we lost to the Dogs in our last loss, but inaccuracy stopped Hawthorn scoring more. That indicates we were not at our peak defensively, and arguably quite a fair way from it

Funnily, I feel the same way about our second halves, but we're also 6-0 in first quarters this year (the only team to have won all six first quarters, too). Grainger-Barras is technically "managed", although he's an emergency. I think maybe they're giving him a break.

So we'll be going in without Salem, Petty, Jackson, Pickett and Sparrow (and Hibberd, depending on your views on him). Hawthorn, meanwhile, will be missing Jiath, Lewis, Grainger-Barras and two ruckmen (McEvoy and Reeves).

Just to be clear, the emergencies are our second row of depth, not our first. Our first row of depth includes TMac, Dunstan, Smith, Bedford and (arguably) Hunt. They're all playing. When Salem, Petty, Jackson, Pickett and Sparrow return, that first row of depth returns to the emergencies and you'll be less concerned. Having four players forced out due to COVID and having the ability to bring in three premiership players in Lever, Viney and TMac, into a side that is 6-0, is a remarkable position to be in.

The fixturing decisions here aren't that surprising ultimately. Ideally Round 12 vs Sydney would be the Friday night, but Sydney already had the past two Friday nights. Mind you, Essendon's been given three Fridays in a row, but it doesn't surprise me that we missed out on the Friday night there. As for Round 15 vs Brisbane, again ideally it'd be the opening game on a Friday night but Channel 7 is obsessed with Thursday night games and given we are both coming off the bye that, again, is a no-brainer of a decision for the AFL. I would agree with @Lucifers Hero that there are too many Dogs games in prime time. Their first five games were FTA night games. They're Friday night in Rounds 8 and 9 and Saturday night Round 11, then have Friday night, Saturday night and Friday night games through Rounds 13-15. It looks like pretty much all of these games will be on Channel 7. Which really means any weekend you want to watch football, you're getting no choice but to watch the Dogs. Let's be honest: Fremantle vs Brisbane would be a far better Friday night game, on current form, than Bulldogs v Geelong in Round 12. But we're not getting Fremantle vs Brisbane in a prime time game. Because byes allow clubs to be scheduled on Thursday nights without short breaks. Without byes, clubs can only get into Thursday night off a five-day break (given they can't both be on a six-day break or you'd be repeating the previous round's Friday night game).

This article says Lever and Viney will play: https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/1112980/melbourne-trio-ruled-out-of-hawks-clash

Jack Higgins 5th in the coaches votes. Like everyone predicted pre-season.

Is it confirmed that they have COVID? As opposed to being required to isolate?

We don’t really exhibit a horses for courses style of selection policy, particularly in our back half, so I don’t think anyone can be best 22 “most” of the time. I also think he’s actually overly popular. He has far more fans on here than I reckon his career to date would suggest.

In 2020 we lost to Brisbane, Geelong, Port, Richmond, Sydney and West Coast, for each it was at least a second loss in a row (was 5 in a row for Richmond, 4 for West Coast and 3 for Port).

Everyone else in the top 8 has played at least one game against someone else in the top 8. All bar Carlton have a win against a top 8 side, too. Geelong have two.

I’m pretty confident the answer to my hypothetical question isn’t Jordon. He’s nailing his wing role. You know that Smith was fit to play last week but didn’t get recalled, right? He might have been in the QF team but we are one week removed from him not being considered best 22.

Serious question. If Salem were fit this week, would he take Hunt's spot, or Rivers'?

Both of them did hamstrings mid-week, Jiath's was on Friday. Would have to be minor for either to be available for our game this coming Saturday.

Hawks hitting the wall in the fourth quarter. They have a five day break into our game against them on Saturday...

6 - Oliver 5 - May 4 - Gawn 3 - Langdon 2 - Brayshaw 1- Petty