titan_uranus

We desperately need a second tall forward to play alongside Weideman. Whether that's TMac, Jackson, Petty or someone at another club, it has to be a focus. As such, if we're looking at players like Mihocek, that's a good start.

Don't know how you can be so definitive from the Tweet. If he was straight up asked if he wants to say and responded straight away with "Absolutely", surely that could be a sign the other way? Would have to listen to it to know for sure.

Deserves a nomination but there may be another player (e.g. Sholl) who played a better game this week. The nomination-based system for the Rising Star is dumb. Anyway, the recognition is nice but it also doesn't matter much. We've seen plenty of Rising Star winners not go on with it in their careers, and vice versa. Let's just enjoy what we've got in Rivers, which is a young kid who has the right attitude, clear talent, and has already shown an ability and willingness to improve his game even in his first year. The all-too-early signs are that our 2019 draft/trade period, bringing us Jackson, Pickett, Rivers and Langdon, has been a success.

If the Dogs end up 8th, you can put their qualification down, in no small part, to them managing not to drop a game to a rubbish side. GWS lost to Adelaide, Carlton lost to Adelaide, and we lost to Sydney.

I don't think "disastrous" is a fair assessment at all. Lever continually cut off GWS chains with spoils and intercepts. The missed kicks and dropped marks turned what should have been an excellent game into an average one, rather than an average one into a shocker. I agree that Smith/Jetta aren't really assisting with cohesion, that comment was more directed at Tomlinson. If we want to get Harmes/Sparrow back in for midfield rotations, which is probably a good idea, I'd be looking at one of vandenBerg, Hunt, Melksham or ANB. Spargo/Pickett are the true small forwards, whilst the other four seem to play minor roles in our forward half. I'd suggest Harmes would offer more with the spot that each of those first four have.

I feel like the kick outs are symptomatic of one of our issues, which is boring ball movement. We aim to not turn it over - so if we get a stoppage on the flank/wing, that's preferable to trying to go straight down the middle but turning it over. I don't actually have a problem with that as a general idea, but we need to spice it up from time to time. If we send everyone to one wing, have someone break into space on the other wing and see if we can't use that space.

Odds on Carlton winning this and trumpeting themselves as being fantastic?

Is there anyone on Demonland who doesn't think we stuffed our season up in Cairns? You've said you're after balanced discussion, but you don't seem to show any balance in your own posts. Would have thought Baker did more than enough last night to hold his spot. As usual, I don't agree on your assessment of Tomlinson. In a season where instability and a lack of cohesion has been as detrimental to our performance as anything else, I don't know if I can agree with swapping Tomlinson for Wagner (two games) or Hore (zero) at this stage of the year. Not the time for experimenting.

First two second half goals to Carlton. They've come back from the dead a few times already this year. Would not surprise me to see them close the gap on Adelaide, if not win it.

I know shorter quarters are a thing but we've already won four games this year by 43 points or more. If we do that again, we'd then only need GWS to win by a goal or two to pass St Kilda's percentage. It also means a pair of results by 24 points can do it. Having said that, St Kilda's only lost three games this year by more than a goal, and one was this week when they lost by 15. So it's not particularly likely for them to lose by a lot.

Maybe i should re-phrase. I don't think Weid has been as bad as you and others are suggesting. The lack of tackles is the big knock - as I've said, I agree wholeheartedly that he needs to lift his second efforts when the ball hits the deck. But as to the rest, you're looking across a pair of games in Cairns where our opponents (particularly Sydney) and our own ball movement made it difficult for him to get into the game. And as I've said, it's not like he's not buttering up and making marking contests. That part of his game has still been serviceable.

That may be so, but I'm not sure that Himmelberg had no impact because Smith blanketed him. It wasn't like they were kicking to him and Smith kept spoiling him or anything like that (compare with May and Lever who were repeatedly cutting off GWS forward entries). Still, better to have Himmelberg have no impact than some impact, and as I said, Smith was an important part of the overall defensive set up in the fourth quarter when we were under siege at times.

Not sure about that. First half GWS had 26 inside 50s for 7 goals. That's not 2017/18 levels of MFC leaky defence. It's definitely better than it was.

Be surprised, and happy. I think people forget the happiness that making finals and being a part of the action when finals roll around brings. Let's get there, let's give it a shake, who knows what will happen. As I said though, I'll be surprised. We should have won at least one of the two Cairns games and we wouldn't now be in this boat.

Hawthorn is tripe though. Still, we've seen Adelaide beat GWS and Sydney beat us over the last 10 days, so bad sides can get up to win games. IMO the bigger danger for the Dogs is Fremantle.

Harry Himmelberg. Not sure about how much of that was Smith's doing, but I will give credit where it is due, his fourth quarter was very good and a key part of us holding on.

On what he showed tonight he has a future. The goals were great, but it's the positioning and run that is far more important.

Not really, no. It's not like he was getting the ball served up to him on a platter but was dropping it or fumbling it. Or running to the wrong spots. Across these last three weeks he's been consistently in the right spots but consistently unable to impact. He's not as far off as the stats suggest. Our entire team structure in the Sydney and Fremantle losses was appalling, which contributes to the problem. I'm not excusing his downturn in form completely, he needs to lift, but I don't for a second think we should be dropping him.

Being negative means you're right far more often than you're wrong (true for supporters of all clubs in all sports). It's why being optimistic is so hard. Negative people can set the bar as high as a premiership and be right any time we don't win the flag. It's that on a smaller level that applies to situations like this. If you're negative about the trade, and Pickett doesn't end up being a 200-game premiership player for us, you can one day declare yourself "correct". If he does end up a star, who cares, the rest of us will be too busy enjoying that to remember.

The easiest way home for us is a Dogs loss. The only way for us to miss if we win and the Dogs lose once is for some sort of whack percentage disaster where GWS beat St Kilda by enough to pass us but not enough for us to pass St Kilda. Not even sure if that's possible. If the Dogs win both, next best option is probably the GWS-St Kilda option. The risk with Collingwood is that, even if they drop the Gold Coast game, I believe Port is locked into top 2 already. However, given RIchmond has Adelaide next week, and assuming Brisbane beats Sydney tomorrow, a Port win sees them avoid Richmond. Anyway, it's all getting ahead of us a bit. Must beat Essendon first.

Except for when we got belted by Port. I've said this in another thread, but I don't think Weid has played poorly at all, before tonight. Tonight I felt he was outpositioned and unable to work his way into the contest. However, we will go nowhere as a club without consistency forward of centre, and we can't rely on any two of Brown, Jackson and Weideman to do it. Weideman's got runs on the board and although he was poor tonight, he goes nowhere for mine.

Lockhart or Hibberd replace Jetta if he's injured. Possibly even if he's not injured. Great effort from Jetta but his lack of pace and relative lack of forward drive compared to Hibberd hurt us. I'd keep Brown over Jackson. Not sure this is the game to bring Jackson back after a relatively long lay off. I'd get Harmes back in - choices for his spot should include Melksham, vandenBerg, ANB and Hunt. You'd presume the FD will look at pressure acts and those sorts of things, but I'd love to see Harmes in a forward/mid rotation. I thought Fritsch was OK given Haynes is an elite defender. I still don't like Smith but I'm OK with rewarding the back six for the final quarter which was super.

Critical part of that post.

There's a roughly 50-point difference between us and them (we're +58, they're +110). So, I think, the combined margins of our win and their loss need to be around 50. We'll know for sure when we play though, as St Kilda v GWS is first. If GWS wins, we'll know what we need.