titan_uranus

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.

[Censored] me. Preuss lays one tackle (after which he tried to kick a goal he had no ability to kick and missed entirely) and gets credit. What is it about Demonland and Preuss?

Something interesting to note. Rivers post-game said the senior players were helping the kids defend. Then this from May: Maybe, finally, some proper leadership?

Yes, but only in parts. We won clearances 36-32 overall. They turned our early dominance around through clearance work but we steadied in the fourth quarter. Having said that, as Goodwin just said in the presser, we're learning to win in different ways. Tonight we were -23 in CPs and -13 in inside 50s. A bit like the Collingwood game, we didn't get the game played entirely on our terms, yet we won.

@olisik your thoughts on the win (and/or Rivers and Pickett's games)? IMO, Pickett's first half was his best football all year. He used his pace to apply more pressure in the forward half, his touch was there, and he got involved in scoring chains. And Rivers was incredible.

Rubbish. Hindsight just confirmed how bad of a decision it was. In what world is Preuss a forward? Particularly given the weather conditions we knew was coming (we picked the side 24 hours beforehand). Brown mightn't have been amazing against St Kilda, but he wasn't terrible either.

It beggars belief that with a wet windy day in Cairns forecast, we dropped him for Preuss to play Preuss as a forward last week. If you want to reduce the season down to one major mistake, that maybe is it.

6 - Langdon 5 - May 4 - Petracca 3 - Rivers 2 - Oliver 1 - Pickett Honourable mentions to Spargo, Baker, Lever (huge fourth quarter but mistakes earlier) and Gawn.

Shows us that he knew the pressure was on us, knew we were not good enough in Cairns, and knows it's not done yet. Funny - if he's going on about how great we are people would criticise him for overcelebrating, wouldn't they?

Maybe leave this emotion to tomorrow?

I really did not see that coming. Lever made mistakes early but he and May in the final quarter were huge. Rivers is a gem. Spargo certainly did his job. Pickett much improved. Baker gave us a second wing. Keeps hope alive for one more week at least. And was a great game to boot.