titan_uranus

Unless he discharged that snot onto another person, it's likely to be a complete non-issue.

There's a lot of misreporting and speculation on here. He trained yesterday but he hadn't returned the positive test yet. First one yesterday afternoon, second one this morning. There's no evidence Essendon did anything wrong. He didn't bring it back from overseas. There's no evidence he personally has done anything wrong. So what happens from here? I suppose the best case scenario from here is Essendon goes into isolation, all of its players and staff test negative a number of times, no other club tests positive, and the comp continues with the infection being limited to just McKenna. Frequent testing is the only thing keeping the comp going. If we test players frequently enough, we'll catch a positive test before they play another team, limiting the need to put people into isolation. Can we get through another 14.5 rounds plus finals like this? If the infection rate in Victoria is starting to rise again, you'd have to think it's going to be a tough ask.

For some context about how this year is going so far, if we win on Sunday we will finish this round above Richmond, GWS, the Dogs, and at least one of West Coast and Brisbane.

Not sure this needs to be said again, but maybe it does: we didn't "get rid of Hogan", and when he wanted to leave we cashed in for what was available and what we needed (a KPD in a year where we'd scored heavily but lost games through a poor defence).

It's sad to say for Jones, but Melksham has more upside. We can't tolerate repeat performances from him like last week, and there's now ANB and Jones outside the 22 pushing for his spot, but if he turns it around it improves us far, far more than if Jones turns his form around. Melksham's link between half-back and the forward line in 2018 was critical to our success and will do wonders for us if/when he gets that back. I feel for Jones (obvious) and ANB (given he wasn't our worst last week) but for both, their omission is justifiable IMO.

Requires Fritsch, Hannan and vandenBerg to compete in the air. Critical that they are fit enough that they don't need to rest on the bench for long periods, and they are able to compete with Hurley and Hooker. And also that they are fit and willing enough to crack in on defence. Also requires our mids to continue their improvement from last week in terms of delivery inside 50. Long bombs without thought will most likely be ineffectual. There is the scope for positive improvement on last week with this team, though

Risky strategy IMO. Maybe Smith to the forward line to replace Jackson? But if Smith goes forward, who takes his spot in the back six? If Smith doesn't go forward, I guess we will need to back Fritsch, Hannan and vandenBerg to contest with Hooker and Hurley. That is a big risk IMO. Tomlinson to provide ruck relief (which is only a limited amount of time with shorter quarters)? Jones being dropped is the correct call. I suspect the comments about his minor injuries are designed to help soften the blow. I feel for ANB who has lost his spot despite kicking 2 and starting well, but the reality is there is more upside in Pickett, Melksham, Bennell, Hannan, vandenBerg and Hunt than there is in ANB. We know this from the past few years of evidence. So I'm comfortable with it.

Maybe more than the handful of games they've played together so far? I'd have gone with Weideman over Jackson but we have to be honest and accept that's not going to drastically change our team performance too much. So that's not on the selectors as much as it is on TMac (for his hopeless form) and arguably list management.

I reckon this is a massively overcooked analysis. You've got no idea of any context: what was going on before the clip started? It looks to me as though the blue team had the ball but turned it over, hence Petracca's positioning (he was running to create an option). You say Gawn "let" Bradtke out sprint him. Maybe Gawn was exhausted from having run 100m previously whereas Bradtke had done nothing? Maybe Gawn is conserving energy for the game this weekend whilst Bradtke can leave it all on the track at training? Drawing motherhood conclusions like "Essendon's midfield will have a field day" based on this tiny out of context clip is, IMO, absolutely ridiculous.

A brief reminder that last week Hawthorn lost by 10 goals and looked just as bad as Richmond did tonight. Not sure I agree with the "Clarkson is a genius", "Frost is great", "Hawthorn are so good" stuff going on in here. The COVID break means that, I think, we need to see 3-4 weeks of football before we start drawing conclusions on sides. Meanwhile, Richmond tonight looked like us at our worst. Repeat inside 50s but never looked liked scoring, opening up their back half for Hawthorn to cut them open and every time Hawthorn went forward they looked like scoring. See above as to why I wouldn't be prematurely writing them off yet. (PS: if we win on Sunday we'll be above Richmond on the ladder...).

Pickett comes in for someone. Options on the bench are Jones and ANB. I want it to be Jones, I fear it will be ANB (I'm not an ANB fan but I don't think it's fair or the right call to drop him before Jones based on last week). If Hibberd comes back in it's likely for Smith, given that bench. I expect Jackson to hold his spot. If we don't play him, we'll be sending TMac into the ruck for small parts of the quarters and when we do that, unless Gawn rests at FF, we won't have a tall player anywhere near our forward half. I'm really unsure about where Weideman sits with the FD if he couldn't get a game last week and then again this week.

As deanox said in the other Lever thread (do we really need multiple Lever threads), the points equivalent was Lever and 72 for pick 8. So unlike dazzle says, it wasn't two first round picks, it was one. And even if it was two, we went out to find an A-grade player and sometimes that costs a bit (picks and/or salary cap). Hindsight reasoning is so frustrating, and Demonland engages in it all the time when it comes to drafting/trading.

Wow they really don't like Bellchambers, do they.

The only reasonable option he had other than the long kick to the wing was Langdon, who was running into the pocket to his left. From the looks of Lever's reaction when he marked it, he was trying to take a few seconds off the clock before kicking. I don't think that's unreasonable, and I think he would have hoped/expected that the players up the ground would move towards the open wing to create options. Agree with this. As deanox has pointed out, it was the equivalent of Lever and 72 for pick 8. So it's really one first round draft pick, not two. Half the cost that most people suggest. And in the context of where our list sat at the end of 2017, the complete correct decision (despite the fact he could be playing better).

I'm inclined to agree. It's dangerous taking screenshots of play and then trying to extrapolate from them, but one thing that struck me was the angle both Smith and Lever were coming from. Lever's momentum appears to be shifting towards the boundary line, so his spoil would be in that direction. Smith is the opposite. So maybe Lever had the higher percentage spoil option and Smith ought to have recognised that? Of course, I'm guessing neither of them saw the other one and both only were ball-watching, so they both independently thought they were the third man up.

We beat Carlton by 100 and Adelaide by 90-odd in 2018. Those don't count?

I think I agree with you in that, if we are going to play two "key" defenders, we're better with OMac/May than we are with May/Lever or May/Smith. The main issue with it, of course, is OMac. I'm not convinced he'll ever be good enough to be our FB. However, I'm equally unconvinced in Smith being a key, or even third, defender, and I don't like Lever doing anything other than being a third tall/intercept defender. Structurally, I think we're better off with Smith either playing on a mid/smaller forward, or not being in the backline at all, with OMac, May and Lever being the three talls (in that order). I'm not sure this is the week to make any change in that area though, given Essendon plays a largely small forward line without Daniher (McKernan 198cm, Stringer 192cm, Townsend 187cm). The week after, though, Geelong plays Hawkins and Ratugolea.

I don't agree with the first point so much, but I do agree with the second. IMO priority number 1 needs to be the reintroduction of Harmes into the midfield as a tagger. He was so good in that role in 2018, and he's so ineffectual in the backline at the moment. One of the problems of doing that is it reduces the amount of time we can have Oliver, Viney and Brayshaw in the middle. So, as you say, we need to be able to put those players in other spots on the ground and they need to be able to contribute there. Oliver can go forward, he's done that well (IMO an underrated part of his game). I'd increase Oliver's time spent in the forward line to give Harmes more room in the middle. We'll lose out a bit on not having Oliver in the stoppages but we can cope. Viney and Brayshaw are more problematic. Neither of them look particularly good anywhere other than in the guts. I think Brayshaw could play Harmes' half-back role just as well as Harmes, or Jones half-forward role just as well as Jones, so I'd try that a bit.

Agree about the effect of standing next to someone 15cm+ taller than you, but Jetta's been a serial offender of unnecessarily going up in marking contests for years.

Agree with most of these. We can't afford to let Hurley and Hooker control the air in our forward 50 like we let McGovern and Hurn control it in Round 1. We must pick and play forwards who can compete in the air, either by taking contested marks or at least bringing the ball to ground for our smalls to work with. Smith could play that role (and indeed should either play that role or be dropped). We have to back Weideman in to be able to play that role too. Jackson isn't ready for that role IMO. TMac needs to lift. In terms of Saad, my concern is he'll be on Melksham or Jones and if they don't lift, he'll rip us apart on the rebound. Whilst I'd prefer us to be in a position to drop ANB before Melksham/Jones, we're not. Melksham has far more upside than Jones, I think. It should be Jones (to make way for Pickett), IMO.

So you blame Lever for our losses in that period?

If this is your read on the game then I don't know if you're reading matches well. We fell apart on Saturday when we started getting smashed on the inside. We were dominant in clearances and CPs in the first 1.5 quarters and with our obsession with a high forward half press, we turned that into repeat inside 50s and scores. Then Carlton started winning the clearances and we fell apart. IMO had almost nothing to do with getting smashed on the outside, aside from the poor defensive efforts of our forwards and midfielders in the second half.

He kicked 4 goals against us last year.

Hogan was a star. Who wanted to leave. So we took the best we could get for him and turned him into a key defender. After a year in which we'd been the highest scoring side but leaked goals and had Frost and OMac struggling to hold down the key defensive positions. Could not care less about, what, someone having a different opinion to you? It was hard enough covering 2 minutes. No way anyone could do that to themselves for 94.

Having reflected today a bit, whilst I remain exceptionally disappointed, I've come to think this as well. I genuinely think we've produced some of the best football of this round. I don't know if we're capable of producing it for four quarters but for my own sanity I'm going to let myself believe we can, and we'll learn from yesterday what we need to do when opponents make changes at the contest.