titan_uranus

So, from the 22 who ran out for the Prelim, it's: In: Fritsch, Hore, C Wagner, Hunt Out: vandenBerg, Hannan, J Smith, Tyson Not terrible, but Hore/Wagner/Hunt is not 100% ideal.

Sounds like both of us will be fielding underdone sides and/or will be missing key players. It might only be Round 1 but this is a game we just cannot afford to lose.

Some of the players I'd like to see make a major leap forward this year are Hunt, Garlett (notwithstanding his age), Frost and OMac. But I have a suspicion that the player who is going to surprise me most is Stretch. I don't know why, I just have a feeling. I reckon that's a rubbish take on Fritsch. He was underdeveloped physically but he rarely did anything other than give 100% at every contest all season.

I find myself agreeing. If we back ourselves in to do well at centre clearances (and with Gawn and our midfield, we damn well should be) then like last year we should see a number of direct entries inside 50 from the centre bounce. Unlike last year though, we won't be continually down 6-7 or 5-6 in our forward line. I'm interested in seeing what teams (including us) try to do to slow the game down when they want it to be slowed. Will they try to get repeat bounces in the middle to give their wings/forwards time to push back?

This really is an excellent thread, thanks @Lucifer's Hero

Surprisingly (or maybe not, for Demonland) negative thread about a practice match. None of us know what we may or may not have been trialling, changing, experimenting with etc.. I'll save my (inevitable) worry for the season proper.

Is it just me or has Hannan being out for half a season just come out of nowhere? Fingers crossed they get this round of rehab right and he comes back fit. As with others above, I feel he has been consistently hampered with knee problems.

I don't like David King but I like his call about the new kick-in rule. I have a sneaking suspicion clubs will refrain from taking shots from angles or from too far out for fear of the damage the opposition will do from a kick-in.

I am truly sick of seeing the Pats succeed but they deserve utmost respect. What they have been able to do in a league which is designed to stop them doing it is incredible. They have an uncanny knack for scoring touchdowns right when they need them. That was brutal. The roughing the passer call on Brady was shocking, too. But ultimately the only time KC's defence was able to make a stop was when Ford ruined it.

Our batting is rubbish and it's potentially impacting our bowling, which was well below what we all should have expected from them during the series. We struggled to take wickets on our home pitches, Starc was nowhere near his best and Hazlewood wasn't great either. Granted, India's batsmen were very good, but we've bowled out strong batting sides before and kept ourselves in games with the ball. The SL Tests will be interesting. We really need to be focusing on players we think can play all five Ashes Tests and score runs. I'd like to see us move past both Marsh brothers permanently but I fear that we'll see S Marsh in the SL Tests and in the Ashes squad, as they're keen for his "experience". I'm not sure where I stand on Warner but I think we'll see Smith walk back into the XI once his ban isup. So my Ashes XI at this point is: Harris, Warner/Burns/Hughes, Khawaja, Smith, Head, Handscomb/Maxwell/Wade, Paine (c), Cummins, Starc, Lyon, Hazlewood. For SL, I'd be opening with Burns or Daniel Hughes alongside Harris, I'd be returning Khawaja to number 3 (we can't bat Labuschagne there, that's absolutely ridiculous, he shouldn't be playing at all let alone batting first drop), and I'd be getting Maxwell and/or Wade into the middle order (Wade deserves a batting spot, but Maxwell is a better all-rounder than Labuschagne or M Marsh if we're that desperate to get relief overs out of someone in the top 6). Paine stays, his captaincy is one of the things that is working at the moment I think, his keeping is good and his batting isn't as bad as most of the batsmen over the past 12 months (however, one first class 100 in his entire career is a problem). Harris and Head were probably the only two positives to come out of the India series. I hope one or both can make a century against SL to confirm their Ashes spots and to get them some further confidence.

Colts 21 @ Texans 24 Seahawks 28 @ Cowboys 14 Chargers 23 @ Ravens 21 Eagles 17 @ Bears 28

Wowee, what a finish in the Browns-Ravens game. Will be interesting to see what happens to the Steelers from here. I hope the Browns build on this season for 2019.

Eagles, Chargers, Bears

Can I go Seahawks, Patriots and Saints given it's this late?

Saints, Patriots, Broncos.

Bears, Chiefs, Rams

Panthers, Titans, Steelers

Saints, Patriots, Chargers for me.

I've seen this 9 game MCG thing reported but I've never seen any confirmation of it. At any rate, it's been reported as a 9-game minimum, not maximum. I suspect if we brought one NT game back to Melbourne it'd be at Marvel (given each of Richmond, Collingwood and Hawthorn continues to be forced into having a home game there against each club's request). If we brought the second NT game back, I suspect that'd be at the G. I'm also not sure there's a "compulsory" two away games at Marvel, do you have a source for that?

This person has changed it to reflect 2018 ladder positions. We come out as hardest:

Apparently the top bracket is for "points differential". I have no idea why they decided that was a good reason to rank teams.

This is the first time I can ever recall our fixture being a commercial positive. There's little point in analysing based on 2018 finishing positions as there are going to be good teams from 2018 who slide and teams who right now you might think will suck but who ultimately make the finals. It's the other aspects of the draw which interest me. The things I've noticed are: It's great to have home games against Essendon, Collingwood and Richmond. However, the Collingwood and Richmond home games aren't until Rounds 20 and 21, and our home Friday night game against Sydney isn't until Round 22. Those games pulling big crowds are therefore contingent on the sides (us included) being in contention at that stage of the season. Would obviously be better to get those big-drawing games up early when all sides are in contention by default. But a positive overall. Three Friday night games and a Thursday night game is great, but only two of those are at home, and one of those is the Round 22 game vs Sydney. North Melbourne, by contrast, has three home Friday night games against Hawthorn, Richmond and Collingwood. So there's still room for improvement there. 13 FTA games is a massive win, and 12 MCG games is an improvement on this year. Our interstate games are all on FTA, I believe, except the Round 8 trip to the GC. That's another massive win, allows our fans to be able to watch us more easily when we're on the road. The back-to-back road trips to GC and then West Coast is bad, and the fact there's a six-day break in between makes it worse. We get two blocks of three consecutive MCG games (5-6 and 20-22). Nothing like Richmond's seven consecutive MCG games to finish the season, but again better than this year when we only had that once. The seven road trips this year are more evenly spaced out. Recently it's felt like we've had a good run of Melbourne games to start the year and then lots of travel towards the end of the season. In 2019 we only have to leave Victoria three times after the bye, one of which is Hobart and another of which is Alice Springs I doubt we've ever had a season in which we've only played 5 Sunday games. We had 11 this year. More Saturday games is great commercially but given our supporters are so used to Sunday 1.10pm and, in particular, 3.20pm games, I wonder how our attendance figures will go next year. Ultimately feels about right for us in 2019. Would prefer to see more home Thursday/Friday night games, especially given we're away in both ANZAC Eve and Queen's Birthday, but it's hard to complain given where we've come from.

Interesting(-ish) that the Darwin game is Round 11 and the Alice game is Round 18. Our Alice Springs game has been Round 9-11, the last weekend in May, ever since we started playing it. That's now the Darwin game. Meanwhile since 2011 our Darwin game has been in July, in predominantly Round 17. I wonder why they effectively have switched them. This is also the 5th straight year we've not played West Coast at the G.

Patriots, Redskins, Seahawks

My tips for week 7 - Patriots, Vikings, Rams Agree, I think that's a big win for the Jags, given they know their offence stinks without Fournette so they need someone to be able to capably run the ball.