titan_uranus

Tom Stewart done for the day with a broken collarbone apparently. We'll see if that makes a difference to our forward line.

+1 CPs, +4 clearances, +5 inside 50s. But we're two goals behind. We know this is the style of play Goodwin wants. He speaks about wanting the ball to sit in our forward half. Geelong knows this too. As does every other side that we've played since the start of last year. We can't keep going like this.

That was exceptional from Melksham. Fritsch can't drop those if we're going to win. And Pickett can't miss from 10m out directly in front! [censored].

Lockhart looking great so far.

We look awful as soon as the ball crosses into our defensive half.

Horrendous defence. They had three floating back to the goalsquare. Suggests our forward press was too high and once they got through, it was too easy. Dangerous signs.

Goodwin in the interview on Channel 7 just now said we need to win the stoppages, get it in our forward half and keep it there. Our 2018 mindset remains.

What's the reasoning there? Geelong's got Ford in that same sport. Zurich still on the front for us.

Sounds very NFL. Agree - we're 0% chance if we're not on top in the middle. I don't see us generating our scores from the defensive 50, I think we'll do better generating them from stoppages. Being on top in the middle won't necessarily be enough though - the long up-and-under inside 50 bomb will be a recipe for disaster against a side like Geelong.

I believe someone said that Mahony this week during one of those member Zoom calls that Hibberd is going to take Harmes' spot in the backline to free Harmes up to play midfield. If that is correct, I think it's a reasonable call. Although we cannot tolerate Hibberd kicking it like he did in Round 1 vs West Coast.

Are these inconsistent? IMO what we tried to do against Carlton, and succeed in doing for the first half, was our 2018-style of game: dominance in clearances/CPs, most of the game being played in our forward half, strong forward half pressure. It even, at our best that day, had the addition of lowered eyes kicking inside 50 and players taking marks on the lead. Kent's already been dropped once this year, was a late inclusion yesterday, had just 10 touches and didn't lay a tackle. If, say, ANB did that, he'd cop it on here, and/or get dropped - precisely what happened after he kicked two goals vs Carlton. We have May, Lever, OMac, Smith and Petty on the list. Frost asked for a higher sum than we were prepared to offer him. He turns it over repeatedly and wasn't learning from his mistakes.

There are only three clubs yet to lose a game post-Covid: Port Adelaide (1st), Gold Coast (2nd) and us. A win today will send us as high as 6th, subject to percentage (we're -26 in the points differential so a 26-point win would level our percentage at 100% and that would move us up to at least 9th), but with a game in hand over everyone except Essendon. For all our disappointment at our second half vs Carlton, we're not as far off it as many of us think.

I reckon there are a few teams getting prematurely written off. We're 4 games into a 17 game season. Just under a quarter of the way. West Coast might be 1-3 but they're going to get a run of games at home, with a home crowd, in the second half of the year. Could feasibly pick up form and win a bunch of games in a row. Richmond was 7-6 last year then didn't lose again. This is some of the genuinely dumbest reasoning we see on Demonland all the time. Team X wins. "Team X has passed us, woe us us". Carlton's two wins are by a combined 3 points, and we beat them two weeks ago. Gold Coast has beaten Adelaide, Fremantle and West Coast. Two of them in line for bottom 4 finishes, the third one at the complete lowest point of their season. North lost to Sydney last week. St Kilda was non-competitive against Collingwood one week ago. The sort of performance Demonland would rely on for calls to sack the coach.

I don't think you learned/read enough. Maybe he wasn't rested in the intraclub because they weren't sure whether his limit would be 2 games or 3 games before he was due for a rest? Maybe the FD is more concerned with him getting consistent blocks of games in, so they wanted him to play twice in two weeks?

He played the intraclub. The intraclub was the same effort as the Essendon game. Seriously, how hard is this to understand?

Agree, subject to the proviso that not everyone is financially able to make a donation (or buy a membership) this year. But, if you are, I dispute your entitlement to call yourself a "supporter" if you deliberately choose to withhold your money. What?! Do you think that is an industry standard? Or even industry possibility? Have you considered that the better coaches (on whatever metric you want to use) might not want to sign a contract where they're at the whim of the board if we finish bottom 4? Which, for some clubs in some years, is not wholly within the coach's control?

Agree entirely. We would ultimately have looked ridiculous given he tested negative again afterwards. We were mature about it, we accepted it was likely going to happen to someone at some point, and we just got on with it.

That may be true, but the question is whether a side with a few genuine talls and then genuine smalls (e.g. Geelong) is better/worse than a side with one genuine tall and then a number of medium-sized forwards (e.g. us). I'm not saying for sure that the former is better than the latter, but average height doesn't necessarily mean we've got the right balance.

I'm surprised, and disappointed, Jackson has been dropped without Brown/Weideman replacing him. I think we're too short in the forward line. Assuming Lockhart takes Jetta's spot, does Hibberd take Harmes' spot and release Harmes to tag Selwood/Dangerfield? You're just in the most negative of negative spirals. The side comes out, you complain that it's bad. We play, you complain about how we play and selection. We make changes the next week, you complain that we're making too many changes. Many of the changes have been previously injured players coming back (e.g. Salem and Jones after Round 1, Hannan, vandenBerg and Lockhart this week).

I'm assuming you're white, Fork 'em? To say "just get over it and move on" is white privilege. It's so easy, but ultimately hurtful and extremely unhelpful, for a white person to tell non-white people to "just get over it".

He's on the bench, actually.

I missed that, but that's certainly positive for him and eases my concerns.

I think it's possible. I don't recall seeing Brayshaw switch to the "main" team in the intraclub like some others did. I reckon he'll get one more match to try to impress. There'll be more than a few players who miss out who will be pushing for his spot if he doesn't perform this week.

All reports suggest the intraclub was played at a strong intensity. The club may have always known that Bennell was going to need to take a week off from time to time to ensure he doesn't get overloaded. See above. I do not understand how this is an issue.

The changes are from Round 2, not Round 3. And he's not named on the interchange bench. Why anyone is surprised at Bennell being managed is beyond me.