titan_uranus

Because merely saying "that's careless, high contact with high impact" isn't how the analysis works. The first step is whether it's a reportable offence. Last year Junior Rioli cleaned up Matt Rowell. No suspension because it wasn't a reportable offence. This year Brayshaw got Libba high in a bump-style move. No suspension because it wasn't a reportable offence. Both of those involved careless conduct with high contact.

Come on, @djr gave you a whole host of areas in which we've changed on last year and you picked one he/she didn't even mention, kick ins? Your logic that we got beaten by Brisbane and Essendon, ergo our game plan hasn't changed, is so incredibly flawed I don't even know where to begin. What are you trying to argue here, that if our game plan had changed we'd be undefeated? Your middle paragraph is only partly correct. Our set shots are better, no doubt, but we are taking more shots from the centre and fewer from the pockets because we're not always prioritising long kicks to Brown/McDonald/Gawn in the pocket.

I think what I'm trying to say is that we're moving away from this, to our benefit. Contest is key to any good side. But it was too much the key to us in 2022. This year, we're more resilient structurally, both in offence and defence, if we aren't on top in CPs, and that is a good thing.

On the umpiring, I get it, that was a free against Gawn to Chol, but all the rage online about us being gifted the win from the umpires seems a touch rich to me given that in the final two minutes alone and before that Chol marking contest: Viney gets shirtfronted after disposing of the ball with no free/50; and Anderson gets caught stone cold holding the ball on our forward 50 after trying to side step JVR then throwing it out of the tackle

This is not how the system works, at least not in 2023 when action has finally trumped outcome. We don't start with "Ballard was concussed", we start with asking whether this is a reportable offence. It cannot be. It's a clumsy attempt to spoil the mark. It's not a sling tackle or a bump, in which we are very clear to say we want those out of the game. This is a spoil. He's trying to do something legitimate in the game but has stuffed it up. I'm all for the AFL doing everything it can to minimise concussion incidents in games but when we suspend someone it has to be for a reportable offence, not simply because someone got concussed.

On the CP point, I'm not sure losing it is as big a deal as you're making it out to be. Firstly, we are 6-2 despite being currently 7th for CP average differential this season (at +2). Gold Coast are 3rd on that ranking, so they are a strong CP side. It's no surprise that a midfield of Witts, Rowell and Anderson (normally also Miller) will be strong in that area. We don't need to be better than everyone at it. Of the sides you've mentioned, Geelong's only marginally better than us (6th at +2.4), GWS are 16th and Port's 14th. Carlton's 2nd, at +10.1, but if you think Carlton winning CPs = Carlton winning games, you're not watching Carlton in season 2023. Finally, the line "fast ball movement thru the corridor and extreme pressure in the contest is the way to beat us" is silly - that's the way to beat every side. We're no different to anyone else. Gold Coast brought extreme pressure today. We handled it well enough to never let them take the lead.

I think this is slightly contradictory. Yes, I think we can do better in certain parts of the game. But the fact I'm not seeing it right now doesn't make me think our chances of winning the flag are over, because I don't need to see it now. Of course, I do need to see us improve. I need to see us stabilise our selection, work out our best forward mix (it's not Petty), and see May get back to proper form. But if you care about winning flags, then you care about winning games. It's in many respects a great thing that we've banked this win tonight despite not being in top form.

Yes, Fritsch out would be a huge call. And an unbelievably terrible one. You have no ability to park your bias. I don't care how much you can't stand aspects of Fritsch's game. He's just ended a 35-game goal-kicking streak and is regularly our leading goal scorer despite being asked to play taller, quicker and stronger than he actually is. Dropping him off one poor game sends all the wrong messages to the side. There's striving to get better, and then there's being significantly, stupidly, overly ruthless. And never mind then replacing him with J Smith, who isn't fit and has as many flaws in his game as Fritsch does.

As for the game itself, I haven't been able to watch it all so I can't comment as well as others, but my random thoughts are: It's time to end the Petty forward experiment. It's not working. He's not as good as a forward as some people think. He's a much better defender and our overall team structure needs a third tall. We can't rely on super accurate goal-kicking every week, so we have to expect to regress to the mean a bit. In that respect, holding on despite going 2.6 in the fourth quarter is important I reckon. We're missing Salem more than I thought we would. We're missing Hibberd more than I thought we would. The media beat-up over the JVR incident is pathetic. That's not a reportable offence. If he gets weeks for that, the game is cooked.

What a ridiculous thing to say. We won't be winning the flag if we don't win enough H&A games. Stop thinking like our form in Round 8 is necessarily going to be our form in September. It clearly wasn't last year.

This is the problem with the majority of Demonland, IMO. Too many want to see 2021 again. We should all know by now that the H&A season is all about two things: Winning enough games to put yourself in a position to win the flag (technically that means making top 8 but realistically means making top 4); and Being in form at the right time of the year. It's not about dominating from go to whoa. 2021 was a freakish year. We were brilliant. It was one of the best full seasons produced by any side in recent memory. I don't think we get enough credit for it, given how many people say stuff like "we hit a September purple patch". No, 2021 was out of this world. We cannot use that as the standard. We're 6-2 and have the league's best percentage. In those 8 games we've played four 2022 finalists (3-1 record) and have played half our games interstate. We clearly have challenges to come with our fixture but right now we are ticking the boxes for the first point above - we're winning games to ensure we're in a position to win the flag. We won't know if we're in form at the right time of the year until we get there but we have seen time and again that premiership sides aren't always in form in Round 8.

Confirmed Turner in for Hibberd.

Sneaky watch on Turner a late in for Hibberd, which would make sense given their height in their forward line.

Like the general consensus, I love this design. I think the away jumper is incredible. The Narrm article on the club's website explains that the Port game is Sir Doug Nicholls Round, and then the following week we are playing Fremantle who are following our lead and re-naming as Walyalup, so the game will be Narrm v Walyalup and we'll be wearing the indigenous jumper then too. Then we'll wear it in Alice Springs as we've done in the past. Presumably that game will be on Sunday 2 July which is the first day of NAIDOC week, too.

Suns have King, Chol, Lukosius and now Casboult. They won't play all four at once of course, and they need ruck depth to combat Gawn/Grundy, but even if they line up with three in the forward line we're asking a lot of Hibberd aren't we? If GC is going strategically tall to try to stretch us, I wonder whether we see Schache (releasing Petty to the backline) or Turner a late in?

That logic doesn't quite hold up, old dee. Have you heard about the circle of parity? You can run through all 18 clubs by saying "A beat B, but B beat C, but C beat D" and so on until you get back to where you started. The fact we didn't put Richmond away until late, whereas Gold Coast jumped them early, does not mean we're worse than Gold Coast.

This makes literally no sense.

What’s that I hear? Someone prematurely writing off Collingwood? Come back to me at the end of the game.

That’s true, but the Dogs and Sydney are better than their current ladder position - or in Sydney’s case, were at the time we played them. But yes, Collingwood, Port Adelaide, Adelaide and Geelong will all be tougher tests than most of our last month of footy.

We’d be far too short if we replace Schache with Melksham. Leaves JVR as our only tall forward. Melksham’s VFL form is good but his recent AFL form has been poor. Sub only IMO.

Richmond really hate Marvel, don’t they? GC their bogey side too I reckon. If they don’t get up from here, stick a fork in them for the year.

Replacing who?

I saw a clip of Melksham’s goal where he kicked it up to himself. McDonald looked like he could barely walk, let alone run. Has he improved since then or is he injured?

A few interesting stats (at least to me): No one played 100% TOG. May was at 98% and Lever 96%, but all our runners were 90% or less and notably, Gawn was 82%, Oliver was 79% and Petracca was 75% - when was the last time Petracca spent 25% of a game on the bench?). Surely a sign of our approach to the short break Sparrow and Chandler our pressure act leaders with 25, interestingly 13 of Sparrow's were in the defensive half Sparrow also had our 2nd most centre bounce attendances with 17 (Oliver had 24). Gawn and Grundy split them 50/50% precisely (16 each). After 0 last week, Pickett had 11 this week. And we continue to try new things in there, with Brayshaw getting 3 CBAs, Jordon 7, Rivers 1 and even Harmes had 5 in his limited game time

Agree, @Lucifers Hero. I felt he fumbled his first touch a bit too much and missed some small handballs that we just have to be nailing all the time, let alone under minimal pressure from North. Dunstan has been lighting it up at Casey. If he does it again today, can we keep justifying Jordon’s ongoing selection over Dunstan? They aren’t precisely the same role but we have to be careful not to ignore strong form from our depth at Casey.