titan_uranus

Agree re: Brisbane. Their three home games are GC, Carlton and us. Their three away games are GWS, Richmond and St Kilda. As I said above, not as hard as our run but not exactly easy, either. The other thing of importance is, if we do go 3-3, who we beat. If we go 3-3 but beat Carlton, Collingwood and Brisbane, each of those sides will need to either go 5-0 in their remaining games, or go 4-1 but pass us on percentage, to finish above us. If the Lions get back to their best they could close the 9% gap between them and us, but for Carlton and Collingwood who are 17 %and 27% back respectively, that's less likely. And given Carlton plays Collingwood and Carlton plays Brisbane, there are two losses right there.

Would love to hear what he had to say after we lost to the Dogs last year. I don't bet, but if I did I'd put money on him having said the same thing. The same Essendon who beat Sydney last week and St Kilda two weeks before that? As much as we might all hate to say it, and it's actually good news for us, but Essendon is in form right now. Brisbane had 9 changes from their side last week. There are few opponents right now who you could have that level of disruption and not be affected.

There are really only a few match ups you could have that you could be really confident of: North Melbourne, West Coast, GWS and probably Adelaide away from Adelaide. Even Hawthorn at times are a dangerous opponent. Whilst our fixture is harder than everyone else's, pretty much all of the finals/top 4 contenders have tricky runs home. Take Geelong for example, described by many to have one of the easier runs home. They have Carlton, Port (away), the Dogs, St Kilda, Gold Coast (away) and West Coast. The Dogs and Saints games are in Geelong which helps, but the two road trips plus Carlton at the G are not easy games at all. IMO we're closer to going 6-0 from here than we are to stumbling through 2-4 or something. Geelong made us look poor, but they are on top of the ladder for a reason and despite being off all night we were a Pickett snap off drawing level in the fourth quarter. Port are somewhat in form but haven't won away from the Adelaide Oval since Round 9, and that was against North. The Dogs are not in form at all, 3-3 over their last six with the three wins being against weaker sides in West Coast, GWS and Hawthorn. Carlton are hot/cold, haven't won consecutive games since Rounds 9-10. Collingwood are the luckiest 11-5 side I can remember and it's not likely their luck keeps going for another six weeks. We've already belted Brisbane once this year and we led Fremantle by 20 halfway through the third of a game in which injuries wreaked havoc on us. 3-3 from here is a fair chance to be enough for top 4, too: 3-3 gets us to 15 wins. Assuming we don't shed much percentage, given we're 17% clear of Carlton and 27% clear of Collingwood, there's a fair chance they'd have to get to 16 wins to pass us, which will mean one of them has to go 5-1 from here. Or Sydney would have to go 6-0.

The only justification I can think of is that Stevic thought the ball hit the Freo player's boot. To not pay that holding the ball otherwise is incredulous. He was right to call holding the ball on Hill straight after, and then the dissent on Butler was probably there, but seriously, there's little to no chance the ball hit the Freo player's foot and 999 times out of 1000 you'd just pay holding the ball and move on.

Depends if you're optimistic about our run home or pessimistic. If you're optimistic, you want St Kilda to win. Fremantle is a top 4 rival so we want to finish above them. If you're pessimistic, and you're worried about us making finals, you want Fremantle to win. Puts St Kilda three games behind us in the run to the top 8. If you're pessimistic you also want GWS to beat Port just to rule Port out (they'd be 5 games behind us with 6 to go).

They've had a very fortuitous season IMO. Beat Essendon by 11, Carlton by 4, Hawthorn by 4, GWS by 11, GC by 5 and now North by 7. 5-0 in that run could so easily have been 3-2 or worse, which would have them back in the pack and/or out of the 8. To their credit they held on in all of those games, but generally speaking when a side does this well in close games they eventually regress back to the "norm", which is to not win 100% of them. Could happen this year with their moderately difficult run home, or otherwise we might find that next year they drop off in ladder position as you can't expect to continually win these close games.

I have no problem with Collingwood v North being at the MCG. The MCG is Collingwood's home ground. I also have no problem with Geelong v Melbourne being at GMHBA. GMHBA is Geelong's home ground. Where I have a problem is Geelong v Richmond being at the MCG. Or Collingwood v Bulldogs being at Marvel. Both those match ups have happened this year and they are examples of sides playing "home" games at their opponent's home ground. It shouldn't happen. The Marvel tenants (including Essendon and Carlton) should play their home games at Marvel to satisfy the minimum games requirement, and Geelong should put its money where its mouth is and play all 11 home games at GMHBA, with the big Melbourne clubs being sent down there so that North and we don't have to go there every year.

Sorry, I was responding to your post in which you said Weid would be offering more than Brown in those areas, which led me to believe you were comparing the two for the same position. I agree that Weid is judged unfairly by most on here. I thought he did really well when he was asked to play ruck, particularly vs Adelaide as the first ruck. My view, though, is that Brown offers us more right now than Weid does as a permanent forward, and that contrary to your posts Brown has indeed started to show better form. Brown's starting point is unreasonably low given how poor he's been this year, but reality is what he produced in the first half on Thursday is precisely what we need for a full game. The trend is at least in the right direction. Bringing the ball to ground is far more important than you're letting on. I'm not suggesting we pick someone who does nothing other than bring the ball to ground but our gameplan relies on us not being outmarked in our forward half, so it's a critical role. Part of the reason Brown's disappointed me this year has been how often he's been outmarked. We lost to Sydney largely because we were repeatedly outmarked by their defenders. And there is significant disappointing with Spargo, ANB, Bedford and Pickett - well it's not easy for them to get involved with the way we move the ball if our taller forwards get outmarked. With all that said, I'm not necessarily opposed to JVR playing. Bowey's a great example of why we should be thinking about bringing in new blood. But we can't play him on his own and for the reasons I've covered, I think Brown holds his spot over Weideman.

A lot of this is unfair or wrong IMO. For one, he was indeed "even close" to turning his form around on Thursday night, in the first half. As I've said before, one half of footy isn't good enough, but regrettably even a half of good football from Brown is an improvement on his last six weeks. His first half had him covering the ground, clunking contested marks, hitting the scoreboard and bringing the ball to ground. All what we want from him. We didn't totally change our game in the second half but as we fell further behind, we started to rush our ball movement and our structures fell apart. Which led to us kicking the ball to 2-on-1s against us. Impacted all our forwards, not just Brown, but the longer the game went on the more out of whack our positioning became. As to stats, according to the AFL's website Brown's season average for contested marks is 1 per game, to Weideman's 1.1 That's one extra contested mark across 10 games. Meanwhile Brown's ahead for marks overall (3.6 to 2.9) and marks inside 50 (1.7 to 1.3). And as to defence, Brown's well behind in tackles per game (0.5 to Weid's 1.5) but ahead in pressure acts (6.2 to 5.9). None of these numbers are anything to write home about but given Brown's first half was probably the best key forward work we've seen from him or Weideman in months, I think the core premise of your argument falls away, particularly given Weideman's stats do not in any way warrant him taking Brown's spot.

Brown played his best football in months in the first half last night. I'm not suggesting a half of football is sufficient, but it's finally a trend in the right direction, so if we've stuck with him to now, I suspect we're going to give him another game at least after last night.

It's a disgrace. The fixture is uneven enough as it is. Refusing to send Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Hawthorn and Richmond to play at Geelong's true home ground is unfair on the rest of us, and clearly we and North have had to bear the brunt of that unfairness more than the others. It's time for the AFL to accept that supporters of all clubs, not just the big ones, miss out on attending games at GMHBA Stadium, and starts sending the five other Melbourne clubs down there on a routine basis (e.g. once every 2-3 years or something).

The "same, tired old plan" that had us enter the round top of the ladder, a game clear of everyone else, with the competition's best percentage, and 16 games removed from a flag? We were bad last night but your hyperbolic negativity will never cease to amaze me.

We're not dropping Fritsch. No matter how angry you are at his game, we're not dropping him. Onus is on him and the coaches to rid him of his selfishness. Not sure Hunt for Bedford is right. Hunt's played defence for two years, so I'm not sure he gets swung forward.

Whilst I'm not suggesting we shouldn't be looking at changes to the small forwards, we didn't make their lives easy by losing at stoppages (so we couldn't hold the ball forward) and not having a tall other than Brown forward of centre to take marks or make a sufficient aerial contest to bring the smalls into the game. Would be hard to be a small forward when we play like that further up the ground. In saying that, I'm really not convinced by Bedford whilst Spargo's game was infuriating.

Our comparatively harder game last week might have been a factor but doesn't explain being belted in clearances in the first half.

Tonight's game was lost in the middle. Can't win when you're beaten soundly in clearances like we were. But IMO we're too short forward of centre so we were too often unable to find someone to hold a bail out grab. Probably didn't help when Gawn and Jackson didn't appear fit.

We either need to play Gawn/Jackson forward more when they're not rucking, or we need to pick Weideman until TMac's back. We can't be that small forward of the ball. Bowey and Salem both struggled tonight. With Rivers and Hunt out of the side, there is competition for their spots. I'm not convinced by Bedford. His Brisbane game was good but he is too fumbly under pressure and with our run home, we're copping pressure each week.

Can't compete against the best when you are beaten in clearances 54-36. They turned that into forward half dominance, with 66 inside 50s to our 46. It's no wonder they had 31 scoring shots to our 18. They did to us what we did to Brisbane. For all our failures, we worked so hard to get it back to a goal difference at the start of the last, but Pickett's miss, Fritsch's miss, then Bedford fumbling when he had the entire forward half empty in front of him killed our momentum and they got their tails up. Gawn and Jackson didn't look match fit, Bowey played his first genuinely poor game of his career, Harmes didn't learn his lessons and kept getting caught trying to break tackles, and we were too short up forward and therefore couldn't take enough get out of jail marks when we needed them. We can't play one tall forward without having one of Gawn and Jackson playing forward as well, so either we do that or we bring Weideman back and drop one of the underperforming small forwards (Bedford was great against Brisbane but really no good since). We don't have much wriggle room with our fixture, so it hurts to drop this one to one of our major competitors, but the swing between the Brisbane game and this game shows that we have to be on for most of our run home or we're going to drop too many games and cede ladder position.

OK, sole tall forward not including the resting ruck. Last year our preferred line up was two tall forwards (Brown and TMac) alongside the two rucks (Gawn and Jackson). Agree with @Lucifers Hero, it's not Bowey. It's Brayshaw, isn't it? Salem went down, we sent Brayshaw back to cover his spot, it turned out Brayshaw was excellent across half-back whilst Jordon has been great on a wing, and Rivers' form wasn't stellar, so when Salem returned Brayshaw held him out.

IMO our forward half work can be better. When we click in the forward half we’re unstoppable - see, eg, the Brisbane game, or the finals last year. But too often we are out-marked, take the wrong option going inside, or miss a shot on goal we should kick. When those happen, we leave the door open for opponents. The stats look good this year compared to last year but we’ve had a comparatively easier fixture, with fewer games against good sides to this point than last year. We’re a much stronger side than some of the lazy pundits in the media suggest, but we can do better IMO.

Happy with those changes. Bedford is up against a continual challenge to hold his spot. I’m happy he’s getting another game but he needs to be much more like the Brisbane game than the Adelaide one to stay in the seniors. Brown is doing more for the side than @Lord Nev suggests but also has a lot more room for improvement than most other posters suggest. He’s getting the chance but if we persist with one tall forward, TMac looms large down the track. Would love to see him hold the marks he’s been dropping of late. That, as much as the relatively modest goal count, is as good a marker IMO of where he is struggling.

IIRC during the commentary they said Adelaide's second (I think?) quarter had season-high pressure for them? (Or did I imagine that...?)

The truth lies somewhere in between, doesn't it? Yes, he's got a role to play that isn't just him kicking bags, yes, as part of our gameplan we need him bringing the ball to ground and he's doing that and yes, he is regularly competing with multiple defenders hanging off him. Agree with all that. Also agree with his work-rate. At the gorund you can see how But also, he is dropping non-pack marks under less pressure, and he's being outworked in one-on-one contests too often. And he's missing set shots that he used to never miss. And he's burning team-mates by snapping shots when he could be passing. He's not "cooked" as some have suggested, but he's also not going as well as your post suggests IMO.

I didn't see anything from the game to suggest to me that M Brown is a better ruck option than Weideman. If both Gawn and Jackson are right to come in, M Brown is the first out. Then the question is whether we go back to having the additional tall, which is what we had prior to the bye (Bedford presumably misses, which is harsh, but would be done for structural reasons), or we continue to play with one fewer tall, in which case it's likely Weideman who makes way. I'll be interested to see which way we lean with Geelong - do we want height in our forward line to avoid them intercept marking against us too much, or do we want pace to see if we can pressure them and out-run them when it hits the deck.

Oh, and can we just have a moment to marvel at the latest AFL MRO/Tribunal disgrace. Tom Stewart runs past the ball and KOs Prestia. That's "careless". Kozzie Pickett poorly executed a tackle. That's "intentional". (FWIW, I have no problem with Pickett being cited for what he did, but it was careless in the truest sense of the word).