titan_uranus

All members of the current top 4 (Collingwood, Port, Brisbane, us) have played each other except Melbourne v Collingwood which is this week. It's a big if, but if we win, the top 4 record against each other will be: Port - 2-1 Brisbane - 2-1 Collingwood - 1-2 Melbourne - 1-2 Obviously if we lose, they'll all be 2-1 and we'll be 0-3. But a win will show that we're not that far off, particularly given that our loss to Port was by a kick in the rain.

As @Lucifers Hero has posted above, we actually have a comparatively kind draw. That stems largely from the six double-up opponents we were given. Of them, two are North and Hawthorn, the next two are Carlton and Richmond who pre-season were considered top 8 chances but right now are both more likely to be bottom 6. Then there's Sydney, a pre-season flag fancy who IMO can still challenge and by Round 24 could be well in the thick of it, and then Brisbane. That's a much kinder slate of repeat games than would have been expected pre-season.

I'm in the opposite camp, in that I think going with May + Lever, then Hibberd, then smalls, is a worse structure than May + Lever + Tomlinson/Turner/Petty, then Hibberd, then smalls. When we play sides with at least two good tall forwards the former structure requires either/both of Lever to play with less freedom and Hibberd to play taller than he is. I've seen enough from Hibberd this year to believe he has enough run and gun to be a smaller defender than a taller one, and the addition of a third tall helps allow Lever to zone off.

This reads like you are already laying the foundations to be pessimistic if we win.

So can we make the prelim if we "perk up"? This time last year no one expected Collingwood to make a prelim and if you had thought it, you'd have added that they would have been "significantly out of their weight division".

Not sure Geelong winning is a good result.

They haven't won tonight yet though... Meanwhile the Dogs cannot defend. If they're serious they have no business losing to a Geelong side missing the midfield talent Geelong's missing (Dangerfield, Guthrie, Holmes, Duncan, Stanley). But they cannot stop Geelong moving the ball on transition.

You understand this is blatant hypocrisy, right? We win ugly, you talk about how we played terrible football. Collingwood win ugly, you talk about their W-L record (i.e. suggesting the win is all that matters).

If Collingwood can be challenged by a rabble West Coast side fielding half a WAFL outfit and down to two on the bench, then this game is right there for us if we're good enough. But let's not get sucked into the "De Goey's out" stuff. They bat deep. It's obviously a big loss but we need to focus on the 23 they play, not the ones they don't.

Fine. Not exactly what we were debating but fine. Although I challenge the notion that we've had a "soft" draw. It hasn't been the hardest, but it hasn't been easy. We spent 50% of the first 10 weeks on the road. We've had the two hardest road trips (Brisbane in Brisbane, Port in Adelaide). We got Sydney when they were full strength before they collapsed. We got Fremantle when they were in-form, rather than earlier in the year when they spent weeks playing mindlessly slow football. It's all debatable but despite having played 8 of the current bottom 10, it's not like we've had a cakewalk of a season so far.

I'm guessing you're saying he's not playing well? 2.1 from 8 touches, 3 marks, with 1 tackle, reads pretty standard I'd have thought?

If you're expanding the definition beyond the bottom 3, then that applies to everyone. Since Round 2 Collingwood's only scored over 100 twice, against GWS and North. Since Round 1 Port Adelaide's only scored over 100 twice, against West Coast and North. They struggled to score against Sydney without a backline and then their other low scores have been against good sides (Collingwood, the Dogs, us). Brisbane's five lowest scores this year have been against five of the six best sides they've played (Port, the Dogs, us, Adelaide, Essendon, with the 6th being Collingwood). Adelaide's three lowest scores have been against three strong sides in the Dogs, Collingwood and Geelong in Geelong. The Dogs have only scored 100 once, against Fremantle during Fremantle's losing streak, and their four lowest scores were against us, Brisbane, Port Adelaide and Gold Coast.

I'm arguing Hibberd shouldn't be a key defender. May, Lever, Tomlinson and Hibberd can work. Hibberd can play smaller and looser.

I've seen the Harmes one on replay and I think he's likely to be suspended. Appears to me to run past the ball and bump, with some contact (probably minor) to the head. I can easily see that being graded "medium" impact, because the MRO has been obsessed with grading everything "medium" or above, and that's a week.

I've already mentioned this before but going into this round we'd scored 33%-odd from those three games, which were 27% of the games we'd played. So the discrepancy isn't huge and isn't anywhere near big enough to mean that we can't score against other sides, because that's clearly untrue. I suspect you don't like stats but on expected scores last night we won by 40-odd. Had we kicked some of the basic shots we missed, and won by 30+, there would be significantly less angst on here.

Hibberd for Bowey seems a clear one. If Viney gets suspended then Oliver takes his spot. If Viney doesn't get suspended then someone has to be dropped for Oliver. IMO, we still have too many mid/small forwards and mid/small defenders. McVee was fantastic last night and Rivers IMO is crucial to our future, so I imagine Chandler's going to be the one to make way. Chandler would then take Harmes' spot as sub (whether he's suspended or not). I still think we need another midfield rotation and if/when Dunstan's fit I'd be looking to integrate him into the side, although it's not abundantly clear to me who makes way. Tomlinson stays. Please, please, please, the FD has to stick with three tall defenders for the rest of the year. No more making Hibberd play tall. No more trying to make Lever take talls he's never going to beat. Last night worked, even if McKay kicked 3 on Tomlinson. We stick with it. Smith stays. No point giving him just one game. He wasn't good but he wasn't terrible. Try it again before the bye. If it doesn't work again, post-bye we get Petty back or we try Brown.

Probably should be talking about Petracca's game more. 32 possessions, 6 marks, 4 tackles, 7 clearances, 15 ground ball gets (next highest for either side was Walsh with 8), 9 score involvements but also 27 pressure acts, 11 of which were in the defensive half, all from 83% game time. Did it on offence and defence. Truly superb.

Too many Demonlanders expect 2021 form. I was taken by Lever on radio this morning. He was asked about whether he felt we are getting back to 2021 GF form (ridiculous question by the way). His answer was that we've spoken at the club about how distracting it is to try to "get back" to our 2021 form because it was so special, and that it's about working hard to play good footy. I wish more Demonlanders would come around to that line of thinking. The more we put 2021 to one side and just focus on what we're doing in 2023, the better. If you keep wanting us to play football like we did in 2021, you're going to more often than not be disappointed.

Genuine question. When was the last time we were underdogs for a game? Did it occur at all in 2022? Geelong in Geelong maybe? It’s a chance for us to be the hunters. No one actually expects us to win. Let’s relish that.

No Hibberd either, who despite his age and weary achilles has been one of our best this season so far.

You should be over the moon today. You said earlier this week that you couldn’t see a positive in how we are playing. To win despite that should have you ecstatic.

I’m not sure it did. It felt to me as though we held them at arm’s length all night.

6 - Petracca 5 - May 4 - Lever 3 - McVee 2 - Gawn 1 - Fritsch

As usual @Axis of Bob is right. The scoreline was ugly given our inaccuracy but we dominated general play all night. The stats showed it. +50 disposals but also +11 tackles. +29 CPs, +9 clearances, +20 inside 50s (they only had 39) and +7 scoring shots. On expected scores we should have won by 7-odd goals I believe. May kept Curnow silent. Tomlinson got beaten but allowed Lever to play well enough that Voss felt compelled to send Lewis Young forward to tag him. Gawn got his mojo back. McVee was superb. JVR was threatening all night. Yes they had mids out but we had Oliver, Petty and Hibberd out and lost Bowey mid-game. If you said during the week we’d lose, or if you said you couldn’t see anything good in our season, or that you thought we were cooked for the year, you should be celebrating this win (whether you do so openly or not).

These largely don't respond to what I was saying, but happy to talk further about them. The Swans right now are a shadow of the side they were in 2022. That's largely due to their injury list. They went from 2-0 to 3-6, but as I've argued before, in only one of those games did they play with a full backline, and that was the first of those games, against us. The Dogs went from 0-2 to 7-3, which included wins over Brisbane, Fremantle in Perth and just last week an 8-goal win over everyone's favourite side right now, Adelaide. As for 2022, we went 16-6 and finished 2nd and led in all bar one of our losses by at least 20 points. We played well for much of the season but we peaked too early, we had injuries at the wrong time, our back half of our fixture was very difficult (both as to opponents and as to travel), and other sides continually brought close enough to their best against us, which we couldn't keep doing week after week. Despite all of that, we still led both Sydney and Brisbane by 20+ points in the finals. We just couldn't sustain our game for long enough. I don't think we've improved on 2021 yet. I don't think we have to though. Our 2021 season was stellar. We can't expect us to be as dominant each year as we were in 2021. I'm concerned about a few aspects of our 2023 season so far - mostly around backline structure and D50 stoppage work - but as with last year I don't think we're as far off being a genuine flag contender as most of Demonland appears to. I don't want or need us to be the clear front-runner all year like we were for large parts of 2021 and 2022.