titan_uranus

The changes make sense - Tomlinson and Petty replace the forced changes in Lever and Hibberd, and Brown replaces Petty in the forward line. Since losing Gawn we've had a look at a Brown, Petty and JVR forward line, then a TMac, Petty and JVR forward line, and now this week a Brown, TMac and JVR forward line. That's all three combinations and with Gawn now 1-3 weeks away, we're getting a good handle on our options and what we might do to fit him back in. Having said that, if it's teeming with rain, we may not want all three of Brown, JVR and TMac in the same side. Brown would IMO be the most likely to be a late withdrawal for Melksham or Laurie, if we want to go smaller.

Why not, we just played two weeks with JVR, TMac and Petty all in the forward line, plus Grundy rucking. The only difference will be Brown swapping with Petty. Ultimately once Gawn's back we can't play them all but right now we can probably play them all, particularly if Lever's out as I'd then argue for Petty to go back to the backline.

It's not the fact we have to travel, it's the unevenness between each Victorian club's travel schedules. All interstate sides have the same number of interstate games every year, almost always spread out the same way (alternating each week). Victorian clubs vary - some get 6 games away, some get 8, some get them all in the first half, some get them all in the second half, etc. Last year I felt that too much of our travel was in the post-bye period of our fixture and compressed together (e.g. that six week period where each game was at a different venue) which was more difficult than some of our competitors.

Not quite. The week after Geelong we've got GWS in Alice Springs. We also have North Melbourne in Round 21 in Hobart. So post-bye we have Sydney, Hobart, Alice Springs and Geelong, with the other 6 games in Melbourne (one Marvel, 5 MCG). The upside to it, I suppose, is that we don't have any genuine interstate games between Round 10 vs Port and Round 24 vs Sydney - only our own sold game in Alice Springs and North in Hobart.

I figured with no real interstate game in the first 8 weeks, they'd be on the road repeatedly in the final 8 weeks. Nope. Their final game is at the Gabba but they have five straight games at Marvel prior to that. That includes an "away" game to Hawthorn at Marvel, which is ridiculous (MCG tenants being forced to play "home" games at Marvel against Marvel tenants is obscenely unfair). So that means their travel is in the middle third of the year - they have 5 interstate games in their middle 9 games. Still means they get a soft start and a largely soft run into finals, which is about as good as it gets.

Match Replay: West Coast v Melbourne (afl.com.au)

I imagine it could be Brown for Hibberd, with Petty back to defence, or Jordon for Hibberd with Brown missing out.

Very happy to walk away from that with a 10 goal win and form into players like TMac. That’s two road trips out of the way in the first month of the season, and a 3-1 scoreline from the Dogs, Brisbane, Sydney and West Coast is IMO a good result.

Essendon have had, I think, the softest opening four matches of anyone, making St Kilda’s draw look taxing. Hawthorn, GC, St Kilda, GWS. Like St Kilda, all four games in Melbourne.

Fremantle’s first four games have been terrible. They likely would be 0-4 if West Coast had had a bench to rotate last week. I’ll give them the Dogs win but the Dogs in Round 2 were all over the place, absolutely nothing like their more recent fortnight. But Fremantle, Essendon and Gold Coast haven’t exactly set the world on fire so far. It’s been a soft fixture, no matter how much you like St Kilda or are concerned about them beating us. Agree. They’re undefeated but with room to improve, if I were a Carlton fan I’d be pretty happy with that.

Yes Jordon played well last week, but if he was better than Sparrow it was marginally at best. Sparrow didn’t deserve to be dropped either, so there was no easy way to get Pickett back in. I sincerely hope Jordon is the sub though. Deserves that spot far more than Melksham does.

Very un-Sydney like to let Port back into the game in the fourth. The last kick will hurt but they never should have been behind at all. Meanwhile I’m looking forward to seeing if St Kilda can produce this football against a reasonable side. An opening month of Fremantle, the Dogs, Essendon and GC, all in Melbourne, and three straight Saturday night games, is not exactly taxing. IMO jury remains out, but beat Collingwood next week (or at least play them well) and that will change.

Objectively we should belt West Coast into oblivion given the talent level of the two sides in 2023 and then given West Coast are missing a stack of first-choice players. But wins should never be taken for granted, and who knows whether West Coast's fringe players will approach the game differently to the injured veterans who are perhaps harder to get to transition to a more 2023 appropriate style of football.

Other than COVID, I think the only change has been the drop time, which used to be 5pm but was moved to 6.20pm to allow Channel 7 to announce the teams "first" during their news bulletin. During COVID teams were announced the day prior, which was in part at least because we were playing games mid-week to make sure we had a complete season.

Very little was surer than Collingwood losing a game despite the AFL media's "how do you beat them?" rhetoric, than the AFL media asking if they've been "worked out" now that they've lost. Brisbane applied great pressure and Collingwood wilted. It was also at the Gabba where Brisbane is on a streak of something like 39-7 over the last 4 years. Collingwood can be exposed with the way they press their defence up the ground, but it requires strong pressure and strength at contest to avoid them playing in their front half.

As they've done for decades, all teams are announced on Thursday but for Sunday games extended squads are named. The final 22 is trimmed on Friday, and the sub named on game-day as usual. Turner isn't named in the squad. If Hibberd is going to be withdrawn, it will be Tomlinson.

I get it, but there aren’t any obvious contenders to be dropped instead of him.

West Coast lose Cripps, Ryan, Shuey, Sheed, Witherden and McGovern. They regain Yeo and then...well...yeah.

Based on the extended bench, if TMac replaces Brown, then it's Jordon, Rivers or Chandler who will be dropped for Pickett.

In: Pickett, McDonald, Dunstan, Tomlinson Out: Brown (injured) Bench: Melksham, Tomlinson, Jordon, Rivers, McDonald, Dunstan, Pickett, Chandler

No it's not. We've been given two home games against West Coast since Round 2, 2014. There was no requirement in our NT contract that West Coast had to be the side we played in Darwin or Alice Springs, so the AFL had that choice. It's utterly ridiculous that we are going to hit 10 years without playing West Coast in Melbourne. Also remember that we have drawn West Coast away in every season since 2012, other than 2015 (i.e. in 2019 we had a return game against West Coast in Perth).

Hickey and Reid. Reid on average no better than Amartey or McDonald.

Two responses to the bolded point: Other than Collingwood, who out there is likely to be better at that sort of football than Sydney? I don't have the figures but our pressure was right up yesterday, which is a significant reason Sydney couldn't hit their short kicks. Blakey was constantly trying to hit tough kicks into the corridor but he was being chased/tackled a lot, and we were sweating on his intended targets

IMO well above 60/40 in our favour. Perhaps on TV you see heaps more of the Shane Warne stand and not as much of the Northern Stand. The Northern, particularly the members, was heavily Melbourne dominant. Being at the ground you hear the noise. Our crowd was properly louder, as you would want. No idea how you can generalise and conclude Melbourne supporters aren’t Grand Prix fans and wouldn’t have gone, or stayed home/gone out to watch it. It’s a one-off world class event. It will absolutely have taken people away from the G. And as to numbers, scroll back up and have a look at the data. As a proportion of our membership, in 2022 we drew bigger crowds than all other Victorian clubs. That doesn’t support your argument.