titan_uranus

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.

6 - Petracca 5 - Chandler 4 - Oliver 3 - Brayshaw 2 - Grundy 1 - Fritsch

Petty or Brown/TMac for Schache. If Dunstan plays well again he may get the sub spot at worst. Or maybe Jordon’s spot? I felt Jordon was poor tonight. Not sure what we do with Spargo if he’s fit.

I hope those in here expressing disappointment in a 90 point margin aren’t the same posters who were worried we’d lose pre-game. Off a 5-day break with a few players missing (Petty, Spargo, Salem) we played clinical football against an admittedly at times pathetic opponent. A percentage boost and (hopefully) no injuries. Loved Chandler’s game and again the work of our wingers was important. Grundy’s marking is no good but when be gets going in clearance and transition he makes us so good. Tonight felt like he rucked heaps more than Gawn, perhaps a fitness thing for Gawn? Not sure Schache did enough to hold his spot. 22 goals with the two tall forwards kicking just 2 total shows that we have many pathways to goal. Like others I’m disappointed in the crowd but I wasn’t able to go tonight for personal reasons so can’t point the finger. But we really need to be pulling 30,000 of our own to all our MCG home games. I maintain that our fanbase don’t like night games (outside of ANZAC Eve).

Ignoring Gather Round for all clubs except Carlton/the Dogs: Collingwood actually only have 5 away games Essendon also only has 5 away games but does have to go to Geelong. Geelong has 5 away games Carlton has 6 away games. Richmond has 6 away games. St Kilda has 6 away games. Bulldogs have 6 away games (one of which is Hawthorn in Tassie) plus Geelong Hawthorn has 9 away games but 4 of them are their own home games in Tasmania. North has 9 away games but 4 of them are their own home games in Tasmania and one is Hawthorn in Tassie, plus Geelong We have 7 away games but 1 of them is our own sold home game to the NT, and one is North in Tassie, plus Geelong So ignoring a club's sold home games it's either 5 or 6 away games for everyone. At least for us, one of those six is North Melbourne (closer to "neutral").

Goodwin in his press conference today confirmed that Brown and TMac have been left out on form, not injury. After having explained that Schache built up VFL form and deserved selection, he was very fairly asked about Dunstan. His answer was he is close to going past some of the current midfielders. I don't know whether that's just Goodwin saying something to placate or whether we're shortly going to see Dunstan step into Sparrow or Jordon's role.

Really interesting selection on two fronts IMO. Firstly, Schache over Brown and TMac. There’s no suggestion the latter two aren’t fit enough for AFL level - if they weren’t I’d have expected as much to be said by the club to help inform us members. So the club instead thinks that Schache’s VFL form this year trumps Brown and TMac’s AFL form. Tough for Brown given he was great before his injury but Schache offers more defensively which may be the logic. Second, no one rested despite the fresh legs of Laurie, Turner, Harmes and Dunstan. It’s in line with the FD’s general approach to seek consistency but on a 5 day break with a trip to the Gold Coast next week I’m still surprised.

The last two times we've played them: We struggled to put them away until midway through the third quarter last year, at Marvel We were something like 20 points down to them in the third quarter in 2021, in Hobart We rarely play our best football against North Melbourne, for whatever reason. We also rarely play our best football against Clarkson-coached sides. They have a few stars (LDU, Simpkin, Sheezel, Larkey), the hot/cold Zurhaar, and then Cunnington, Goldstein and Ziebell. But it falls away after that. Off a 5-day break, I'll be happy with any sort of win to be honest, but reality is we are streets in front of North on form, talent and development, and should really have no issues with them. I'll be disappointed, but not surprised, if this is an arm-wrestle.