titan_uranus

Selection this week is going to be as interesting to me as any game has been for a long time. Why? Because Spargo will be a forced out. He hasn't missed a game since Round 16, 2020 (when we lost to Fremantle in Cairns). He's been on the team list every game since then, and at times that's been through questionable form. Obviously enough the FD rate his role as part of what we sometimes call our "engine room" (i.e. him, ANB, Chandler, etc.). Without him this week I'm keen to see what the FD do to replace him. Two other big tests: Melksham and TMac. We can't play both in the same forward line for the reason of the year IMO, and there's a strong argument that we shouldn't be playing either of them on current form (TMac's four goals against the West Coast 2nds shouldn't stand for as much as perhaps we thought it did).

I haven't seen the full game so I'm not as qualified as others to comment on what went wrong. There's no doubt IMO that covering for Gawn's absence every week is not straightforward and that the fact we were able to beat Sydney without him doesn't automatically mean we can beat everyone or anyone without him. Not having Lever makes us exponentially worse as well - Lever was in AA form and him out means our two best intercept marks were missing. Then you add in that Petty's been thrown back and forward without continuity, and IMO hasn't actually been in much good form all season at either end of the ground, and May's still not close to his best, and all of a sudden the part of our game we've relied on being consistently good at for 2+ seasons, our back half, is now porous and weak. Then there are the factors that you'll either think are a disgraceful unjust conspiracy against us, or are [censored]-weak excuses: We were playing in Adelaide off a six-day break from a (warm-ish) game in Perth This was our third road trip in five weeks (it was Essendon's first) We haven't played two consecutive games in the same State, let alone venue, all season We haven't played two games in the same timeslot all season - Sat night, Fri night, Sunday arvo, Sunday twilight, Saturday twilight (and won't next week, with a Monday night) We've already had two six-day breaks and have a five-day break coming up between Richmond and North Melbourne To be 3-2 after these five opponents is probably no better than par (you could have budgeted losses to both Brisbane and Sydney but would have expected the win over Essendon). I'm still OK with that, as we know all too well we don't need to be in peak form in April, but I'm not OK with a defence that can't stop scores as well as it should be able to, nor am I OK with a midfield that doesn't seem to produce its best with any degree of consistency.

I expected Adelaide to belt someone soon but didn't think it would be Carlton. Carlton shouldn't be blown apart in the middle by any side, let alone Adelaide, and it was the midfield dominance which set up the first quarter and the win. Not a bad year to get Adelaide only once and at the G.

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).