titan_uranus

Brown played tonight for fitness, not for form. His recent AFL form means he comes straight back into the side. He didn't need to kick a bag of goals to prove that.

Sydney have a habit of losing to weak sides, a bit like us last year. Last year they lost 7 home and away games, 4 of which were to Gold Coast, Fremantle, Hawthorn and St Kilda who didn't play finals. This would be a pretty big boilover though, given how bad North were last week.

Had our chances in the first half of the fourth quarter. Gay kicks that goal and it's a 2 point game with 5 minutes left. Just couldn't get a clean kick inside 50. Very reminiscent of the senior men's sides' main losses under Goodwin.

Agreed. Brown was trying his guts out in his early games last year but just wasn't fit enough to compete. He still isn't exactly dominant when the ball hits the deck but his repeat leading and pack crashing late last year and in his two games this year have been much better.

Which begs the question: why is Moniz-Wakefield wearing 29 for Casey? What would happen if Hunt was playing too?

So what's the deal with Melksham?

I couldn't disagree more. Not only is there no such thing as an "easy" premiership year, this year I do not think the gap between us and whoever is next is anywhere near as big as others are making it out to be. Each of the Dogs, Sydney, Carlton, Brisbane and Geelong can match it with each other, and us. Each can be explosive in offence. We're better, but not by so much that you could possibly say what you've said.

I get the joke but the Dogs are one of the six premiership contenders IMO (alongside us, Brisbane, Geelong, Sydney and Carlton). Sides to win games over any of that six are: us, the Dogs, Geelong, Sydney and Carlton. Not a coincidence...

Geelong was missing Stewart, Selwood, Menegola, Rohan and Ratugolea. Although Brisbane was missing McInerney and Hipwood, those outs for Geelong mean Brisbane really should have won this game if they're serious this year. Since the start of 2019 Brisbane are 48-17 in H&A games. Of those 48 wins, only 11 have been outside Queensland.

With Hibberd and Salem injured, is there anyone who really puts pressure on Rivers' spot in the side? Smith can run but is no better kick.

Yep, much harder post-bye. Percentage is nice but our pre-bye focus needs to be banking the 4 points, playing our way, and staying healthy. It gets very hard post-bye, and we don't yet know how many six-day breaks we'll have either. I understand what you say about Weid but I am convinced Brown would have gone better. He straightens us up and doesn't seem to get in TMac/Fritsch's way as much as Weid does. Which in turn would, I think, have opened up more opportunities (i.e. it wouldn't just have been a case of Brown being on the end of the same inside 50s we saw last night).

Interesting run in the fixture coming up. 9 games to go before the bye. Of those, only two aren't at the MCG, and those are West Coast in Perth and North at Marvel. The MCG games are GWS, Richmond, Hawthorn, St Kilda, Fremantle, Sydney and Collingwood. IMO the only true premiership and top 4 contender in that slate is Sydney (the others IMO are Brisbane, Geelong, Carlton and the Dogs). Doesn't mean we're going to win the rest, in fact on 2021 form you'd expect us to drop one of the games to the mid-table sides coming up.

Also, that was some terrible umpiring. There were so many instances of the players from both sides having no idea who the free kick had been awarded to. Also, the decision to pay a mark to Drew after it had clearly bounced in and out of Viney's hands may well be the single worst umpiring decision I've ever seen. (But the two deliberates against us for moving the ball forward, but then not paying it against the Port player who picked the ball up in our forward line in the fourth and just walked over the line, that was also bad).

But there's also the "we love Smith" rule. Which rule takes priority?

We are a team of predictability. We don't care if our opponent knows what we're going to do. We say "so what, we'll do it and we'll make it work".

Great example of us managing our fitness this week. Usually Langdon, May and Tomlinson play 100% (Lever too when he's fully fit). Tonight we gave all of them rests - May 97%, Tomlinson 96%, Langdon 95%, Lever 89%.

6 - May 5 - Gawn 4 - Jordon 3 - Langdon 2 - Harmes 1 - ANB

Brown returns for one of Weid or TMac. Do the FD go with Weid's brownie points from last week, or TMac's brownie points from ages back? Smith deserves to come back too. Not sure who he comes in for. Hunt wasn't great so that's an option. Potentially Tomlinson depending on GWS" forward line?

This is a classic example of focusing on a stat without having any regard for context. Their shots were misses because they were taking shots from awful positions. Take a look at the shot map. 8 of their 12 behinds were from 45+ metres out, most of which were on a 45-degree angle or more. Another two behinds were hard up on the boundary. They were taking shots from outside 50 because they couldn't work out how to take a mark inside 50, because of our defensive dominance. If you think tonight was just "some good defence" I'm sorry but you have no idea what you're watching. Tonight was elite defence.

We were 50 points up with 10 minutes to go. We're coming off six day breaks including two trips (from GC, and then to Adelaide). We gave Langdon a rest on the bench late. That tells you all you need to know - we were not busting our gut completely late. We were dominant. Yes, disappointing we didn't blow them to pieces and there were a few frustrating moments, but we toyed with them. Now we're 4-0 and we've already ticked off two interstate trips. May outstanding (but for that late dropped mark), loved Jordon's game, Gawn found form, Brayshaw put in another great game in defence, Harmes was solid and Lever got through well. Neither Weid nor TMac were any good. I don't mind who gets dropped for Brown, but there should be no doubt that one goes. Pickett is doing a lot defensively but just cannot get in form with ball in hand. And I'm still not convinced by Hunt.

Smith has never played more than four games in a row, which he has only done once: Rounds 15-18 in 2020. He's otherwise only played three games in a row a few times, including just now.

What's with all the "hope Brown doesn't have COVID" stuff? Is there a rumour I missed? Given we've already flown over, I suspect the answer to the Brown situation is that he couldn't fly with us today and so couldn't take part in adequate preparation. So we give Weid and TMac another game and unless both dominate, one is going to make way for Brown next week (IMO Brown is a walk-up start). I've never been much of a Smith fan and thought his game last week was poor in patches, but even I can acknowledge how unfair and harsh it is for him to be forced out due to COVID. He deserves to come straight back and pressure will be on Tomlinson and Hunt, you'd think. Having said all that, so great to see Lever back.

Agree, although I'm pretty confident the Dogs will be making finals this year, so at this stage I'd be confining the lottery to 7th and 8th. Carlton's repeat games are against Richmond, Collingwood, Adelaide, GWS and Fremantle. Right now Richmond, Adelaide and Fremantle don't look like threatening Carlton much, so that's not a bad draw. But as you say, their post-bye run is pretty tough, particularly the last few rounds. Problem is, their next five are GC, Port, Fremantle, North and Adelaide. I don't want to alarm anyone...but...8-0 is not completely out of the question for Carlton. I reckon Heeney satisfies that pretty nicely.

Agree, but would add that until we get the defensive reinforcements back, we're at risk in any game where we get badly beaten in any clearance, and/or if we turn it over at half-forward. Last year we could cover for either/both of those with our backline. I'm not confident that with Hunt, Smith and Tomlinson playing together, we'd be able to continue to cover turnovers or quick clearances against.

I'm not sure how important this is any more. At that time we were training TMac to play on a wing. After what happened with Brown/Weideman, TMac was moved back into a key forward role and, aside from Round 1 this year, that's all he's done since then.