Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Agreed, and that's without even talking about the excellent pressure game that he bought. Harassed well all game and properly stuck some great tackles. To me it was pretty close to the sort of form that saw him play the majority of the 2018 season. Really don't understand why people are so quick to pot Spargo. When he's up and about he makes an impact.

I wasn't all that impressed last week to be honest and thought we would have been better off playing Brown against the Hawks as more of a dress rehearsal for a fortnights time in Perth. Was also a bit concerned with T Mac's lack of impact against the Hawks and so really think we need a big man with form on their side to play the Eagles.

Makes you appreciate the value of having Preuss as backup once he gets over his injury. He may be a bit slow (though hopefully a bit slimmer and fitter this year), but he does provide a pretty decent contest.

Agree. To some point. I think Weids will come good, he clunked a few good ones tonight. But I agree with T Mac as backup and playing Brown as the second tall forward as I think he is actually the other in form and has a good record of being pretty handy for a few goals a game.

I actually didn't mind the look of the predominantly red polos, but I can imagine they are probably too vivid a reminder of the Neeld era to ever revert to them again or at least for a long while.

Following on from some of the points made in this thread Re the finacial value of theAFLW, I can't say I agree with this Muppet a lot of the time, but Kennet make some interesting points in this article: Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett says it is a ‘gross discrimination’ that they don’t have an AFLW side https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/hawthorn-president-jeff-kennett-says-it-is-a-gross-discrimination-that-they-dont-have-an-aflw-side/news-story/93f11e1bf549dd5e848aa0ce8873f965 Kennett said the Hawks are missing out on a major revenue stream by being excluded from the rapidly growing women’s game. “We are very disappointed we are not in the AFL, not only for our female (VFLW) players, but also our female membership,” Kennett said. “I consider it to be gross discrimination against the four clubs that are not part of it. “It puts us at a huge disadvantage in terms of our membership and sponsorship and our ability to participate fully in what is the AFL. In the article Jeff also openly makes the point that the AFL don't like the success that the Hawks have in recient times - it's not just the AFL, just about every non Hawthorn supporter thinks this way I recon.

All the attention has been on Kossie, so Bedford has been a bit of a sleeper and gone under the radar a bit. In general, from a situation of being bereft of small forwards we may end up with it as being a strength. If they are both in good form, don't see why we couldn't play both of Kossie and Bedford. Then we could also have the luxury of ANB, Spargo, Hunt and Baker all fighting it out for competition for a spot in the team - all of which are very capable on their day. If Hannan and/or Smith ever make it off the injury list, they are both pretty quick forward types very much capable of making an impact in the air or on the ground.

I think you have figured out who we will run with fairly well there AW. I suspect with his performances to date that Brown is pretty close to a lock too and Jackson may be in to cover for Gawn to be eased back into things a bit such that he doesn't take quite as much of the ruck load that he normally does. Personally I'd like to see Weid playing more time forward this game than as a make shift ruckman. I personally think Spargo is showing some good indications that he is close to the sort of form that made him a regular in 2018, but his finishing by foot (particularly in front of goal) just doesn't quite seem to be there at present. I hardly noticed Hore against North, so would be surprised if he gets a gig. Thought Rivers was the standout backman in the North scratch match, so surprised he wasn't named in the 26.

After watching specifically him in the first half of the North, I thought his pressure and intensity was ok, but every time he got the ball in any space and kicked it he completely butchered and shanked it.

Really glad to have our whole top on ball brigade on the park, looking fit with a good oppertunity to build some early cohesion and confidence. Also really interested to see how Bedford goes as he was looking really quite sharp and ready to play senior footy in last week's scratch match against North.

Lol. ...but I hope Goodwin is just focused on being the MFC supercoach!

All of Lever, May and Oscar would all be reasonably mobile talls at ground level wouldn't they?

Know where you are coming from, he looked pretty good against North to me. Still plenty of time for him to develop his game and confidence at Casey for a call-up later in the season.

I don't understand the lack of detail in the article from the AFL - they need to be open and transparent.

Based what has been comuncicated Re the modified training regime of AVB, I get the impression that Burgess and the club have a flexible horses for courses approach. With their somewhat unique abilities, I don't think either of AVB or Harley necessarily need to be in top 5% league fitness to make an important contribution. More important to get them out on the park somewhat reliably than push them too hard and have them break down and so long as the majority of the team has good fitness, I think we can carry a few highly talented freaks of below average fitness.

Could well be true. I get the feeling that the club are intentionally playing down and keeping pretty quite on Harley generally to manage expectations and keep some of the media attention and pressure away from him as far as reasonably possible.

I recall that win we had against WC in Perrh back in 2017 when we were serverly undermanned with our on ball brigade and a gut busting effort from Jack Viney won us so much ball at the stoppages and around the ground through shear grunt work that kept us in the game until Pederson and T Mac's last quarter, last minute heroics finally got us over the line over there. I don't mind that kind of one dimensionalisim - just keep forging on forward. When he is fit, Jack is an absolute bull and particularly if we have a midfield of other fit bulls like Trac, Oliver, Brayshaw, AVB, Jones, Harems etc, there will be no stopping them.

He is just auditioning for an Oral B commercial - doing a real life 'flip top head' impression.

I actually didn't mind Jordan Lewis on 360. Thought he was good value for talking pretty authentically and with some pretty good insight. Not sure that Gawn will offer quite the same level of insight, but I am sure that he will be pretty authentic just as long as he doesn't overdo the comedy which I'm surprised to hear myself say, but I think he over does the funny stuff a bit lately and it comes across that he's trying a bit too hard in that regard.

I see where this move is coming from and guess it's worth a try to see how it goes. But ... 1. If it's not working, I hope it doesn't take us near a full season to move Harmes somewhere else like it did Freitch; 2. I didn't notice the normal level of output from Harmes against the Crows, so I have some reservations, conversely noting that it's a small sample size, the first practice match of the year and I think the play was generally more scrappy than a normal home and away game, perhaps partly due to extra Casey wind conditions. I do like Harmes ability to break lines through the guts and he has a good ability to impact up forward as well, so hopefully he can push up the ground at the right times as well.

Looking at his stats, he consistently played 17-19 games a season, so to me that supports his general robustness. Also need to consider that a few of the missed games were probably through suspension.

I'm not that disappointed I can't get through the pay wall by the sounds of it.

I think there are plenty with a decent man crush on AVB the way he plays.

Divide your chances of success by a factor of 4 - how very Melbourne ? ?

I only watched the last quarter of the game last night - can anyone give a good rundown on how they saw Nev Jetta's game? From what I did see in the last quarter, it looked like he had a job on Dusty forward and did a decent job on him whilst also picking up some useful possessions of his own.