Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Having watched the game again on replay last night, my assessment is that post quarter time our ball movement out of the back half slaughtered us. A few main culprits that I recall: * Steven May's kick-ins were atrocious * Langdon pushed up the ground well to receive, but turned it straight back over with his kicking * Smith just hack kicks it or kicks to a pack. I have rarely seen him reliability find targets in all the games he has played. * No one seemed to target big Max at the kick-ins. Add to the above that from the second quarter onwards and really pressed up and positioned well behind their forward 50 arc and we just kept turning it back over to them between half back/wing and playing the game in their forward half. Also seemed to be a lack of half forwards pushing up to provide an outlet option all too often. All of this should be quite fixable and I don't think May is going to have the shocking game he did kick-in wise too often. The few guys I thought did bring the ball out of defense well were Salem and Rivers, but no real surprises there. Our multiple uncoordinated flying for spectacular marks by May and Smith as well as the well documented spoiling of one another all made for an incredibly dysfunctional backline. I f it wasn't for big Max's usual great positioning and marking behind the ball, we would have been completely stuffed.

On that basis you would want Gawn and Trac either right? Having knees are not the career ending injury they once were. Particularly since Lever had played a fair few trouble free seasons at the Crows, I think the club are/were taking a pretty fair bet on that basis.

I like those matchups.

Agree. I seem to recall many here on Demonland doing cartwheels at the time we first signed him. How quickly some turn on these guys after a bit of misfortune injury and/or form wise. Still pleanty of time for him to get back to his best.

Seriously think the AFL should increase the game time back to what it was. I actually think shorter games has hurt us more than a lot of sides with the additional fittness we built over the preseason. In the preseason games we really started to get on top in second halves as our enhanced fitness kicked in. Have heard arguments that the integrity of the game / season would be damaged if the change was made after the first two Rds had already been played. However, that integrity was already damaged when the switch to shorter games was made in the first place.

Don't discount the correlation with the ability to stand out and/or attract the affection of umpires and getting brownlow votes. Just refer to Max Gawn (was it 2018?) that year he took out just about every players, coaches and media award and yet failed to bring home the Brownlow.

Kind of makes a mockery of suspending Kosi for visiting a few friends at a house.

... a better hair cut and more brains.

Totally get the athletic upside associated with Smith, but I've rarely seen a game from him in defense where he has looked like he belonged there. Doesn't seem to know or play his role well and makes poor decisions. Oscar may never be a champion, but I think he is also better than people give him credit for and plays a team game. Will be interested to see how this all plays out, because part of me also wants to see Smith given the oppertunity to settle, find his feet and show us what he can do as well. It's that balancing act between winning on the day/team balance and providing the stability in which players can develop without fear of being dropped the moment they are bought in. I get the feeling that Goodwin and our match committee lean heavily towards the stability side of things and Smith will retain his spot in the side.

Agree that it's hardly a new concept, but I think taking playing positions from the feild and/or even the bench is a more noticeable/radical change for the AFL to have to sell to the football public than just tinkering by restricting 10 or 20 less rotations and shortening quarters by 2 - 5mins or whatever they have tended to do at any one time. If they were to bite the bullet and restrict feild numbers, the improvement in the game style would sell it to the football public pretty quickly and easily I think.

For me, I'd like to see Oscar in for Smith as I think he provides much better structure and predictability within our backline. Weid in for Jackson - Jackson just isn't ready yet. I'd also consider bringing in Lockhardt for Nev. Part of me would also like to bring in Kosi, but I'm honestly torn at who's expense it should be at. Perhaps I need to watch the game again, but I thought that ANB was actually one of our better players.

Interesting that under more limited playing numbers on the field (14 a side or whatever) that two key forwards kick 5 goals each and take a bunch of marks. The combination of unlimited interchange numbers, four on the bench, flooding defensive 50m and zone defenses has absolutely butchered the free flowing, 1 on 1 contested character of our game. Perhaps instead of cutting game time, the AFL need to get more radical and aggressive on limiting rotations and perhaps even dropping back to 16 a side and two on the bench?

Is pleasing to read from the reserves match review that Bradke played almost a full game in the ruck and had a good game. Perhaps it's starting to click for him and his development will accelerate from here. Also pleasing from the perspective that it permitted Weid to play mostly forward and that he too seemed to find some marking form (whatever actually means in a semi scratch match under non typical fielded player numbers). I also take some hart in Oscar reportedly getting back some confidence.

It honesty baffles me that Jackson was selected ahead of Weid against Carlton. To me Jackson's lack of performance in preseason games had shown that he was some way off being ready for AFL footy. It's not that Weid set the world on fire during the preseason, but he looked more competitive from Jackson, particularly considering Weid was being played somewhat out of position as an undersized ruckman. At least Weid has more of a mature body now than Jackson and the Weid has a reasonable track record of what he can do when fit. Would have been a fair slap in the face for Weid to have Jackon selected ahead of him on the weekend. If it was me, I'd be selecting Weid in 22 against Essendon.

Max is pretty good at knowing when he needs to drop back into defense to help plug a hole when we are under pressure, but I'm struggling to think of any other players we have that make these kind of adjustments.

Agree.

I'm not entirely rapped with how yesterday panned out, but not completely shattered either. So many are pointing the finger at Goodwin, but I think that's a bit harsh in some respects. From what I understand, the role of runners is now even more limited than it once was, meaning there isn't that much oppertunity for coaches to swing changes or get messages out to players when the game is in motion. The players need to start recognising what's going on and make some changes themselves. Our on ball brigade aren't fresh rookies these days and need to stand up and take on the responsibility themselves. If there was a quarter that nearly lost us the game more than any other, it was the third quarter. I wasn't unhappy with the second given we had built a good lead in the first and then essentially held that when they threw everything at us. But we should have done more to reset at half time and either broke even again or preferably extended our lead in the third. Once they got within a few goals at 3/4 time, it was always going to come down to the wire as they essentially had nothing to loose and all the pressure was on us. I did think we showed reasonable composure in the last quarter - the Melbourne of old would have thrown that game. Patracca's steadying goal against the run of play was critical and I thought it was a huge credit to him the way he took responsibility for it and composure to nail it.

It's just a pity is was a shortened game, such that the final margin flatters them somewhat.

Seriously, what is the AFL thinking letting the current serving president of one particular club serve on this panel? A bit like Scomo letting an ex-oil and gas executive loose with public policy. Conflict of interest much?

Merge that finacial black hole of GWS with Hawthorn and send them to Tassie. There, that solves it Jeff, now F#%K off.

Are we still going on about how to pronounce Hadley's last name? @Demonland , I think we need to pitch to get Harley on for a podcast interview just so we can set this straight ?. Plus, he hasn't even played a game for us yet and I sense he's already becoming a bit of a fan favorite (watch out Nev).

I probably could have come to respect that somewhat. At least Nic Nat wouldn't have just been leaving because he was a money hungry slimy little turd.

Rivers looks like he has a pretty mature head on him. Kosi looks like he belongs. Harley knows how to play the game and probably is the sort of player who you would rarely play a game in the seconds if you thought he was fit and conditioned. The way I see it Jackson is mainly there to just bring the ball to ground, but then will probably also stretch your average key position back for mobility once it hits the ground. I don't have that many concerns in that regards. Seven changes is a lot to make to a team at once, from the perspective of team cohesion, but I think most teams will be in a similar boat having not played in months, except for the really mature ones like WC, Richmond and perhaps Geelong and Collingwood.

Somewhat surprised with the selection of Hunt, but in other ways not. From the vision of practice match I saw of him against North, he didn't exactly set the world on fire offensively, but I thought his pressure acts, chasing and harassing of the opposition were pretty good. On his day he can be pretty damaging as we saw from his ability to provide a target and kick goals for us last year. In summary I don't have any real concerns of him holding his own and with his inclusion in the side, it could give us a good opportunity to at the least match them or more probability stretch them for pace all over the ground and give either him or one of our players a good oppertunity to cut loose.

That wouldn't surprise me. My recollection isn't that great on this matter, but I think Garry and Brett are/were in-laws too, so there may also be a natural affection on that basis too.