Gawn's Beard

This has been stated about 87 times before, but FYI J Smith has OP so going back on the ground did next to nothing.

See the above posts re J Smith. He has OP

I think someone posted about 427 pages ago that it was OP, which explained why he went back on the ground during the JLT. It’s an overuse injury so sending him back on wasn’t going to cause any more damage. Still wasn’t a great look.

Win, lose or draw. It’s refreshing to see that we still have the 2018 football in us.

What did I just read???

Re Jetta - it happened when a saints player dived across his knee. Was a missed free kick and I thought the whole point of bringing in the rule to begin with.

Agreed, although I thought last week we were fine with the 1 ruck. The week before Port structured their ruckman really well. They were each playing 1 kick in front / behind the play at all times. Our ball use was poor and it played to their 2 ruckman setup

One plays predominantly forward, the other wing... We aren’t blessed with many half-forwards at the moment so we couldn’t really drop him for a wingman.

Our problem has been locking the ball inside 50 / forward pressure. Adding another tall isn’t going to help with that. Keilty may have been worth a look but perhaps a forward line with 3 talls isn’t the right balance?

Re ANB, he is generally the team leader in “pressure acts”. Week 1 he had 30 (Spargo 9, Wagner 13): For a team who’ve allowed the opposition to transition with little pressure in the first 2 rounds, I suspect the coaches will be sticking with him. Yes he’s disposal isn’t great but our ball movement in general hasn’t really helped him or the other forwards.

So... Did we work out how training went?

This should just be pinned to every pregame thread...

Before we all completely lose our minds, does anyone know what the injury actually is? If it’s a strain then I agree, it was silly. If it’s something else (ie load issue) then having him out there wouldn’t have made much of a difference to the underlying injury.

I read the forum before checking the score. I presumed we were down by 40+ points...

@Chook in Perth - Are you able to shed any light on this?

Is it entirely plausible that Hogan has told the club, but the club are brokering a deal prior to Hogan going public? If he comes out and say I want to go home to Fremantle, it weakens our hand somewhat

http://m.afl.com.au/news/2018-07-15/thanks-razor-dees-lowfive-of-gratitude#/ Anyone concerned that Brayshaw might leave should have those fears allayed by these comments: "How could you leave this team?" he said with a wide grin. "I keep talking about it, but the last two years I haven't played a lot of footy and the 10 minutes after a game is the golden 10 minutes I missed the most. "I love all my teammates and I love the place, so hopefully (my new contract) gets sorted sooner rather than later."

Oliver had an operation during the week on his finger - which was fractured apparently. Pretty impressive that he could get up for today’s game and still be as clean as ever!

Surely Mark Neeld has to be a leading candidate?

Just send him 4 videos: 1. His assist to Garlett against Richmond last year 2. His one handed trap and handball against Hawthorn in his first year 3. The handball against the saints to Jones to set up a goal 4. The 25m handpass from the middle of a pack to (I think) Petracca against Brisbane last year. If anyone wanted to put together a highlights package for him i’m sure Demonland would be eternally grateful!

I look forward to us winning this game - it will be nice to see some sanity return to this Forum. While I’m all for critical and constructive analysis of players and team performance, the slotting of players, coaches and the club (often irrespective of outcome or performance) generally is, quite frankly, pathetic at times. We are at the end of the day supporters of this great club. Imagine if one of our players jumped on here to have a read - whatever confidence they did have would be gone on page one of a post-game thread.

TMac and Viney our for 6-8 according to Goodie...

Trengove, Spencer, White and Hullett all confirmed by Melbourne as delisted

I think you're thinking of the clearance against Richmond on ANZAC Day. He hunted the ball twice in the space of 5 seconds and got it out to Garlett (I think) to kick the goal. EDIT - http://www.melbournefc.com.au/video/2017-04-26/rd-5-all-the-goals about 3.40 through this video

There was another passage of play where Oliver was at the bottom of the pack and Hodge was on top of him. Hodge was giving him a ribbing and Oliver was just lying there with a massive grin on his face. Clearly loves that stuff.