MurDoc516

Over the last 4 years, 26 current listed players have played 5 or more games a season. Do you think that's enough rotation? I wouldn't be against McVee, JVR, Taj, Laurie and Howes all getting runs from round 1 to the BYE and then you pick your best 22 from there. What are your thoughts?

Does anyone know if any sessions are happening at Gosch's Wednesday or Thursday? (I know the practice game is Friday but unable to attend most likely). I'm in Melbourne for a few days so would love to see the boys in person, the first time since the Grand Final :)

Binns won't go top 20. Don't think we will get Cadman or Jefferson with this pick but lets wait and see.

Isn't he getting pushed out because the dogs (Bont) don't think he's sole focus is a premiership? Don't get me wrong, before 2021 I would've loved to have him but I don't see the point in getting him when we could be getting games into Howes as an example.

I think we try trade our 2nd round selection (32) with Bedford for GWS 2nd round selection (21) Works out to roughly pick 49 for Bedford which i think is fair.

Gawn's best work has always been his influence around the ground. People point to his ruck stats but when he was clunking contested marks on the regular and being a brick wall to stop teams transitioning we were incredible. Then for the 2021 final series I had the treat of attending and watching the opposition sweat when he wandered forward and tossed around key backs for fun. The idea to make him a permenant forward in my opinion has it's flaws, but I think Jackson wasn't offering us enough at times as the second ruck or even as forward for it to even have a chance of working. Grundy gives headaches. It wasn't long ago him and Gawn were the MVP's of the league. Players who caused headaches for opposition teams are worth their weight in gold and we should welcome as many of these players into our team as possible.

Hibberd deserves an extension, Melksham not so much. We definetly have cap room just by the nature of the fact that we got a number of players who in the next 12 months could be out the door and wouldn't be a big miss.

If you can only be happy if we win the thing then you will never be happy. The team need to figure out what went wrong because the idea everything would sort it self out never felt realistic. Van Rooyen could have done no worse this final series then what Brown and Melksham put up, so that's somewhere to start.

Beaten without much of whimper on our home deck, not impossible to defend it from here but our weakness just showed themselves again tonight. We need an actual 2nd Ruckman. Sending Gawn forward and leaving Jackson as no 1. for long spells was a disaster + Brown forward rucking? what a joke that was. We need a more agile key forward to replace Brown, if he can't play a full season then is that pedestrian in a qualifying final after a mini preseason mid season then we got problems. Finally we need to move Spargo back as a small forward. The ease the ball exits our forward 50 is no surprise when it's Brown, Gawn and Melksham chasing + Spargo is not suited to a wing.

Just need to be the better team for 3 more games and then back to back!

Natalie Portman

Rivers take a bow, fantastic game. You know if May wins his matchup but is still the lowest rated defender of the night we've had some sort of a game.

6. Lever 5. Petracca 4. Rivers 3. Pickett 2. Oliver 1. Hunt

Leave going back to back and Yze goes to god status

By the end of the season we will have played 1 team outside the top 9 teams in the last 12 weeks while being banged up with injuries. This doesn't excuse our losses nor does it garuntee we will suddenly beat everyone in the finals, but keeping those metrics as high as we are with such a difficult run in vs let's say Geelong or Collingwood having much more favourable draws is a reason to have confidence.

Discussion point: our draw this year vs last year from this point of the season. I'm not concerned about missing finals, more so this years draw doesn't lend itself to scenario where some players can gain some needed confidence and fitness against the lesser sides like we did last season. Beating good sides can bring confidence, but last year after we lost to the dogs we got a soft kill against the suns and a road trip to the Eagles which should've been a soft kill but due to conditions it became a bit of slog. This year, we are playing only top 8 or top 4 candidates and with the tightness of the competition all of them are going to be brutal games, which won't help the sore bodies we have.

6 - Pickett 5 - Viney 4 - Hibberd 3 - Rivers 2 - Trac 1 - Spargo

Gawn - must be injured Pickett - best on ground Viney - stepping up big Petracca - good not great Langdon - good spread today Sparrow - won't replace Oliver Jordon - solid game today Fritsch - set shot yips Brown - played 1 quarter Jackson - not fit either Hibberd - great game today Harmes - didn't do enough May - weakest defender today Brayshaw - midfield minutes soon? Spargo - great game overall Melksham - few good efforts Neal-Bullen - tough when needed Tomlinson - justified his selection Salem - hes getting there Rivers - great return game Lever - played well injured Bedford - was invisible today

It's odd, Trac and Viney had good games but our midfield was run over to easily. Rivers and Tomlinson exceptional down back today. Salem solid although i've never seen him kick the ball into the man on the mark before. Brown showed up for 1 quarter, we didn't do anything differently to make him play better he just randomly started clunking marks. Really think we need to run another tall forward, Bedford was nowhere near the ball today. If McDonald is injured surely JVR has a tank to do the running that Brown just can't do.

IN: Oliver, Petty OUT: Melksham, Tomlinson Really wanted Laurie and JVR to get their chance this week and now theres no way they get an inclusion next week due to the bye.

Pick 2 and a future first from the eagles for Jackson and a future first? Assuming eagles finish bottom 4 next years, make Jackson worth slightly more on points than pick 1.

Felt like we lost game when Sparrow missed a basic handball which was probably the wrong option in the end anyway. Something needs to be said for some players in terrible form at the moment on top of missing some key players (or key players playing under done). A few times tonight we kept trying to be unselfish when the right option was to have a ping. Spargo, Harmes, Brayshaw and Gawn all guilty of this.

Keep seeing we were outplayed and outcoached. I'll concede on the outplayed bit but it's easy to look bad when you're down key pillars mid game. Out coached i'm not sure, we pounded Freo before we were essentially forced to play with Lever as the only tall defenders until a compromised Petty came back on the offer some extra height. Fremantle did nothing we didn't see St. Kilda do for example. Freo purposely went very tall to try disrupt our aerial game and we lost T. Mac before the game and May & Petty during the game. The only thing Goodwin should have done was put Gawn down back as a defender but waited way too long and then decided to put Weideman down back. If T. Mac's not fit i'm sure JVR would be a better option then Weid as he has been swingmen in his junior days. Logically, Tomlinson comes in for May next week and we hope Petty is fine. Melksham needs to come out and a bigger body like Harmes needs to come in.

Trent Rivers was good tonight when it mattered.

Mate, that's the AFL's wet dream. It shows Free Agency works. The reality is, we took a risk drafting a WA boy who was doing TV spots with Nic Nat prior to being drafted.