Swooper1987

We just looked unbalanced right from the start. When my son saw Harmes and Viney lining up inside forward 50 at the first bounce he said "this won't go well". And he was spot on. It's like our selectors are picking the All-Australian team - load up as many mids as possible and jam them in wherever. The fact that the guys in the centre square were in no danger of getting anywhere near a clearance didn't help either. Even when we did get first hands on it, which was surprisingly quite regularly, we managed to fumble or look for something that wasn't there. The team first approach was sadly missing today for Oliver and Harmes in particular and Viney looked like a guy who hadn't played in a very long time. Gawn is spending too long off the ball - at this stage Jackson is good for about 5 minutes per quarter. If Goody wants him on ball play him as a mid and get Tracc or Oliver forward for longer stints. If we are any chance of winning the flag this year we are going to need Tracc to up his scoreboard impact. He's our most dangerous forward and he's not playing enough time in dangerous spots. He's not a great clearance player so put him where he can do some real damage, maybe 60-40 forward.

Concur - maybe flip Max and TMac but the right 6. Lever probably a little stiff. The worst performance from our collective midfield that I've seen this season and why is Gawn spending so much time out of the ruck? We need him in there more than 50% of the time. It may have been worth playing both in the centre square and moving Oliver forward given how poor he was today.

And they were unbelievably accurate 11.2 to 15.12. 13 shots to 27. Insane accuracy from them. Greene was incredible. Hopefully Hibberd is a better match up for him.

It's a good side for the opposition we are playing. Brown more likely for the following week I think.

Knicked a calf at training on Wednesday.

Max usually polls Brownlow votes against Mummy. He can't keep up with Maxy. I think Max always enjoys the challenge of dodging Mummy's elbows and knees.

Geelong built a dynasty on three drafts. Hopefully this sets us up for many years.

Yep, the noise of affirmation - except they were only affirming their own stupidity. Some of their players even got sucked into thinking they were hard done by. Heppell is a great captain though. On a few occasions he told his side to refocus and get on with it. There are some dills in that team.

A great player, a wonderful athlete. He was such a professional. A brilliant intercept defender in 1987, moved forward in 1988 and kicked lots of goals in our run to the GF. In 1994 he played a great season at fullback. 150 of the most dynamic and energetic games you'd hope to see. A great player in a very good era.

VFA was a different beast altogether. Went and saw a bit of footy at Shepley Oval as a young fella in the 70's and 80's. That was a better education than anything I learned in school.

Your brother is a smart guy! The old ladies there were the worst - copped the full brunt of their umbrellas plenty of times in the 80's.

Agree. The man is having a helluva of a year, as both player and leader. His last quarter in particular on Saturday night was an epic. He steps it up when needed. He got 32 hitouts with Jackson playing 45% of game time in the ruck. Against Draper who the week before was second best on ground. He is an amazing player.

That's right

My email just arrived

Not surprised there was such a large spread. Brayshaw and Gawn were excellent but not widely lauded - neither appeared in the media best players lists yet from my view at the ground they were both instrumental in the win. May was an obvious choice for best on. Lever was effective and probably played a game better than 4 votes but that's how it goes. I thought it was only an average Oliver game and Petracca's goals were the difference in the end despite his 42% disposal efficiency. Heppell and Merrett were the Bomber standouts. Heppell is a terrific player and a very good leader.

I am pleased to see Gawn receiving some accolades for the way he played on Saturday night. https://www.afl.com.au/video/639149/winning-like-a-car-out-of-control-a-21yo-treating-rivals-like-schoolboys?videoId=639149&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1624845343001 Go to around the 6 minute mark and Lloyd and Barrett are effusive in their praise for the big fellas game. At the ground I thought he was excellent but none of the main media outlets had him in the best. I love Lloyd's comparison of Gawn to Naitanui.

He would indeed, but they are different players playing different roles. Let's hope they work it out.

The three goals is more a reference point to break even. He does nothing defensively so I was speculating. If the oppo score three or four because he doesn't defend (the main reason he was dropped in the first place and the reason why North let him go) then how does he hold his place? By the way - he kicked more than 60 goals three seasons in a row before last year. That's three a game average. If our aim is to split an aerial contest (i.e reduce intercept marks) there are other ways to do that that happen further up the field. Brown is less likely to get outmarked than a couple of our other forwards but is any use when he doesn't get a mark or free? All just grist for the mill.

First Crack on Fox Footy last night was talking about Jackson being up to 44% time on ball. Gawn spent a lot of the last quarter in defence while Jackson took the ruck. I thought that was interesting (and very successful - Gawn's last quarter was great), but it did leave us short in the forward half. Macca is a lead up forward. Fritsch is a hybrid who applies very little defensive pressure. Brown is also not great defensively but can take a mark and draw a free. I guess the cost-benefit analysis would be interesting on Brown. What is his "break even" point? I think he'd have to kick at least three per game to compensate for the scoring opportunities the opposition gets from his lack of capacity to do the things we value in our forward half. I don't think it's any surprise that this was one of the main reasons North was prepared to let him go. And it's probably why Weid got a 5 week run at it. He's more mobile and can chase and tackle. If Jackson and Gawn aren't going to change forward all the time, then we need one more tall. I'm not a fan of either option at the moment. Had Tomlinson not gone down, perhaps Petty could've been the marking target deep forward.

WCE paid the price for bringing in too many off a long spell. Naitanui went missing in the last quarter again. That final quarter was a demolition.

They certainly can complain. I've always had Collingwood as the benchmark for loathsome supporters but my 19 year old son said to me last night "I don't get the hate for Collingwood fans, these guys are absolute intellectual minnows. How is it you can hate Collingwood more than Essendon?" I then reminded him his mum is an Essendon supporter!

6. May 5. Lever 4. Jordon 3. Salem 2. Gawn 1. Brayshaw

Draper had 4 hitouts to half time. So even if he went at 100% HOTA in the first half we still had it covered.

According to the MCG scoreboard we had 10 HOTA at half time. Not certain what the second half looked like.

Yeah 32 to 10 is a comprehensive hitout victory. Plenty of those to advantage as well. The point about clearance stands. The bombers have some decent clearance players and at times they were better than Oliver, Petracca, Viney and Harmes. I thought Jackson was poor in the ruck tonight too and he got a substantial run at it. But as I said to the Bomber fans I was sitting amongst tonight, it's an opinion game and we all see what we want to see.