Swooper1987

Great to see Lever back to near his best. Over the length of his contract he'll prove a very astute piece of recruiting. Petracca was his now usual dominant self. Very impressed with Hannan's start. He led well and contested super hard aerially. He faded but started with great intensity.

6. Petracca 5. Lever 4. Oliver 3. Brayshaw 2. Langdon 1. Jackson

In all honesty, if they went back and forensically examined every game Gawn has played this year they'd find the same thing. Brisbane did it, Port Adelaide were even worse because they were actually physically restraining Max in marking contests (Westhoff in particular). Gawn is a bloody marvel and we are so lucky that he plays for us.

Walker copped a fine for his hit on Gawn last night. A step in the right direction. Be handy if the umps could pick it up as well.

And Cox played in the centre square with Judd, Kerr and Cousins. Hard to believe that side only won the single flag - by a point!

Goodwin has simply stated what most of us have observed for a number of years. No doubt there have been advances made to the relevant authorities over some time and I think the last couple of weeks it has reached new levels. Port continually held Gawn back in contests (Westhoff repeatedly held onto his arm), Brisbane were blocking his run frequently, Adelaide did sit him on his backside a couple of times and credit to the umpire who picked one of the blocks up and awarded a free, albeit actually behind play and not forward of it. Aside from that, he puts himself into positions where he does frequently get smashed into. There was a particularly crude effort last night where he was hit flush in the back of the head - no free, just play on! David King's old coach would regularly come out with the "just give Wayne a go" call, often around August in the lead up to finals. Pagan was a master of it. I'm actually pleased Goodwin has found his voice.

Mods feel free to merge this if you don't believe it's worth its own thread. Jennings on Whateley this morning spoke at length about Gawn and his influence. The first 3 or 4 minutes are really interesting. He believes Gawn is the best player in the competition and one of the top 3 alongside Carey and Ablett Senior in his time in the game.

Goldstein struggled last night against the Cats. I think Gawn can handle that one reasonably well. He is the fittest ruckman in the league, back not withstanding. Also North are coming off the 4 days as well and Goldy is 4 years older than Max. After that, Grundy has not been anywhere near his best all season and it may be an opportunity for Preuss, but it is also nearly a normal week after we play North. I reckon the big fella can manage it. He is an outstanding leader and was quite rightly lauded by Goody after the game.

Haven't got a link but the totals after the last round are: Neale 61 Gawn 46 Goldstein 45 Steele 42 Macrae 38 Parker 37 Gaff 37 Higgins 36 Pendlebury 36 Naitanui 35 That's the top 10. Petracca is on 30 with Boak and Tim Kelly.

The Adelaide ruck O'Brien isn't a bad player. He was very competitive against NicNat and Goldstein and moves around the ground pretty well. He'll take care of Jackson and any other second ruck we want to throw in there. If Gawn misses and Preuss is available he'd have to play.

You are right, but back then he handballed far more. It's his kicking that lets him down and he does far more of that now. His sloppy handballs (and there aren't too many of those) usually result in congestion and a ball up. His errant kicks (and there are more of those) result in turnovers and goals. It only takes two or three per game for the perception to become reality.

Mark Robinson’s mid-season All-Australian team Not surprisingly Gawn is ruck and Petracca in the midfield.

6. May 5. Lever 4. Hibberd 3. Gawn 2. Lockhart 1.Sparrow

Earlier in the week I spoke with someone in an incidental work conversation who had been working for an AFL club coaching panel pre covid. He has subsequently been stood down. I don't really know him at all but he noticed that I'm a Demon fan from a top I was wearing in our online meet. He was trying to sell me stuff so he was obviously looking for an "in". We had a bit of footy chit chat and he asked me about my thoughts on the Demons. Then I asked his. He said Gawn is the best ruckman in the comp, and quite possibly the best player, but he plays with "peanuts". He said if Gawn went to a side like Geelong they'd be unbeatable. In his view our midfield fall into one or more of the following categories: double grabbers (fumblers); poor skills; poor decision makers. He said every one of them had at least one of those issues and some had more. He said Gawn gives his midfield first look way more than any other ruck in the competition but the midfield either fumble it, butcher it or pass it on to somebody in a worse position almost all of the time. I asked him about Petracca and he pointed out a very small sample size to go on to quantify his improvement, but that he appeared to have made himself a better player by working harder on both fitness and decision making i.e clearing the immediate area with possession distance. He said the way to beat Melbourne is basically concede the tap, understand where Gawn is dropping it and wait for the midfield to either fumble or turn it over. Down the line, add numbers to any contest with Gawn to neutralize his aerial impact and know that when the ball hits the deck the opposition is much better than 50-50 to scoot away with it. He said neither Gold Coast or Hawthorn covered Gawn properly when he dropped back and that's why we looked so good. Brisbane did and while Gawn had solid numbers, his actual game influence was nullified. He reckons every team playing Melbourne spends at least half their prep time on Gawn. I watched last night with this conversation in mind and it played out pretty much as above. Even Hinkley and Wines post match saying how much time they put into Gawn. He didn't offer any solutions, just pointed out the issues, which unfortunately seem to compound.

I can't find one. It's usually in the paper every Monday.

Gawn was second favourite two years ago and Brayshaw outpolled him, albeit 21 to 20. I think Gawn's season has been underrated here. The Age player of the year is a pretty accurate guide as a rule and Gawn is polling very well in that. Second or third from memory. He's in the top few in the Herald Sun award as well. The coaches have Tracc in second place and Gawn around 10th. When we win Gawn is always a chance to poll 3's. I believe Tracc has barely ever polled a Brownlow vote. Be interesting to see whenever they count them.

An excellent post DeeSpencer. The other one is the constant hanging off Gawn at every opportunity, the cannoning into him at every contested marking opportunity and the non existent protection provided to him because he's 7 foot tall. It's almost as though different rules apply to him re chopping of the arms, in the back and holding the man.

Agree entirely with this. Max has a genuine predictability about his ruck work that on most occasions is a massive advantage for us. He does exactly as has been planned and nearly always finds one of our guys. Our problem is that our mid field, as hard as they are, are not clean and skillful players, probably Tracc aside. When you compare a Neale, or a Pendlebury or even someone like Michael Walters at Freo, we have nobody who is that clean. That extra third or half a second makes all the difference. The fumble creates the spill, which shifts the ball outside and bang, away they go. It's fixable but whether it can be fixed in time to save the season is the question.

Carlton and Hawthorn in the 80's were notorious for the brown paper bag. I don't think anything Don Scott has to say is a revelation for those of us following the game through that period. The reality is everyone (and that includes Melbourne) has transgressed the salary cup at some point. It cost us draft picks in the late 90's. Scott's point is more about why Hawthorn needed saving after so many years as a top club yet still with a low membership base. They did spend a lot of many of players and it sent the club broke. They are not the only club that has happened to. Interestingly enough, throughout the mid to late 80's Don was actually on the Demon coaching panel. He was the ruck coach of O'Dwyer and Stynes and as I recall was one of the very few media people Northey would let in the rooms from around 87-90. He had little if anything to do with the Hawks until he got back involved around the time of the merger. As eccentric as he may be, he's as honest as the day is long.

Yes but there are 6 votes aren't there? I agree May, Lever and Melksham were in the best 6 too. My point was that Gawn clearly wasn't beaten by his opponents and provided our midfield first use. I think you'll find Goodwin agreed with me on this point in his presser. Our mids were too fumbly and when the ball got loose the Brisbane mids tore us a new one. That is not Gawn's fault.

As poor as the were, they were less influential on the result than the misses of Bennell, Weidemann, Harmes et al. Just one of those goes through and we are all having a great night.

Gawn was definitely in our best 6 tonight. Position by position he was the only midfielder who wasn't beaten by his Brisbane counterpart over the entirety of the game. Neale, Lyons, Zorko, McLuggage pretty much had their way tonight. Whilst it wasn't one of Max's stellar performances he was very good again. Viney's effort was outstanding after half time and Oliver had his moments as well, despite some less than average disposal early. Tracc played just a game by his now lofty standards, just the one mark and no score. But as a group they lowered their colours. I'll be really interested in the coaches view of this one. I reckon a defender or two might pop up.

It's interesting, this whole midfield thing. Whilst numbers say that Viney, Oliver and to a lesser extent Tracc had good games, as a collective we were outgunned in the midfield comprehensively pretty much all night. Gawn was dominant in hit outs and hit outs to advantage and had a better than useful game around the ground, yet we couldn't translate that into any clearance dominance. It wasn't a great showing in the clinches and we need to do better with the huge advantage Gawn gives us pretty much every game.

He's a great coach - a future hall of famer and three weeks ago just about everyone on this forum would have signed him in a heart beat had he been available. People can say what they like about him, he just needs to point to the trophy cabinet. Whilst Carlton and Melbourne were "investing" in the draft, he was busy accumulating silverware. His personality is part of what makes him great. I loved him as a player. In his two years as a Demon he never gave less than his absolute best. Was runner up in the Bluey in his first year. He's one of the all time greats and like all of them, his team is going through a trough. I'll back him to turn it around.

I'd be concerned with any ranking system that doesn't have Gawn as our number 1. Three times AA in the past 4 years, dual B&F, AFL Coaches Award winner in 2018. And once again having another consistent and brilliant season. 6 games ago Tracc finished 5th in our club B&F - his first top 5 finish. He's played three outstanding games this season (Carlton, Hawthorn, GC and a couple of good ones). I'd think there would still be some distance between his and Gawn's output. But if he can go past Gawn then we will have two genuine champions and be well on our way to some long overdue team success.