Demon Dude

I liked that he kicked that centre clearance low and hard into our fwd 50 instead of another big up and under high ball. that's something we don't do enough of imo.

they must be expecting a lot of rain tomorrow.

one of either Melk or Petracca needs to play as a midfielder imo. we're too slow in the forward half with both in there, plus a couple of tall KPFs as well. so maybe with Viney out we should rotate both through the midfield, swapping with each other to the forward line about 50/50, so they both aren't forwards at the same time. also tell them if they don't put in good defensive effort as a mid or fwd, that they will be dropped the next week.

yeah look I know where you're coming from, but I just think Spargos main problem is he hasn't got the tank yet for strong repeat efforts. I wouldn't lose faith in him just yet. interesting thoughts on playing Sparrow as a defender. has he played there in u18s? it could be worth a look either way, as we do need to find some strong half back types to give us some drive out of defence.

Jeffy used to be those things, but he's not anymore. Except for still being mentally fragile that is. He might show the odd bit of his old self from time to time, but not enough. Some of you guys must still think we are going to play finals this year. We aren't. Time to plan for the future. I would rather give games to Spargo and Chandler than Jeffy now. Their output would be on similar levels to Jeffy, but at least they come with some possible upside for the future.

Yeah I know what Spargos deficiencies are, but what I can't buy is using them as a reason not to play him when Jeffy has the same issues but is at the end of his career. Us not making finals will be the worst thing that could happen to the likes of Jeffy, and Lewis, who are out of contract. As soon as finals arent possible the coaches will look to move on from them pretty quickly imo.

yet Spargo didn't have a problem with not being strong enough last year, and Jeffy has never been strong either. I don't buy it.

im not sure jeffy makes oppo nervous anymore though. I guess it all depends on whether you think Jeffy will be given another contract at years end. I don't think he will, so with this year being pretty much a write off, i'd be planning for the future instead.

because he's young and Jeffy is not. like I said if jeffys not contributing i'd prefer we get games into Spargo.

I dunno mate, we tried one of our better ball users in Melk in the guts last week and he turned it over heaps as well. I believe it has more to do with our midfield set ups myself. we don't like using wingers and just like to bang it forward instead. good teams look to hit up a short 20m kick these days then try to shift defences to catch out the zone. seems to happen to us a fair bit anyway.

out- Garlett, Viney, ANB, Smith in- Spargo, Sparrow, Baker, Preuss if some of our guys aren't contributing much id rather we try get some games into some of the younger blokes and try to find some replacements for them instead.

I agree. And I also want to see someone take over from Misson sooner rather than later. Big fail from him this preseason. I also want a shake up of our assistant coaching staff and to get a new strategist to get some fresh ideas, in the off season. Preferably we poach someone from the hawks or some other successful club that know how to play at the MCG, because we certainly don't.

Well he was our 2nd tall in the finals last year and did a good job of it, not the 3rd tall. But anyway we were way off a flag last year. We got made to look stupid by WCE in a prelim. The whole club is out of form and fitness, not just Weid. You want him gone, well why don't we trade Tmac as well then, he's playing worse football than Weid is? We're playing shocking footy at the moment and are a long way off being anywhere near a premiership anytime soon. We need another bunch of kids to come through yet to replace the likes of Jones, Lewis, Jetta, Garlett and Hibberd who are all past their best. Trading a developing 21 year old KPF now would be premature. There's always going to be ups and downs with these developing kids, you just have to back them in to turn it around. And I reckon he will.

why would we be trading out a guy who will be peaking in 5 years time? we wont be a premiership chance until about 5 years from now. trading him now would be idiotic.

yeah it would. all our guys are out of form and confidence. might also help if we didn't bomb it to the same spot everytime so a pack of 6 blokes always go up. our forward systems are very bad, some of the worst ive seen at AFL level.

he's likely to request a trade at the end of the year at this rate, and who could blame him. we've gone backwards and our delivery inside 50 is the worst in the comp.

His main problem is he doesn't defend when he's not switched on. Ive lost count of the amount of times I've seen his opponent run the ball out our F50 while he's hanging out in the goalsquare waiting for a Joe the goose. My guess is he'll be back out of the team before the bye and probably for good this time.

I wouldn't mind seeing the midfield mix shaken up a bit. its had a bit of sameness to it all year. run some pace through there at times. also wouldn't mind seeing Smith poleaxe Grimes in the first 5 minutes either.

We have to do something different to win tomorrow. We are getting beat the same way every week. All teams are pushing numbers back against us to stop us marking, knowing that we haven't got the crumbers or leg speed, and combined with our high press leaky defence, that we are easily opened up on transition. Im looking forward to what we do at selection and if there will be any pointers to a change up happening. But I'm going to be [censored] off if we just do a couple of like for like swaps, change nothing and the same thing happens again this week.

That's dead right. I dont know how the coaches can't see this. You need more the 1 guy with pace in yor fwd line these days. You need more like 3 of them. Plus you need pace on the wings, not geriatrics. Maybe when the tigers pacey smalls tear us a new one tomorrow night Goody and co might wake up, but I'm not holding my breath.

we need speed and crumbers in our fwd line. at present we have none and its a glaring deficiency. just look at the Hawks, dangerous small players like Wingard, Puopolo and Breust, and the Cats have got Miers, Rohan, Dalhaus and Parfit around roving around the feet of their tall forward. What have we got? our fwd line is Spargo and CWagner who push right up to the contest in a link up roles, 2 key position forwards in Weid and TMac, 1 massive immobile ruckman in Preuss, Melksham and Trac who are ok players but hardly fast enough to catch anyone with at least 1 good leg, and Hunt, who has speed, but is lacking in smarts and skills. its no wonder we cant lock it inside our F50. once opposition easily win the ground ball in our fwd line we are just about powerless to stop them going all the way to goal. we're too tall and slow, we have to change up the look and bring back some speed, pressure and goal crumbing to our fwd line. what we are doing clearly isn't working. everyone knows we bomb it to the talls and have no crumbers at their feet. its about as a moronic forward set up as you're ever likely to see.

out- CWagner, JWagner, Lewis, Jones, Spargo, *Viney if Injured? In- Chandler, Lockhart, Stretch, ANB, Garlett, *Sparrow see above^ B- Jetta Frost Hore HB-Salem Tmac Hibberd C- Harmes Viney Fritsch HF-Melksham Weid Hunt F-Chandler Preuss Garlett R- Gawn Oliver Brayshaw Int- Lockhart, ANB, Stretch, Petracca we really need some ground ball gets and chase down pressure in our fwd half and midfield. teams are loading up our fwd half and rebounding quickly to hurt us with our lack of spread and speed each week. we need to try stop it at the source. we should bring in some more speedy crumbing forwards and push the likes of Petracca and Tmac out of the fwd line so we can go smaller/faster, as we're too tall and slow down there for the way we bring it inside 50, ie with no real skills or system. we need some more 2 way running in our midfield also, we cant be carrying these older guys when we are so poor and getting killed on the spread each week. there's just nowhere to hide them these days, especially on the MCG. the game has changed, and we haven't. there's some tough calls to be made, but whole team is in desperate need of a shake up. we need to find a spark and damn quick.

not sure its a good idea either. he looks to have lost a bit of explosive power to his game this year.

Spargo has started playing up around the ball a bit more this year, rather than deep fwd. Bit more of an ANB type role. Coaches also rate what blokes do when they havent got the ball as well. Also I would of thought it was Hunt who is keeping Jeffy out of the fwd line at the moment. He's our speed down around goal at the moment and is a lot harder at it than Jeffy.

I think I remember something about MFC enquiring with the Eagles about this Jack Petruccelle kid during last years trade period. shame it didn't go anywhere, he's kicked 5 goals tonight and has got some decent wheels on him. could of been a good get for us running around on the big spaces of the MCG. looks just the sort we lack.