Lord Nev

Brown and Melksham on the bench for the start of the 3rd.

Freezing cold, little bit windy.

No idea, but if I had to guess I would think they would want to be playing more for a bunch of reasons: Wanting to contribute and not feel like an AFL fly-in, trying to get some form and confidence, trying to guarantee themselves a spot. Also, it would be like an ice bath on the bench there.

Nah, but a mate is and is passing on bits and pieces.

He's been on the bench a lot of the time so far, as has Melksham. Neither are very happy about it, but clearly seems like it's because they're being managed as high chances to be selected for AFL next week. Edit - apparently vB as well.

Apparently Brown and Melksham have both spent a bit of time on the bench. Might be something in that.

TBF both played well last week, Brown even kicked 5, and we still went with a small forward line...

Where's this extra forward pressure coming from then if that's your ins?

Brown, Bowey, Melksham, Chandler, vandenBerg & Jones (from the bench) would be licking their lips about now...

But it's not. We've been getting worse at clearances pretty much year on year.

Is it? Can't find it on there?

Hoping they show up earlier than that...

We've shown glimspes of it if games for a month or so, but today we delivered 4 quarters of soft football. We even looked scared of contact, panic handballing dumb little passes to someone 30cm away. Clearances 39 to 24. Tell me again how we don't need to worry about them.

Harmes seems to be escaping his fair share of accountability. Been horrible today.

Losing it in the midfield, Brown would make no difference.

Welcome back old mate!

Will find our strategy really interesting today. Giants are a low inside 50s team, but they do give up a lot of inside 50s. They're also a good clearance team. So do we go a bit harder with centre clearances or do we stay launching from the backline? IMO the key is our forward half this week, it's possible our backline won't get as many 'opportunities' as normal. Giants have poor forward pressure, especially on the deck I reckon, so it's possible we'll need Kozzy, Fritsch, ANB and Spargo to hit the scoreboard more than the last few weeks.

There is, because you're just making it more obvious you have no idea how business uses social media.

Not sure if this is a serious comment... But I'll pass it on to the whole department at my business that work full time on it.

Oh, the hilarity! ;)

We went with an extremely defensive game plan last week. Flooded back in big numbers. Watch the replay and note where players like TMac, Spargo, Kozzy even Fritsch appear a lot of the time. The reason our forwards didn't contribute as many goals is that they were all high up the ground and we scored surging forward together. It's not particularly great footy to watch, but it won us the game coming off the bye when our form hasn't been great and against an in-form high scoring team. I thought Brown would come in this week, but I think you're off the mark with this angle, and there's just 0 chance Haynes and Davis will be by themselves in our 50. TMac and Fritsch both in the top 5 distance covered for the game. Top 5 average speed in defence - ANB, Jordon, Salem, Jackson, Sparrow. The heat maps reflect this defensive aspect too.

I thought Brown would come in, but to be fair, we didn't have anyone to kick to because we flooded up the ground and played defensively, not because we didn't have enough tall players.

At this stage Casey's game against the Giants is going ahead Saturday night at Casey Fields. Unless you've seen an official announcement somewhere it's off?