BW511

I have no skin in this game either, but ANB is the obvious one

He deserves more opportunity and I am sure it will come over the coming years. I think he could be the missing piece of the puzzle for our midfield if he can string a run of form together

How much more development does Joel Smith need? If he’s in our side, we are done. Not really because of Joel himself, but he has multiple players in front of him in every role his fanboys think he could play

Seems like the training load thing might have had some truth to it. Much sharper tonight and against a contender, it’s bloody good to see.

His tackling is incredible, very rarely misses and should get rewarded more than he does.

Salem is so good at getting boot to ball and hitting a safe target.

Must be a lot of romance involved if people think Joel Smith should be in the side

Agree completely. If Ben Brown stands in the goalsquare, it would take a very, very confident defender to be anywhere else other than within 20m of him. The modern game can allow the ball to transition from end to end in under 15 seconds, that doesn't give someone a lot of time to react to get back to the opponent, as well as keeping an eye on where the ball will be coming from. Leaves some space in the opposition zone too.

That's a hell of a lot of pressure for an untried coach who hasn't been part of the club (Yze or Mitchell) I can't see it happening either, particularly with the turmoil behind the scenes at present. I would not be surprised if there was more to play out with the Mitchell/Clarkson handover, 2023 is a long way off

I also like the idea of giving Jacko a spell and bringing in both of Weid and Brown. Weid plays as second ruck, gives away a little there but is a genuine forward threat when not following the ball. Exact opposite to LJ. Brown stays at home from the square. I mentioned during the week that I think we are taking away one of our great strengths (Max) by playing Jacko in the ruck so much. He’s agile and is involved, but he’s not a proper midfielder (yet). Give Gawn a big rucking game, maybe 80% and build some cohesion with the mids again, at least we know Gawn will win lots of taps. I’d then like to see how a team contains all of Brown, Weid and T-Mac? The extra big bodies create uncertainty with contests and the ball starts spilling to different spots, which allows our opportunistic smalls to get a better look in. At present they are starved because the opposition defenders are doing a Lever/May to us and marking everything.

Saad was surely all $$$ based. His reputation has been trashed at Carlton, the media loved reminding everyone he didn’t want to defend and couldn’t

I guess this is another thing we need to counter with opposition sides taking away the ability of those guys to create offense.

Justin Leppitsch has noted via SEN that we are lacking line breaking/penetrating Half Backs who can open games up. It ties in with the notably more defensive style in which we are playing at the moment. Hibbo is being used for shut down roles, Rivers is staying a lot closer to his man, Lever, May and Petty are not run and gun players either and Salem is a short kick type. Hunt was having a go and Rivers has a decent leg on him, but we are now a very stagnant back half. This also ties in with why T-Mac is getting the ball so high up, we are moving the ball slowly and he is the release from inside defensive 50, rather than getting on the end of the next kick

I agree, the reason our small guys were effective earlier in the year is we had contests inside 50. Fritsch doesn't provide that when he is standing under a high ball and T-mac seems to be operating much further up the ground. In the last few weeks I feel as though we are giving up a lot of uncontested marks inside our 50. Don't recall this happening nearly as much earlier in the year.

I think the issue with our list is consistency of performance. Richmond have won all their flags with only 4-5 top liners, the rest have been above average role players that seem to be able to perform in 80% of their games. Our role players have a bad game every 3-4 weeks or worse and those bad ones are not just a little bit ordinary. I'd definitely have the Dogs, Cats and Lions ahead of us in terms of being placed to win finals. Regarding Viney, from the outside it looks as though he'd be a prickly character and I don't know if that is because he's so driven or he just doesn't fit in

I think this is the key, if we are sitting top it gives us the best possible chance of being Top 4. Any slide down the ladder then makes it harder to stay inside the Top 4. Particularly when we would be the worst performed side in the Top 8 (maybe more) over the past 2-3 weeks. Due to our ability to win from behind early in the year, we have become complacent and it seems like we just expect it to happen. We need a spark and to get some enjoyment back in our game, the life has been sucked out of our guys.

Think Jordon has dropped off because he’s been replaced by Viney, get him back around the footy and he will be fine. He offers a good point of difference to our other mids because he is accountable and tackles

If you were Ben Brown and you’d been tapped on the shoulder for Thursday’s game, the last place you’d want to be is Casey at night. If this is the case, it’s a truly bizarre decision to plonk him on the bench on a freezing cold Saturday night to manage his load. Footballers want to play and the narrative around him was he needed game time to get touch and fitness. I wonder if he’s carrying an injury? If not, this weekend will not help his performance one bit.

I’ll go one step further and reiterate a point I made during the week, the Gawn/Jackson combo is taking away one of our strengths (Gawn) and is also robbing our forward line. In the preseason I wanted to play Jacko at all costs and he was good today, but it’s at the expense of the best ruckman in the comp and another permanent forward player. I think I’d rather play Gawn solo and have T-Mac giving Max a chop out - for now

I think we’ve definitely made a shift towards the Geelong style of playing safe against sides lower than us. We are intent on keeping a team to a low score, rather than attacking and trying to win. It’s a more defensive mindset. No doubt we are getting it forward of centre, but we’ll never consistently kick a winning score with Fritsch as the sole target. He tried hard but he’s not exactly someone to fear

There’s a few things that frustrated me about today and the last 3-4 weeks. We’ve drifted away from the team first mentality that seemed to be the catalyst for our early season form. So many examples today of poor decision making based on an individual wanting to be the hero. The last quarter provided us plenty of chances to win the game but we came unstuck with guys being too cute, trying to take on one too many or simply helping each other through situations. Hunt will cop some heat for his efforts but he was trying to make the play and there wasn’t anyone giving him any better options - either by instruction or by leading at him with some real intent. FFS, We got to the position we are in by doing the simple things well. A few specific examples from today that really infuriated me; Petracca stopping on the spot when he takes a mark or gets a free kick. Then waiting, then going back and going over the mark anyway. That’s under 12’s stuff. Harmes and his obsession with trying to break a tackle. Whoever is encouraging him to take the game on is undoing all our hard work. Viney coming in well underdone - I don’t believe he commands an immediate spot in our side after a long layoff, even at his best. If Ben Brown can’t get a gig after actually performing his role at the lower level, then its culture killing to think Viney can come in off some limited match simulation. The last one is a bit controversial but I’ll go with it anyway. Our game plan is starting to unravel like years gone by because it’s incredibly taxing. We may be fitter (allegedly) than every side, but we’re not mentally ready to do it for a whole year. The real defensive based game style we’ve played the last few weeks is a bit puzzling. We’re trying to play safe and we don’t have the cattle for it. Season is on the line now, I’ll be interested to see the response from the coaches and the players

Harmes is a f&$?!&@ liability

But you don’t need to perform in the seniors to hold your spot, so I’m not so sure

There was probably more things against, rather than for BB being selected this week, but I feel they should have got him in and given him a chance in the run home. T-Mac and Fritta are well down on their beginning to the year and the extra tall dragging defenders away could have been their golden ticket. If we are still debating our best setup in round 17-18 I think it’s game over for us

I think those numbers flatter Fritsch a little, he has definitely had a few not register a score or go out of bounds on the full