BW511

I'm guessing a few of the named blokes don't actually play. Look what that team sheet has done to the enthusiasm in here after last week's injury woes. Same will be going on in most Dees supporters houses.

Surely there’s no need to play funny buggers with the lineup in some meaningless practice match? It’s a lot more on the park than this time last year, but that team isn’t giving the top sides sleepless nights

Agree with all of the above. He's very articulate and well spoken. My theory is he will keep being all those things without any title.

I'm not so passionate about T-mac being in there. I think Gawn/Viney are co-captains, despite what I'd prefer. Gawn/Viney (C) Lever, May, Jetta as the remainder of leadership group. Waiting in the wings would be Harmes

One of the things this series will/should do is turn the blowtorch on the players. Every club does these things, but the media will have a field day slicing this up if things continue along like last year. It’s great to hear a few tidbits about where things are at this year, although I would have liked to hear about this time last year to see what was going on when things were spiralling out of control I’m really keen to see us marching back up the ladder in 2020

Agreed. It appears the consensus is it's just going to happen and we'll waltz back into finals. I'm not so sure

Would love to see T-Mac rediscover his form of 2018 and display it consistently , think he's the most important cog in this puzzle

I don't think Fritsch is strong enough to play one out. He needs clear space around him to run and jump at the ball. Weid will be first picked i'd say, but fear he doesn't have the mongrel in him to be a commanding presence. Work ethic will have Brown will come in after 3-4 rounds is my guess

A very enjoyable little piece from the Melbourne media team.

As mentioned, Brown definitely looks like he put in.

It’s still not a team that would scare the top tier, but it looks infinitely better than last year. Jackson is going to be interesting, it’s going to be very hard to not play a 199cm bloke that puts in

I agree with this 100%. I never watch a night game past half time, the break is just long enough to realise I've probably had more beers than I should and cut myself off and call it a night. If the break was halved, I'd just keep plowing on

Appears we will have a 200cm big-big bodied mid running round very soon Also, haven't seen a pic of Gaz in a while, that was a surprise!

I think this is the logic recruiters use. Someone like ANB springs to mind. He's always around the contest with his elite running, but is never doing anything WOW

Would love to see some of the permanent mids challenging for the top 5 later in the pre-season

His demonland podcast contained every Goodwin cliche under the sun.

If they all make it fit and firing to Rd 1, that's great, but we still need a rotation or two.

The thing I like about us potentially landing Green is that he will be playing senior footy almost immediately. By all accounts, he could waltz past 2 of our 4 starting mids and we will be better for it. As alluded to in the Rd 1 starting 22 thread, we are still light on across the ground for high quality.

It seems pretty simple doesn't it - practice executing your skills as much as possible so that it can be repeated under fatigue/pressure/expectation.

This is absolutely true, but the pros still do a mountain of volume. A good friend of mine rides in the world tour (has won multiple grand tour stages) and made a change in his training 3-4 years ago which has benefited him greatly. He dropped from 5-6 hours a day to 3-4. That's still 20+ hours a week of training not inclusive of pilates, gym etc. For your weekend warrior, there is a lot of gains to be made from High Intensity, particularly when they are time crunched.

I am quite passionate about cycling and have read some respected international level coaches who believe the volume is key, versus intensity. This is to get people doing well in events ranging from 90mins full gas or 5-6 hours. It's also worth noting a guy that trains for the 100m sprint still does an absolutel mountain of hours of running throughtout the year for a 9-10 second event. AFL players do very little training compared to many high level international sports, but we have the added variable of body impact/collision which requires management during the week.

I think our shepherding/blocking or lack thereof is disgraceful. I don't remember too many great shepherds in recent times, you have to want to do it for each other and our blokes didn't in 2019

It's probably fair to say we lacked intensity for a large portion of this year, so having two new gun runners will allow the mids to actually rest in 2020. They may have only dropped off their intensity marginally during games due to fatigue, but that is the difference between a win/loss in today's game. Hope the plan works, but there is also a bit more work to do around the ground to get things humming.

I've seen a lot of positivity around him, just don't see a 177cm, sub 70kg, kid getting the opportunities at AFL level

Will be interesting to see how we go on draft day, I'm concerned that we are expecting kids to impact immediately, reality is they will be 2-3 years off having much meaningful impact. Re: Weightman - I'm very skeptical of a small, lightly framed 18yo making any impact next year. Could very well be a great pickup down the track, but Goodwin & Mahoney need results now I don't know anything about the various prospects, but we could use an upgrade on every line.