Roost it far

If Adams is to debut is it May having a rest?

Sparrow is having an excellent season. Would be happy to try Sestan ahead of Culley if Sparrow was to be out with a niggle. Almost forgot the exclamation mark AND THE CAPITALS!!

The Blues can’t match the Saints offer nor should they. It’s massive overs for a guy that isn’t consistently good.

Yes, I was thinking of Colm’s reply to your post. The Pies may well hit a loading phase. I’m not sure we can afford to overwork and risk dropping games especially considering we’ve got a heavy block of games that include travel.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and probably again, middle management types who get the plum role. Dillon is out of his depth. Productivity problems aren’t the workers it’s these guys and gals. It’s across the board in Australia. Companies calling on the government for more handouts whilst under investing in their people, all the while paying ridiculous salaries to the few. Drives me nuts.

I’d love Culley to get a game if say Sparrow got a niggle, a patch of games to see how he goes. I don’t like seeing players waste away playing at Casey.

So rather than hire a person with the experience and capability to do a job hire 2 people without it and hope for the best. Dillon needs to go.

I think Laurie’s more likely to replace Spargo than Culley. Culley will be there should Petracca, Oliver or perhaps Viney goes down.

I’d like to snare Jackson as the priority, he’s a better age profile for our list and can work with and take over from Max. Both would be ideal but we’d have to give up quality players to pull that off.

I think he’s referring to Collingwood upping the training not us

Personally I think we’ve got enough VFL players on our list.

There’s no doubt our game looks quite different from rounds 1-5 as opposed to rounds 6-11 and the data shows that. In rounds 1-5 there was still a lot of long bombs kicked into F50 and a lot of long down the line kicks from HB/wing. There’s a few reasons for the difference imo. First and foremost it’s attack on the contest, which was there in round one but gone in rounds 2-5, it’s now the standard. Second and only marginally less important is the return of our best 22 and the continued improvement of Tracc, Oliver and Viney. Thirdly are the intangibles, belief, confidence and mojo. Belief in the system, the coaches and your teammates, confidence grows from this and for mine mojo is the slight swagger a team gets when belief and confidence grow to a certain point. Think 21 finals series. We haven’t got mojo yet but you’ll see it when we do. Teams don’t win a Flag without it. So yes our game looks completely different but this is a style we’ve been working on since the preseason of 24. Mojo takes time but I think it’s coming.

We turned Combden into Wayne Carey, a truly chilling day at the football. I wanted them all sacked after that.

One thing I haven’t looked at and would be interested in others thoughts on is do we set up defensively further back when inside 50? In doing this when the opponent clears the ball from our F50 it creates more space in our F50 for us to force a turnover and then reenter. We’ve had the discussion on here about our clogged 50 and how that hampers our entries. I’ve certainly noticed that we regularly hit the 45 kick from the wing and then if going long we head to the top of the square.

I was choosing a slightly extreme example I’ll admit. My point remains about depth. However if your system is truly bedded down across your list you should be able to replace 3ish players from the bottom 15 at any given time and not suffer too big a fall in form. If you can’t you’re going to struggle over a season without luck. The thing with our depth I think once you fall past Laurie, Henderson and ?? you get into uncharted territory. Do Sestan and Brown have the ability? Anyway we’ll likely find out as we’ve just lost Spargo for 4-6 so the next injury to a running/small will likely see one of these guys get a game. In the talls we’ve got JVR and Jefferson and then we’ve got Campbell to replace Gawn, heaven forbid.

I was confident preseason, found the first 5 weeks terrible. A bombers fan friend said to me after the Essendon game “your list is so much better than ours” Admittedly that was part of a broader conversation. At this point I just want us to remain relatively injury free. If we do that then anything is possible. I’m not putting limits either way on this year. As for next year, it’s flag or bust!!

Look how well it’s working!

The thing about depth is it’s fine to a point. Who on that list is replacing Gawn? Not saying you’re wrong but depth always looks better on paper.

I love it when you talk to yourself. 😀

Jackson will offer us more as well but I agree, let’s not overpay

What’s Gawn worth?

Noah Yze still looking for a home

The big change and it’s been noted by Goodwin is we’re back being animals at contest, partly due to the improved form of Petracca, Oliver and even Viney before he was injured. Also we’ve added our best players back to the field and are now largely uninjured. I think it’s fair to say we’ve changed considerably over the last 6 weeks although I’d agree those changes were thoroughly practiced in the preseason. Since round 1 we’ve added Pickett, Windsor, McVee and Langford. On top of that Oliver has found his best form for 2 years.

Definitely no religion

If I was being totally honest I’d say we’re a shoe in by a solid margin this week. I think our form is too good to turn around and lose this. Of course I wouldn’t say this out loud except on here, a few footy chat groups and to my family.