Ollie fan

Any updates on Clarrie’s hand would interest me! - thanks

Despite all of the above, it is great to see, in the Stephen may interview on the Club website, that, in the background, Clarrie is handling the ball with his right hand, gripping it, and with no bandage that I could see!

The changes are sensible, but still overly finicky. But they need to change more. For a start, the nominating a Ruckman rule is ridiculous; if they really want to stop a third man up, and I don’t really understand why they want to, then you just penalise a team if two people compete at the same ruck contest. And the one that really drives me crazy is the 30 second rule. You are supposed to play on quite quickly around the field but you are given 30 seconds to prepare a shot for goal. Fair enough I suppose. But when the kick is then an attempt to pass to another player – as was once brilliantly exploited by ANB - the team is given another 30 seconds, and that is ridiculous. It should be limited to 1 thirty second allowance per forward 50 entry.

Nudge, that is so good and positive to hear!!

I don’t get the chance to go to training, and I love reading the training reports. One thing I am wondering about is this: it seems that we have quite a few players who aren’t training because of “niggles“. (I am actually particularly worried about Jake Lever). But I wonder if this is a deliberate change from the Burgess system of playing through niggles, which may have been a contributor to the drop-off in form in the second half of last season. Any comments, trackwatchers?

There is no defence in the league -and probably never will be- that can defend against a well-directed, accurate, fast-paced delivery into the forward line. As I said, in my earlier post, we have been the meanest defence in the league for two years. That speaks for itself.

Who?

Like others, I would love a full report, but in the meantime looked at the Club’s Training Gallery. Gee, all of them have really put in in the weights room - even the recruits look almost ready to play against men.And Clarry looks like he’s gone to yet another level of strength and commitment.

Yes. It was interesting to see that absolutely nothing has changed – incredible hometown bias, overwhelming majority of Geelong supporters because Melbourne supporters simply couldn’t get tickets, and the extraordinary homeground advantage, which means Geelong of almost impossible to beat down there. Our mission this year, and over the next few years should be to make them our bunnies.

What a pleasure! And how beautiful a kick was Travis Johnstone? I had forgotten the pleasure of watching him when he was on song.

Panic merchants?? Two years in a row the meanest defence in the league?!!!!

I think the answer to this might be that there are two types of attack from the opposition. The first is setting up a chain of chip and run, which we try to defeat by all-team defence, putting pressure on their ball-carrier and all receiving options, starting at our forward line. The second is when they get the ball from a contested situation, which, as MP describes, can be stymied by having the ruckman play a kick behind.

PS He is also a huge Clarrie fan - sees him as an all-time great.

Has anyone read the Mongrel Punt 2023 season review about us? THE BIG QUESTIONS – MELBOURNE 2023 SEASON PREVIEW Some interesting points - particularly that Fritta has kicked more goals in the last two years than anyone else bar Hawkins -pretty amazing. The MP does not agree with the “selfish” criticism… Like me, he is pretty bullish about 2023- particularly Gawn/Grundy and Langdon/Hunter. A good read if you can get it.

I think if you watch the match again, you will see that we were going pretty hard through the second half, not at our best, but by no means stopped to a walk.

In the last five minutes of the Brisbane match, we were anything but at a walk.

I just watched the second half of that match again. We got killed by the umpires, Kozzie missed two shots he should never ever have missed, yet with a minute to go, we were a real chance. The way I and everyone else on Demonland has reacted, it was a disaster and we were hopeless. Sure, we all wanted to win the premiership and believed we could, but we played a team which had been highly predicted to be the premiers themselves , and had every chance to win it, and it was an extremely close and exciting game. I have never been as optimistic coming into a season as I am for 2023. I think Grundy and Gawn will be incredible together. People say that Oliver is “one of the best midfielders in the competition”. Rubbish. He is hands down the best, not “one of the best”. Petracca is one of the best. Viney is one of the best. We have the best defence in the league, two of the best wingers, and we all hope we will now have a functional forward line. I can’t wait!

True. I dont know why anyone can base a strategy on someone who has yet to play a solid game in the seniors.

Gee, they are pretty good goals!

The problem with the Petracca one was simply that he missed the shot himself. As we can see from the highlights reel, he made up for that with many many goals from difficult shots. The problem is, criticism like this meant that he then spent several games giving off to other players, when he should have taken the shot himself, only to watch them miss it, and, and some cases, lose us the game. He is paid to kick goals, not to assist.

I’m 100% with you on this. It drove me crazy.

To drag this thread back to Clarry: it makes you marvel at the level that he was playing at in circumstances where he had difficulties with his handballing and dominant hand!

That reel shows what a truly class player he is. I would rather have him kicking around the corner from the middle of a crowd than, eg, Tracc lining up for a set shot 20m out. As I have said in other threads: he is there to kick goals and the criticism of him being selfish was totally wrong. He is not like Spargo, there to assist; he is there to finish.

This is a worry!!!

He was also a Federal Minister, and he is one of the all-time great Australians.