Ollie fan

The ladder is really interesting. It is completely clear that only two teams have any idea about defence – of course, we are one of them. so lovely to see Geelong on the slide.

I think they don’t worry about the opposition too much because our mix of defenders is so versatile. We have players like Hunt and Salem who can play on small or mid-sized forwards, May and Petty can play on tall forwards but May is not out of his depth on a medium-sized forward.Lever really does his own thing and cuts off attacks before they ever get to his opponent – in other words, probably the only thing that might bring a reaction would be if there were, for example, four hulking tall high marking forwards on a fine weather day. But how often does that happen? And if it does, then the opposition are very vulnerable to us bringing the ball to ground and running away with it.

REST LEVER!!!!

Without ranking them, but a few comments: I’m old enough to to remember Norm Smith, and how can you go past him? Bobby Stilton was good with a terrible team. Barassi was a disappointment, and I don’t agree he set it up for Northey. Northey came in and coached us to the wooden spoon, as I recall it, while he sorted out who were the real goers; then we took off with players who were not stars: Yeats, Bailey, Balls, Sugar Healy etc.. Got shafted at Brisbane because he couldn’t handle the merger. I don’t rate Balme at all. The talent in 1994 was as good as today (I know many will see that as heresy). His style was crap and so we ended up in 7th and had to play the prelim in Perth; no wonder we got wiped. Wasted a massive opportunity. The Reverend is a hero. Roos transformed us - with the help of a reasonable administration - from a total shambles to a professional club. Goody - every single match we play the commentators refer to how superbly drilled our defensive systems are - which is purely from coaching.

Poor Melksham is going to really struggle to get to his 200…

I would actually be very interested in the 1:1 stats for all our defenders. Are they available?

The AFL counsel argued Young could have gone to the side and avoided contact. What would the coach have said about that???

I saw him warming up pregame a week or so ago. The others were doing various things, but Hunt was spending his time with choco, practising hit up kicks.

Only one voter has included him, but I thought Hunt played a great game.

“At selection, we chose defenders who were very strong and had very quick reflexes which meant that they were able to withstand the Melbourne forward pressure and get kicks out of the backline fast and accurately. We then moved the ball into our forward line low, fast and hard, and our defenders moved up to create a press and lock the ball in.” (and we paid the umpires a LOT of money)

Adopting Sandeeson’s genius plan leaves them with a whole TWO players with which to actually win the game!

…. and really, “ employ a tagger”? On which one of our champions - and Clarrie learned how to beat a tagger about 3 seasons ago. ”Generate scores from forward-half intercepts” - well, duh! A bit easier said than done!

I would think that for a team to adopt a game plan which it is not used to, in an effort to beat us, is a recipe for disaster. As we have seen with the development of our own game plan, it takes years to ingrain it so it is played well. To try and adapt to a new game plan for a single match strikes me as totally unrealistic.

Or Sparrows effort last week to create a goal.

6 Oliver 5 Clarrie 4 no 13 3 Clayton 2 the red headed bloke 1 the best player in the leashes

Things we are learning: 1. Carlton can’t deal with pressure. 2. Freo have copied our game plan……. but 3. They don’t have May, Lever, Petracca, Oliver or Brown.

Goody was very clear that they won’t be. H/S protocols won’t change that. Presumably he’s thinking of sending TMac back to replace Lever.

Absolute silence from the AFL on the Hawkins flop. Totally typical - they are so soft on certain favoured players.

Salem is a fair way off returning, and who knows what injuries we will have by then? I agree that Hibberd is behind the others now, although he might be brought in for a lockdown job on someone strong like Dusty. As for Tomlinson, I was surprised he was dropped so quickly for petty; I think he is a good genuine defender. If we keep up with our great run of very few injuries, then some players are going to be very unlucky but I guess it is a great conundrum to have.

Watching todays game, so far Geelong look old and slow. Who would have thought it?

To my mind, the turning point was a fantastic chase/tackle/turnover by Spargo on Houli.

This should be the shortest thread ever. We won by 67 points. No change.

I just finished reading that article too. I actually love wing play. And an interesting side note was the reference to Charlie Spargo who gets a lot of criticism on DL for his low stats, but as you can see from the quoted passage, he is playing a role. No wonder he is picked every week. But we have 3 terrific wingers in Ed, Gus and now JJ. And full credit to Goody and his team for resurrecting this role. Of course, Robbie used to do it to perfection - down back to mark the relieving kicks, and often the kickins, then long runs around the wing, beautiful entries into the forward line, and kicking a fair few goals as well. Maybe Ed Langdon isn’t Robbie Flower, but he too is a joy to watch.

I couldn’t be happier with where we are sitting at the moment. Recent results show that there is only one team in the league that really knows what defence is, and that is us. Last year we won so many games on the trot at the start of the season, but none of them any more impressive than the wins we’ve been having this season – they were all 3 to 4 goal grinds. And there is so much potential improvement! I have been a knock on Jordon, but he showed on Thursday that he has plenty to give. Sparrow will continue to improve. I think that even though Weed was quiet last game, he is starting to hold his marks, and I think he may have finally turned the corner. Loving it right now…

We’ll, we are learning more and more. Collingwood: rubbish. Footscray: have gone backwards. Brisbane: poor defensively, don’t like pressure. Geelong: maybe better than I thought but I wish they weren’t. Carlton: let’s see them against a real team. Sydney: not that good after all. We truly are ahead of the rest.