NeveroddoreveN

Get the chopsticks out with Dusty hey!

One of the major reasons we .lose in the middle is lately we are 2nd to the ball. We are just not getting our hands on the pill first often enough. Another is Max, he never gets off the ground, nor does he block for our onballers at ground level, he is pretty much useless actually once the tap has been won or lost. Another thing i am seeing is Oliver starting too wide and is actually not getting to where the ball drops way too often. A lot of these things are not as noticeable at boundary clearance situations as we have Langdon/Salem/Brayshaw/Jorden covering. Oliver is playing a much more stationary predictable player at round the ground stoppages too. It is clearly not about tap outs otherwise we would be drilling most teams. Really do think Max needs to screen/block for others a lot more, or rest him if he can't put his body on the line. To me he just does not throw his weight around.... nearly every other ruck does. Max needs to play with lot more aggression and we will start winning a lot more clearances imo.

North player is also being pushed into it in this shot, looks like he was falling into the tackle.

After Oliver/Petracca/Viney i think we are actually a bit thin. JJ can definitely play a role but he is not doing it currently as a pure midfielder, more structure based filling gaps and putting on pressure seems to be his current role. Sparrow is improving out of site and needs experience at senior level....SHOULD be in this week. Harmes is a bit of a worry honestly. He racked up heap of the ball in the reserves but he just runs around chasing the ball ignoring any structure around him. To me he does not think when he plays. He crashes in over the top of teammates to get the same ball, gets lost in transition and lacks care with disposal. Brayshaw i don't think has what it takes to be a pure midfielder. Although he has had good games in the past there, he is generally just too fumbly with the ball. Melksham is not a midfielder, he lacks the pressure required and does not seem to want to put his head over the ball. Jones i would put ahead of Brayshaw/Melksham and probably Harmes. He can fill a role as required. The player i would be taking a good look at in the middle is Salem. He is clearly a heap fitter this year and his clean ball handling skills around stoppages could really free up our other mids. I think with Rivers/Hunt it would allow us the flexibility to at least roll him through there occasionally.

Just making sure the perm looked alright! He should have been hurrying back and just banging it through, was quite strange considering time left in game.

We pretty clearly have developed a system at MFC and both the seniors and reserves are playing a very similar game style. Would love to see Brown in without doubt....Would also like to see weed in coming weeks. Against the next best defender he will step up a level....last year he was double and triple teamed as our only target. Doggies make it work with Naughton, Bruce & English. We really need to be getting both these guys into our system ASAP, as long as all the team is working like they have been on the little things like chasing/tackling/shepherding and structure they should make us better, not upsetting the balance.

The Weid was exceptional in the reserves....one of the best games i seen him play, intensity was up, he shoved out bigger ruckman to kick a great goal, kicked straight. Brown was pretty decent, he had some good moments. Be super surprised if Weid is not in on the back of that performance, he was fantastic.

Equality means equal for both parties. It is better in some places in the world, but i think you are so far off the mark here it just screams ignorance and male entitlement. i might need a reality check and live in fantasy land as you put it, but i would say you need to delve a bit deeper and look within yourself. You still did not answer why you reacted in such a way?

Does it really? You must live on a completely different planet Earth to me. Maybe the last 10-20 years it has improved for women but by no means does it exist. Why did you have the response you did then, try explaining?

Don't like gender equality? Women deserve the same opportunities as men, in fact they need to work even harder to gain the same respect. Typical misogynist response to positive news. I will be glad when this becomes the norm in society, and the person whether male or female is best credentialed for the job. Sexism is an ugly thing. See and hear way too much of it, especially in footy. Rant over! Good luck Kate!

Can thank Williams written in the Langdon article....said he had really worked hard with all our young players! Goodwin never really had the game plan....the players did not believe. Results over last few years showed that we were flaky in our resolve and not often did we play as a team or unit. Insert Williams and Yze, we have structures, multiple plans, and belief is growing. I think Goodwin is much like Hardwick and will be rapt if/when he gets the plaudits. Our assistants are having a huge impact, you can see it in so many facets of our game now. Goodwin seemed pretty inflexible when it came to switching magnets and we never had a good structure. Kossie is a gem and wants to get the best out of himself, he is ahead of Cyril at this stage of his career. Can see him getting to a stage where he has few peers. Has a Liam Ryan type game already and this is only year 2.....SOOOOO exciting!

He has been in the best players in all of the games so far for Casey. He is a fantastic mark and has sticky fingers. Majak also has claims, as does Hibberd. For structure though Petty will be best fit and straight swap for May. BB and Weid are off long injury recoveries, and will need to run out 4 quarters at lesser level before they can step up. If you don't know much about Petty, you should be pleasantly surprised seeing his game. Will be a very good player for us!

Hail and thunder + heavy rain in the South east. Concerning as these are the type games we fumble and do not adjust to the conditions. We "should" beat an aging Geelong with extra days break, but this has alarm bells for mine. Demons to over-run them in a tense last quarter. Going to be hard for Geelong to play their chip up game today, they will adjust and just bang it forward and pressure at any cost....i hope we do the same or it could get really ugly. If we match their game style and pressure we should win this by 5 goals+, if we play dry weather footy we are in big trouble today!

Hardwicks motivation imo. We probably won't have room to play in our Senior team any time soon, see what he has got at no risk to us. If he plays well we either trade him for more, or want him for their own team if he surpasses all expectations. Win/Win.

Good in theory but would only apply to teams that have a surplus on a certain position. Reality is you would not even get the immediate back up players, you would be getting 3rd/4th ranked players and ultimately would be more beneficial to the club lending the actual player. How about just a mid season draft, with these type players on the fringe of ANY list available to be drafted? A 2-3 day draft period during the bye would keep the AFL relevant, and it could/would be exciting if you picked up a gem from another club. The talk of temporary trades only benefits the strong, and the really weakened teams.

Fuschias are still available! :)

After watching am not finding much i dislike about it. 20 teams playing each other once would be great. It would finally be an even competition with no major advantages to clubs like Collingwood(home games) & Geelong. There is a lot of luck involved currently as you happen to play twice on any given year. Some of these teams are so much more likely to play finals due to these advantages. Even a top 12 is not too bad if out of 20 teams. Could be as simple as 11th and 12th are effectively wildcards. It would stop a lot of teams from tanking as more would be in contention for these spots. Overall i hope the competition goes down a similar path to this hypothetical one that is outlined. It would create a more exciting and fair competition....Something we have never had even close to!

Tex would be a lock at Full forward right now. Amazing he has turned back the clock, thought he was gone watching last few seasons.

Hmm good question. I reckon we have been so flaky in the past that our lack of effort and consistency within games we just respected the opposition way too much, or expected to win. Quite often we "allowed" opposition teams to play at their best. As to why we don't come fired up, i think quite simply we played as individuals and quite often the effort was not there. From contest to contest, from quarter to quarter, we could dish up anything and everything. Zero consistency. In the past few seasons, even all during 2018 we had this mentality of winning clearances at the cost of having structure. I commented a few times that our midfielders played like U12's with their mentality to all get around the ball, then play pass the parcel. We were so easy to play against, teams worked out pressure us and they will fall to pieces. There seems to be a resolve this year to do everything better. Play as a team, trust your teammates, have an adaptable game plan to name a few. Finally starting to feel like a team we can "trust."

I think you will find that singing the team song is actually mandatory under agreements with the AFL/media. The boys just sang the song but there was no real "gusto" to it. It was a good solid win, but they were not singing it like they would in a really tough match that went to the line. They will be reviewing the game and there will be lots of "learnings", it is madness to think that they would not be looking at things we did well, and also putting spotlight on things we did not do so well. Notice the changes after 1st quarter? It was massive that we denied them the use of the middle of the ground for most of the next 3 quarters. We allowed them to get their 1st kicks wide to a random player, then pushed them to kick to a contest long down the wing. Vs Geelong we probably will need to defend that 1st easy option, as they have better kicking skills, and they will just do lead up 20 m passes all day if we give them too much latitude. Lastly, as a team that have not regularly been able to win vs better or worse teams with any sort of consistency, we need to simply build momentum/belief. It would be crazy to not allow them to sing the team song or bask in a win for at least the evening. WInning games is tough. This would have been a loss in last few years, the players are showing a resolve to at least put in maximum effort. The skills will improve as the confidence grows. Enjoy the journey, we will continue to evolve!

He showed enough in rounds 1 and 2. He needs to get on his bike more, he took few marks working up towards half forward/attacking side of wing, but then just sat back 30-40 metres from goal for 2nd half and seemed to want it kicked on his head far too often. He needs to lead at the player with the ball, or just be a decoy and run his man away from the contest creating room for Gawn or Fitsch. Give him another week i guess and pray he shows a lot more than today.

Jetta for Hibberd. Tmac is a conundrum, do you keep the faith or drop him for Majak or even Petty? All players should know if they are not performing there is chance they get dropped, the look on Toms face after the game, he definitely realised this type performance will see him playing for Casey.. You don't often change a winning team but they are probably the only two i would consider. Sparrow runs very hard defensively, and although he did not do much offensively, should retain his spot.

On one of the footy shows on Fox last night they highlighted the differences between Collingwood in Round 1 and 2. They completely changed their style simply by looking forward and not looking wide for switches, and looked much more cohesive and damaging. They did not do anything too drastic just a resolve from the whole group to look for forward options. It was noticeable they did not look left or right in much of their ball movement. Would expect with rule changes, many teams are going to be altering their styles and tinkering until they find what really works. Sydney is the one that most surprises imo. Was expecting them to be somewhere in bottom 4. They are suddenly playing an attacking brand i doubt any of us have seen under a Longmire coached team, they are exciting to watch. They have some great young players but their style is barely recongnisable from previous years. Adelaide also looking like a team suddenly ready to compete again, after a few years in the wilderness. There are not going to be many easy games this year. GWS & Essendon look like they may fight it out for wooden spoon currently. Should be a lot of teams contending for top 8. Going to be a great season of footy!

I would actually put him and Nathan pretty close in ability. The only main difference is we had a bunch of chumps playing for us and Nathan won a few best and fairests, while Zac was surrounded by a much stronger Sydney team. Nathan Jones would not have won ANY best and fairests had he played in the same Sydney teams. i saw Zac trying to lift his team by trying to get physical. (Nothing wrong with that) Was not having a shot at either of the Jones boys though, was simply stating that Zac is AFL standard and the difference between their abilities is not huge. Either way each to their own opinions, it was just an offhand comment but i stand by it. Both are better than average players but neither are stars.

You obviously have not watched much of him play throughout his career, he is arguably better than his older brother. Definitely AFL standard anyway!!