old55

Agreed. It's impossible to see on the TV but our zone must be really good at present because you could see the frustration on the North players faces when they had the ball at half back. When they tried going very short to work into space we were able to win it back consistently. It will be interesting to see how we go against a much better side who can play this way like the Eagles if we are fortunate enough to get another crack at them.

Quoted for truth.

Well there's few greater insults than that! The problem for Spargo is that he is and always will be outbodied in the contest, he just doesn't have innate core strength like Nev and he doesn't have pace or agility to avoid the contest. If he was 180/82 he would not be so vulnerable in this area. Pickett has electric pace, Caleb Daniel is very clean and is a beautiful kick - Spargo doesn't have any outstanding attribute to compensate for his shortcoming.

Smith, OMac, Tomlinson - for various reasons none of them are the solution as the defensive tall back. I'm not against trying Tmac back there again in that role. There were problems when he was the main man back there but now with May and Lever he could be an effective role player. It would give us some flexibility in case of in game injury too. Long term I think Petty is the answer.

@Elegt started that thread. How about you and him head off to the PMs and go 15 rounds there and do us all a favour?

Can you post the Think Ladder for me? Just keen to see where people think we are.

Spargo is a good footballer but without any outstanding traits and at 173cm and 70somethingkg his body size will always count against him. If he was 180cm/82kg he'd carve out a solid AFL career but unfortunately I think he's unlikely to make it.

Spargo lol.

Look at Footywire.com but the desktop not the mobile version.

A graph of your 3 metrics average by round would be nice

Yes, we'll need to go 6-2 and even then we might not make it.

Great work Rusty! It seems counter-intuitive that the metric we're ahead in is Marks inside 50 Average Differential despite the well known failure of connection between our mids and forwards

Maybe we should just think we won the flag? Apparently that's what matters.

very hard to reconcile your observation with that facts that: we have lost to 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th we currently sit 12th we have defeated 11th, 13th, 14th and 18th

Then we finally woke up and picked your favourite Weed?

Sparrow took 2 strong marks and has a bit of toe - augurs well for a half back role.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gisele_Bündchen ?

There is no chance they finish below Adelaide, who will also have pick 2 as Crouch compo.

This is probably the only match North want to win for the rest of the season so they drive our pick earlier. They'll be up and about. Other than that they are tanking hard to finish 17th below Freo and Sydney.

Then we had "our best team in 50 years" now we've got the worst team again and if we're 6-5 in next couple of weeks we'll be flying again ...

Look we "should" be able to bully Adelaide's midfield with Matt Crouch and Rory Sloane out and then follow up against North with Cunnington and Ziebell out. If we can't then shut up shop. The test then comes against Collingwood who will have Pendlebury and Sidebottom back - unless we play differently they will smash us along with Treloar and Adams.

What I'm trying to suggest is a way to harness his dominance more effectively by using it more dynamically and not letting the opposition set up for it on a permanent basis. IMHO a big ruckman's greatest asset is around the ground marking which Max is great at and my suggestion tries to maximise this. I've never rated tap-outs, no matter how good they are.

Well it's very hard for even @Pollyanna to find any positives from that debacle, although I guess Steven May contained Charlie Dixon. Our biggest strength is our greatest weakness. Max's ruck domination is too predictable. There's a difference between first possession and clearance. We're flat track bullies - against the weaker midfields we can turn first possession into the clearance but against stronger well-drilled midfields they turn our first possession into their clearance. Contested clearance is the centre-piece of our strategy and it all goes horribly wrong from there. What to do? Well it won't happen but ... I'd ruck Max less and ruck Jackson (or Preuss when Jackson needs week off) more to change up the dynamic. I'd also ask Max to mix up the set-plays when he rucks much more with some big thumps forward and make sure our forwards are first to the ball. When he's not rucking I'd vary Max either in defensive 50 or attacking 50 and let him use his marking strengths which is really his biggest winning asset. I'd also instruct him to handball from the mark to a runner going past at least some of the time, probably most of the time. I'd move Viney forward, he has been very good this year but along with Oliver he's all first possession and it's too samey with him in the midfield rotation, he'd make a great small forward and he could cameo or provide injury coverage in the middle. I'd put Brayshaw back in there with Petracca and Oliver and as others have pointed out - use Harmes as a stopper when Neale or Boak get on top - in this case Oliver and Petracca can go forward in his place.

So they have - you are correct!

Sydney and GWS are scheduled in Queensland for the next 2 rounds, then they both have the bye in R11. Sydney and GWS both have not played West Coast and Freo and are scheduled over there for R12 so will follow up with games against the Perth teams in the following 2 rounds R13 and 14. Who knows after that? The Giants still have to play Adelaide and Sydney still has to play Port so maybe they'll swing by there in R15.