old55

This week a win against a top side is a definite possibility - that's a hell of a lot more than we could say over the past many years.

Too busy skiing

Too right! Whinging about umpires - what an innovation that is!

Hit-out ranking this year is Gawn, Goldstein, Natanui, Jacobs, Hickey, Mumford. It's interesting, the Dogs have come up against North - Goldstein, Adelaide - Jacobs and now Melbourne - Gawn North-Dogs: Hitouts 49-33, Clearances 31-44 Adelaide-Dogs Hitouts 30-38 Clearances 25-40 They seem happy with Campbell and Roughead and those results against Jacobs are impressive. I thought they might consider Minson but that seems unlikely.

Feel so good for Nathan Jones, he hasn't had too many like that.

Worse than Dwayne and a poor man's Rex.

We're clearly totally committed to zone defence and I look forward to the inevitable Wright vs Jetta aerial contest in the goal square. In the end what matters is the score GC forwards kick.

Totally flawed logic. By your reasoning every player playing a role must be "good enough", therefore if we don't have anyone "good enough" we'll run out with 21. Roos picks Pedo because he's the best option he has, or perhaps the least worst. Ro Bail played a lot of footy under Roos too because he was the best option for the role at the time. It's not a slight on Pedo or Ro who give their all, they are just not flag material in those roles, i.e. not "good enough".

Tremendous ruckmen who have great support in Ben Brown and Josh Jenkins. We've got Pedo up against them, it's not good enough. A tight game game can swing in that 5 to 10 minute period - think Preliminary Final.

Our biggest weakness by far is ruck-fwd. If we had this covered with someone capable of providing a proper contest while Gawn rests then we could keep up 120 minutes of pressure around the ball, In addition Gawn could rest more minutes and be deployed fwd where his marking and seeming reliable goal kicking could give us a real edge. Finally we'd have another marking threat in the fwd 50 when Gawn is rucking - Frosty? please .... IMO if we had Mitch Clark playing at his best we'd be top 4 next year. I know that he's not an option but that's what we need. Geelong has them out the ying-yang - particularly if Vardy and Clark can get fit. Maybe Rhys Stanley is a trade option?

There is no way I'd trade him - a value exchange wouldn't be there. I don't think decision making is a big problem - I suspect he and the team are being instructed to take the game on and he's following instructions. It's skill execution that's the problem. He does need to work on this. I've seen some references to his "pace" in this thread. I'm unconvinced about that - I think that's his other weakness - he's a bit slow for the modern press and struggles to close on the opposition but it's not a fatal flaw if he's surrounded by quicker players. I think he's flexible too - when he was out of form last year he played a bit of ruck-fwd and showed something. If we had competent KPD replacements e.g. Oscar and Frost then I think he could address this hole for us - which IMO is our biggest deficiency.

It's very easy for me to be Harry Hindsight and I'm definitely not having a go at ProDee - quality poster, but I can't help think that there's probably as many more changes to come in the line-up we've been putting up so far this year before we're truly top 4 competitive. B: Neville Jetta, Tom McDonald, Tomas BuggHB: Lynden Dunn, Heritier Lumumba, Christian SalemC: Bernie Vince, Dom Tyson, Josh WagnerHF: Jack Watts, Sam Frost, Jeff GarlettF: Dean Kent, Jesse Hogan, Ben KennedyFOLL: Max Gawn, Nathan Jones, Jack VineyI/C: James Harmes, Jayden Hunt, Cam Pedersen, Christian Petracca EMG: Colin Garland, Alex Neal-Bullen, Clayton Oliver There's 8 from that initial 25 in last week's team and I reckon we have maybe got half-way there and something like 16ish will play in a really successful side.

If we did get Hurley we could free Tom MacDonald forward and solve the ruck-fwd problem - we'd be a lot better off at both ends.

It's a good point you make about him not doing any pre-season as a backman. But quite frankly he can't play forward and he doesn't ruck. So he needs to be out of the side. Forward line play has changed over the years and players need to play both ways, offence and defence. Frost offers something defensively - provided he sticks his tackles! But offence hasn't gone away and if anything even greater skills than ever are required to make the most of limited opportunities - Frost offers nothing offensively because his skills are so limited. Drops sitters, miskicks and fumbles. For every decent thing he does there's 2 shockers. He doesn't play as a tall forward so there are a number of replacements for his role. He could possibly have a role in defence where he can use his incredible closing speed and height both to keep with tall forwards and make a contest when it goes over the top. But I'm not sure if we could live with both him and Tommy Macs poor kicking skills together. Frankly we have a massive problem with ruck/forward. Pedersen has played well but when he's rucking we are exposed. Even though I've cited Spencer as nothing more than back-up 1st ruck for Gawn, I am starting to think he's be a better option than Pedersen/Frost. He's similar to Frost in offensive threat but he's capable in the ruck and would free Gawn to be a genuine offensive threat when he's taking a spell. It's NOT a true solution but it's starting to look like the least worst.

Interesting article here: http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2016-04-27/how-do-the-backup-ruckmen-rate

http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2016-04-27/petracca-to-make-afl-debut-against-saints “I can’t wait to get out there and get a first tackle and really play to be honest. I’m really lost for words at the moment – I’m just so excited.”

I stopped supporting Australian cricket, there's a line for me.

I was sitting in the Southern stand on Sunday night and there was a very definite Demon presence coming from the entire Northern stand which was tremendous.

Petracca for Frost is a no brainer. We will lose something defensively but gain so much more attack. Oliver has to play full stop. I love Brayshaw but Oliver just has to play. Trengove is a better player than Bugg and I can't see the downside. The short break warrants the changes to the winning line up.

Tremendous kick but definite weakness in the contest. Poor effort against Lloyd and fell over again. Over rated IMO.

INB4 R6 Team selection - if we have a good win this week and no injuries, next week's selection with Oliver rested and Petracca raring to go could get even more interesting! They're the sorts of problems we like to have!

Thanks - I like this analysis. We're a year younger and a season's less games again like last week. This time next year we should be as mature as the Collingwood and Richmond sides are now.

Agree with this strategy. Casey play Saturday night, it makes sense to use ANB as emergency for Garlett for Sunday night and miss Saturday night's game. He is fully match fit and has great endurance - a week off wont hurt his preparation. If Petracca is emergency and Garlett plays as hoped then Petracca misses a week's conditioning and that's not good for his preparation.. Mahoney: “We now consider him as available for selection and if Jeff is unable to get through tomorrow's main session, Christian will be a chance to debut." “Alex has played at a consistently high level at Casey for the last few weeks and comes into the squad.”

Unleash Petracca thread?