Fromgotowoewodin

I’m still lost, what price do you pay for being the most dedicated of our 70,000 supporters that the other 69,999 of us fairweather supporters don’t pay?

Please. 93k last week and they finally got started about half way through Q2. We did our bit. And the price YOU in particular pay for barracking for Melbourne? That you’re associated with the rest of us flakey supporters? Dial it back a bit matey..

How crocked is our forward line? Despite the drama through the year personnel-wise it’s actually not that bad. Our Rd1 forward line as named: Chandler, TMac, Spargo, Koz, BBB, ANB. Grundy on the bench, Fritsch out injured. Rd2: Spargo, TMac, Chandler, ANB, BBB, Trac. Grundy and Fritsch on the Bench. Koz suspended. Rd3: Bowey (?), JVR (debut), Trac, Chandler, BBB, ANB. Gawn our injured so Grundy in the ruck, Fritsch and Spargo on the bench. TMac was dropped, back the next week for BBB who got injured. Why am I wasting your time with this? Well if you look at the teams selected when we had a full list the key one missing last week was BBB. All others are available (noting that TMac and Fritsch are only just back of big layoffs). Yes Petty has come and gone, as has Melksham but aside from Brown we have our first choice forward line available for selection. So if we aren’t that injured what’s the problem? It really is connection (as Goody has been saying for 2 years and seemingly unable to permanently fix). BBB when fit gives us what we’re missing which is a forward who knows how to lead and create space. TMac also leads up as goes JVR, but they’re not as persistent at it as Brown. It’s also hard to be persistent at it when your leads get ignored in favour of bombing to the hot spot. The mids need to move the ball quickly, we seem to wait at half forward for the perfect target while defenders clog up space and our forwards stand around at the top of the square. Yes we get a lot of repeat entries with the theory being that builds pressure but against good teams junk entries aren’t worth anything. 69 entries for 7 goals is a lot of junk entries. The forwards also need to move and get out of each others way, work to create space for teammates and accept you’re not going to be on the end of every pass. Watching Brisbane last night you hardly ever saw Daniher and Hipwood on screen at the same time, when one was close to goal the other was up the field. Cameron one out in the square, have we ever seen Koz or Fritsch or any forward one on one in the square this year? It’s not rocket science and it doesn’t require players we don’t have, it requires working for each other instead of for themselves and it requires the mids to take risks and move quickly.

No guns. 3 forwards traded last year, Lobb (spud, was always going to the dogs), McStay (pretty much a spud, always going to the pies), Weid (well.. we let him go). We did the best we could with Grundy. I get more annoyed by the week that we haven’t found a way for it to work, Gawn was massive in the second half but beaten by their two rucks in the first half, and neither of those two are fit to shine his boots.

I don’t know if we’ve executed them at a high level all season, lost before with massive inside 50 numbers. But it’s still a choke. Blew the start, then got it back on our terms and kicked ourselves out of it.

I think Maynard maybe gets 1-2 as contact was shoulder to head, maybe gets off - chook lotto at the mro is beyond my understanding. No real beef with it, he was in the air and didn’t have any way to stop, unlucky for Brayshaw and really stuffed our night early as Laurie wasn’t sighted. As for Cox, he tried to do Trac’s knee, is a known grub and can snap both ankles as far as I’m concerned. Low human.

In my view Stafford has to go, forward line is a joke. No movement, and yes we also get it in slow but it’s easier to get it in there fast if there are targets moving for you. Painful to watch, and every time the pies shot forward in the first half there’s a forward one on one in space. Kill me. Are we wasting the premiership era? Well we have a flag so it’s not a total bust. That makes us a good team imo. Great teams win multiple flags (Brisbane, Geelong, Hawthorn, Richmond). People remember the great teams, they don’t remember the one-and-done’s. We’ve got 3 weeks to get to great but it’s going to take a major change in thinking about how the forwards move and I don’t think there’s time. Can we go again next year if we bow out in a semi or prelim this year? Yes but it gets harder, and we need some fresh blood. We clearly hoped (I certainly did) that BBB and TMac had more in them, that was wrong. We needed a key forward, couldn’t get one so tried Grundy, hasn’t worked. Annoying bit is we can almost get it done with the personnel we have, but not if 18 players are standing flat footed inside 50 every time we go forward. We’re almost great.

Time to see the fitness boys, gonna need a big second half. And ffs can Trac get near it..

Damp walk from Flinders, will be wet weather footy. Mudlark Hunter to have a BOG 33 and 2. Go Dees

First few seasons it was kick/chase or kick to contest & repeat, now that they’re getting overlap run and some longer kicking they can move it so much faster and scoring opens up

The guns really stepped it up this quarter, fumbles galore first half but they’ve been clean as since half time (except for goal kicking)

Contest + Defence repeat entries coming from contest around the ball and intercepting when they come out = goals

Looking a lot better when we hit targets by hand and foot

Hopefully run it out better than them, tidy up the skills and we should get some more looks at goal. Really only behind by that double umpiring howler of Harris getting her head taken off in a marking contest then giving them a shot for goal from the square. correction: on replay it was Campbell not Harris

I don’t think Smith can do the job on Moore, as Melksham said in his interview with Andy the role is to get dangerous yourself but also be in range of the defender so you can get to them and spoil/interfere when required - I don’t think Smith has the awareness to manage his position as well as Melksham, or other more natural forwards. I would think Fritsch would be the one again, and with a bit of luck Moore might feel some hamstring tightness trying to go with Fritsch on the lead. I would expect TMac to come in for Melksham and play his normal game of leading up to the wings and giving us a target with JVR out of the square.

I’m going for 93k: 2018 we got 91.8k against the Cats and 90.2k against the Hawks. 2022 Pies got 91.5k against the Cats and 90.6k against Freo. I reckon we’re good for a few more in the MCC than at a Freo game so guestimaths says 93k.

Also Q49, hopefully 50 and 51 are also Dees so there’s a buffer from the ferals

Biggest deficiency is no right foot, hence he gets trapped into kicking along the ground or underground handballs etc to get out of trouble. Smart player for all that..

Making it hard for Tomlinson so far

Sparrow would want to sort his fumbles out by the end of the match

Home or away they’re completely incapable of understanding either HTB or prior opportunity

Hope to see some decent movement in the forward line today with Fritsch back who knows where and when to lead. Won’t be seamless straight away but I feel a lot better getting him back for a game before the finals than if he was going straight into the QF off no footy. Highly doubt there’ll be any tanking today, either by us or Port. Not sure about the reasoning behind trying to avoid a certain opponent or venue in week one. “Oh we don’t want to play at AO or the Gabba?” Guess where we’re going if we lose the QF and make it to a prelim? Best to just play a normal game today and get set for winning the next month of footy

gee these [censored] ask for a lot of frees (and get a fair few)

WA umpires:

I don’t think last years finish is all that relevant, we didn’t choke under pressure we were just crocked by the end. That said I don’t think we’ve got the fear factor yet due to the piecemeal forward line. We haven’t put a big score on anyone for a while except the tigers and they were 20pts up late in the game. I think teams will be worried about us, they’ll know we’re hard to score against but they’ll know they’ll be in the game as we haven’t buried anyone for a long while. We can change that against the swans, or if we have a big QF win then we can start to frighten teams.