Skuit

He called him 'a specimen of a man'. And you could almost hear his blood pressure drop wondering if the butchered phrase would see him back in hot water. As to @Dr. Gonzo's question re. the 'Melbourne club' - I think Eddie is just a canny marketeer and is emphasizing the blue-blooded angle. I recall he even dropped in a few rib-ticklers of the nature.

I agree for the most part. I'm a generally bullish supporter but I've been a little underwhelmed to date and a tad concerned. It may be that my expectations were too high but a number of our reliable and previously improving players are down or have regressed. And we strike as more disorganised up front and down back than last year - the area where I thought we'd see some telling improvements. In saying that, we could well finish the weekend as the highest scoring team across the opening three rounds and our percentage is healthy. And we tend to get our intensity up for better opposition. Our best passages for the year were against Geelong, and at least we've ticked off a couple of our potential bogey matches against poorer opposition. Next three weeks against mid-level teams should provide a better gauge.

Thought we looked super-messy in the forward-50. A small profile may be fine but perhaps there's too many of them in there? I would bring Pedo back in as a utility for coverage but I don't think it's happening. We also need more leg-speed. Melksham out - was much improved after a trot around Casey last year as well. Hunt in - get him up to the wings to get his hands on the ball and shake the forward tag.

Can confirm. Though living in Europe it would be more accurate to say that it tasted ok this morning.

Heat-map is cool. Keeping Harmes on his right boot?

Lewis in post-match on-field interview. Knows the contested differential and centre clearance match statistics. What's going on there? Also: Bernie Vince in change-rooms interview. All week we talked about our opportunity to break the losing streak.

Now if you just throw away all of your computers, mobile phones, hair-dryer, colour TV, microwave and waffle-maker we might finally break our our Harvey Norm Smith curse and win a flag again.

Jack Viney mystery solved. We're secretly developing him into a backup ruck with the aid of some five-inch platform boots.

It's going the other way that's the problem. North had a free out all day in our first clash last year. And it won't show up in the contested stats because they were exceptionally well-drilled in protecting their flyers and blocking our path to the flight of the ball.

Masterstroke. North are Kent's bunnies - the only team he averages over two shots at goal against - and Frost kicked a goal against them once as well. And it was a really nice one too.

Well I'm pretty sure the coaches know a bit more about footy than you do Skuit.

Pedo is super-important as one of only genuine aerial competitors. Especially this week. Contested grabs on the wings and around the flanks was the singular difference when North defeated us first time round last year. I hope our footy trust is planning on measures to negate because we haven't improved much in that department so far this season - even with Hoges and Max in the team. Weids won't be of any help yet where that's concerned.

Those walking sticks come in pretty handy as well when leaning over to repeatedly push a button begins to make the pokies feel like a bit of a chore. Hopefully the club will now invest in some prodies for those of us who prefer our hobbies to be little less action-packed.

They initially thought Lewis had taken Mathieson's head clean off during an attempted tackle. Luckily their doctor found it hidden inside his jumper.

The point is is that we are having our way with teams at times. And if we extended these leads by a couple more goals I'm pretty certain most teams would roll over.

Is it too early in the season to dust off this old thread? Again, that mysterious barrier around the 40 point mark . . .

He's basically done a Bradbury to skip past three AA-level backmen in the space of two games. I won't deny that I'm easily amused Wiseblood.

Oscar is now our best defender lol. Go Dees!

It's actually a new away jumper we're wearing this season. No need to thank me.

Being squeezed out on every line. Hasn't shown much at all at half-forward to justify a rotating spot there ahead of our HF medium fleet, a fair way down the order in the primary mid category, and at half back, where I think he will settle and is his most natural spot, we're looking for consistency in personnel and plugging the rotations with our seniors to make up for the already current immaturity of the group. Like ProDee, he was the first squeezed from my on-field 22 (not necessarily our best 22 players) - followed by the other 'surprise' omissions from round 1. Also had an absolute shocker against Collingwood - so may need to rebuild trust.

Is it remotely possible this was an intentional part of the drill?

That Hunt torp at the end was a fair effort.

Goodwin has had a strong conviction in his game-plan from the get-go. Contested primacy, kamikaze movement, quick entry, forward pressure, and an ultra-high press. And despite what he's said, I suspect that the long bombs into the 50 are an entirely intended part of this package - he's even brought back the torp. The premise is fairly simple; be better at getting the ball, take risks in getting it forward, and do your best to trap it there - and you'll likely score more goals on average than your opposition. He's designed it to crack the game, and whether it will work remains to be seen - but it can't be judged on the sample to date and he's going to back it in. The team is still developing its capacity to execute the challenging set-up - and there may be some unexpected peripheral issues that make it impossible to achieve (such as if our regular fade-outs are a factor of the strategy due to fatigue) - but we could well become unstoppable. In the meantime, get used to ugly leaked goals out the back, regular turnovers, and messy forward entries - as they are the flip-side and sacrifice in what we're trying to do. It's not a matter of failing to fix these things - or that we can see what the coach can't - as the only plan is to mitigate them as much as possible by way of the team getting better and through additions in appropriate personnel. Even minor tweaks will have negative ramifications, such as when we slightly eased the depth of the forward press toward the mid-point of last season and our scoring dried up. Such is the nature of our high-risk (and hopefully) high-reward strategy for the flag.

So now that Lewis has been partially exonerated for swearing as a leader in the eyes of the supporter-base, I'd like to add big Max to that list. Many have commented on here that his miss wasn't good enough for a leader of our club, but I have no idea what leadership has to do with the kicking technique and accuracy of a seven-foot ruckman. ?

I thought it would have been nice to have had more players taking contested marks and applying forward tackling pressure. I.e - not Jack.