CHF

Bit of a different pre game for me this week as I am away from Homebase. Spending the weekend in the Champagne area in a luxury hotel in the hills above Epernay to celebrate my birthday. Champagne tasting and buying, Michelin starred eating, spa treatments etc. I will be watching live with a hangover. Dees in The Alice by 6 goals. First time I have started a GAMEDAY thread. Hope I have not stood on any toes.

I said in the post game thread after the 1st Round that the Dogs would not make the 8 and that whatever his name is would be out as coach at the end of the year..... Stand by those predictions.

No too disheartened by that loss... would always prefer to beat the cats..... with a big stick if possible. Far from our best collectively with a few exceptions. Also playing on that skinny dog of a ground takes away our best attacking weapons on our wings. I console myself with the belief that the ground is a really home ground advantage for the Cats and a real disadvantage when playing on the more open grounds in finals. Bad things. Defence, usually our strength was a bit disjointed with May having the fumbles and kicking woes. a couple of the others were not up to their usual standards... hello Bowey. The biggest problem we had was the connection into the forward 50. Badly directed kicks that were a result of bad skills. Overall a very disappointing result that should get a proper reaction from the playing group if our culture is all that it is cracked up to be. I will be looking for that next week.

Just saw Greg Stafford interviewed and he speaks really well. talked about the teams approach to the game and while it was nothing very notable he spoke with a smile on his face nd did not scratch his left leg once.

All the home teams except for the Demons this evening.

That is the way I watch week in, week out. It is a good coverage and would be worth the 20 bucks.

Good team selections. Gawn and Jackson had to be selected if fit. Our defence and the midfield are both in good form, well drilled and applying pressure all over the ground. We have problems in attack but scoring enough goals doe not seem to be the problem. More the inconsistent nature of how we score them. I liked the move of Petracca playing more forward and I could see that being used more often this season. Give us flexibility and a point of difference. Brown, Fristch, resting ruck and/or Petracca with a fleet of smaller players feeding off them sounds like a good setup if they can make it work. Last week we had 24 scoring shots with 14 goals from 10 goalkickers. The week before 37 scoring shots with 16 goals and, again, 10 goalkickers. 21 behinds against the Lions. We must be getting something right.

Yep....I agree and I am sure there will be feedback from the midfield aa well..

I enjoyed that win. Without a recognised ruck in the team and travelling over to the Land that Time Forgot I think it was a notable win. A couple of observations and thoughts. - A great defensive display by a well settled and well drilled team within a team. - A good coaching move to play Petracca more forward as it gives us another option and another headache for the opposition defense. it is another potential problem that teams will have to plan for. - I will be interested to see how the last couple of weeks without Max will effect the stoppage setup. Max was shown a number of time watching what was going on. No ruck this last round and, while we were beaten in the tap work we broke even in clearances. there has to be a few lessons learnt out of that experience. - As per last season, we are winning games without a fully functioning froward setup. just keep kicking winning scores. ???? no idea how to sort that out. - loved the second quarter with the skills and pressure from both teams. We won out in the end a we could keep the pressure higher longer. As much a I enjoyed the win on Saturday, I want to win on Thursday much more. I have a high degree of dis-like for The Cats players, team, their ground and their coach. I will define 'high degree' if any one is in any doubt.

Looks like Tomlinson the medi-sub

Well, I am off to bed. Been a big day of celebration over my way with a birthday in the family. will be watching over breakfast and a coffee. I have confidence in our systems and structures. Mighty Dees by 5 goals

I hope that if Jackson does not get up that they play Tomlinson so that he and Wiedeman can play the roles that Jackson and Wiedeman played last week. I would even rest Tomlinson forward and see what he might add in that area.

Could see them taking Tomlinson and Hunt to Adelaide with Brown and Melksham staying in Melbourne and playing for Casey.

The trades for Lever and May are critical for this club. Not so much the fact that we got the trade across the line but it reflects the time and work that goes into these situations. We were into these for quite a while before the trades were done. We had identified the players we wanted to fit the building strategy we had in place, worked to get the currency so the trades could be made and made sure we had the salary cap structure to fit them in and keep them happy. I am sure we are in a similar position of tracking other players we see as possible trades with an eye in the future.

Well done to the footy club for getting this done with Oliver. Quietly sorted it out and got it done to everyone's benefit. It gives me confidence that we will do our very best to sort out Jackson and Brayshaw in a successful way. if we can secure Jackson for another couple of years and Brayshaw for a longer term, say 3/4 years then we will be looking at an extended shot at multiple flags. Even if we lose one or both of those two I can still see us pushing for more flags in the next 5 years. Jackson is important to us over the next couple of years because we will need to look for additional ruck backup over that time and he is critical because of the role he plays for us at the moment. Brayshaw just has so many strings to his bow.... inside mid.... wing.... Half Back....and all those strings are first class. He just covers so many options for us and with skill and class. Oliver only does one thing... inside mid.... he does not look like he spends too much time thinking when he plays, it is all instinct with him. He has great vision and imagination when he plays. In all the years I have been watching footy i just have not seen anyone play the way he does. Great job to everyone involved.

Best game I have seen from the team since the GF. Great pressure on the ball and the ball carrier all over the ground. The first quarter I was seeing a lot of missed connections but upon re-watching, I think that was because the Lions brought their pressure during the first quarter. that dropped off towards the end of the quarter and the Dees kept the pressure turned up for the whole of the match. I was of the belief after selection that we were a player light in the middle but the output and pressure of the 4 Horsemen in Viney, Petracca, Oliver and Harmes negated any need for additional firepower in that area. All were immense with Viney having one of his best ever matches and Harmes doing a job stopping Neal and hurting him the other way. Jackson had a good game and the meshing with Weideman was excellent. In all, I loved seeing the return to form of the team and the players looking like they were enjoying themselves out there. Go Dees!

midfield unsighted.....

Fair enough….. different opinions. I want to see us win and win well. I just think we are light a midfield player in this team.

I can see in the named side only 9 players that have consistent and good experience in the middle and that includes the wingers. There are two others that are presently named on the bench that we could run through there on limited occasions and these are Bedford and Pickett. Both of thee guys have vey limited experience in the middle. I would rather have seen Dunstan named instead of Bedford as I think the balance would be a lot better and may allow out midfield to run out the game better I believe that for success we need to have a depth of 10 or 11 players in the team that can rotate through the middle. That is my logic.

While there is a lot of talk with regard to the ruck structure and operation of the forward 50, I get the feeling that we are going into this match light on midfield rotations. Jordon, Langdon and a rotation of either Brayshaw or Sparrow covers the wings with Langdon on the ground 99%+ of the time it is the onball brigade that looks light to me. Petracca, Oliver and Viney are a given but cannot be there 100% of the time. Harmes, Sparrow and Brayshaw can rotate through there as can ANB but after that there is not a lot of midfield depth in this team. Take into account that we have named an IC of two defenders and two small forwards. Bedford and Pickett can make an appearance in the middle or around the ball but they cannot spend a deal of time there during the match. I see this as a tough one to win for the Dees.

Going to be some interesting discussion regarding selection for the Lion’s game. In some ways I would prefer this to be an away game so that the team could be together and use that a way to physically regroup. A few weeks ago, with the game at the ‘G’ I would have tipped us with confidence. Not anymore. We will need to respond, and selection will be critical to enabling that response. So, My guess….. B: Hibberd, May, Lever HB: Bowey, Petty, Salem C: Langdon, Oliver, Jordon HF: Harmes, Weideman, Spargo F: Fristch, Brown, Pickett Fol: Jackson, Petracca. Viney IC: Hunt, Laurie, Brayshaw, JVR In defence we can bring May back and have a strong looking defensive group in the team. That is an excellent group to have patrolling the back 50. I would also be tempted to bring in Hunt on the IC bench as additional cover with an eye ion possibly moving Brayshaw into the middle if required. Midfield group also has quality but the disruption of removing Gawn from Ruck duties and not having him reading the game situation and responding will leave a big leadership role to fill. Forwards seem to be a mess and have been for some time. Injuries and selection have chopped and changed this group and they need to play a time together to work it out. On the interchange, Hunt Laurie and Brayshaw give a lot of flexibility and I would like to see JVR given a run to have a look at him. Most likely will not happen but you never know.

With this injury to Max plus the 3 consecutive losses and the stupid public scuffle between may and Melksham it is all come together to form a perfect mid-season storm over our bye weekend. For me, while I do not enjoy the situation, it will give us a clear insight into the quality of our coaching panel and the depth of our player leadership group. Goodwin, Williams and Yze etc. have had a very good ride in the first half of the season on the back of the team not setting the world on fire but winning 10 in a row. Now is the time they have to earn their stripes. This will require a massive re-set of the playing group, afterall the next game is against Brisbane who I believe are a very strong contender for the flag this year. After the last 4 or so weeks it is a hard task to win that game. Player leadership group will need to come up with a player response to the situation as well. No Gawn on the ground over the next two weeks and we will need the midfield leaders in particular to stand up and give direction to the team structures. One area where we need leadership from both the players and coaches is in the forward 50. in the last few weeks we have had no structure in this area of the ground. Hope the club uses the bye week well and come up with some answers.

No idea what you are talking about. give me a hint.

Been away playing golf in Scotland the last two weeks so it is probably my fault the boys were flat and got beaten.. back on deck at home and will be watching live tomorrow morning my time. Dees by a lot!

Off to bed and get rested to watch the Dees while I have my granola and coffee in the morning. Nite all.