drdrake

Was Friday his 3rd game back. Missing preseason no matter what the injury really effects a players season. It takes a few games to adjust back to the speed and to get your touch at the speed. I would play him till the bye, back him in and if not we give B Brown 4-5 weeks. Also fatigue, our forwards work so hard now up and back, it will take a few games to build his AFL match fitness. I reckon our forward line will function better with him in it over B Brown

I think Jones comes into the squad for Langdon, not sure if he plays as the sub and Sparrow starts or Sparrow keeps the sub role and Jones starts.

Weiderman had an almost there game on Friday, got his hands to the footy just dropped them. I like the dynamic of Weiderman/TMac/Fritsch/Jackson(Gawn). On Fritsch as others have stated, his defensive side has been poor and when he is off it is a absolute stinker. He is a hard match up as the third or fourth tall forward.

Because we have been so bad for so long, we have a history of getting ahead of our selves getting big heads, Cornes knows this and is throwing bait out as he sells more papers slamming clubs like us then praising. He wants us to get ahead of ourselves and self destruct like we did last year and many other years so he can go whack and be relevant. OK Petracca and Oliver are having good years, same as last year, but give me Richmonds 3 premierships, or Hawthorns or Geelongs or even the Bulldogs 1 before we put these guys in the same conversation as the midfielders from these clubs. The club hate these type of articles they are trying to change the culture to be club first and down play individuals

I really hate this articles, this side and this pair has achieved absolutely nothing, 1 year of finals in the 5-6 seasons they have played, the side 1 year of finals in 16 years. Pump our tyres up once we have actually had an era of success, that may or may not include premierships but 5-6 years of finals at least.

That was the difference in the Lever on and this one. Spargo should have ran and grabbed the ball looking at the umpire appealing. That is what the Adelaide player did, he knew that if it went out the umpire was going to pay it, he was through his actions playing for the free before the ball went out. One amendment to the DOB rule should be that if an opposition player has the option to take possession of the ball before it crosses the line it is a throw in, there needs to be an onus on the players to get the football and not play for the free

This is the first time I put Brayshaw down to be dropped, but I am a fan off putting him on the trade table at years end. I'm not a stats man, don't really look at them, I thought he struggled on the weekend and has done so all year. His skills by foot are a big issue

Bring Sparrow in for Brayshaw, Salem in for Jetta. Harmes stands The Bont and have Bedford as Sub.

This comment sums up the game. It was the solo efforts of Oliver and some cameos from others that kept this game to 1 point. Saying that I though Oliver wasn't good in the first half but the second was the best we have seen from any Melbourne player. We lost that team first ruthlessness that we have shown this season. The positive, usually by Round 10 we are cooked for the season and looking forward to the draft/Trade period, we are 9 and 1 couple of hard games followed by queens b'day, if we can win 2 of these head into the bye and reset for the last half of the year.

Just to many passengers today, the forward line was terrible. We just panicked fumbled and we're out worked.

Don't blame umpires we are playing garbage.

Are we still training out of the Junction Oval? The facilities we train out off aren't that much inferior to other clubs that it effects our ability to perform on field. We have been able to get upgrades at Casey Fields that gives us access to first class indoor facilities and a playing surface the size of MCG. The indoor and recovery facilities at AAMI are great, we do share these but I don't see that as a big issue, certainly to Storm's performance isn't hindered by sharing with us. Gosch's paddock oval the surface is great, the size not ideal but really in season training is more about recovery, having access to Casey Fields MCG through pre-season enables the club to really work on set ups on a ground with the dims they will play at. Appreciate the need to get the club Admin and Footy departments into 1 building that needs to be a priority, but this comment about members going on a warpath is a bit over the top. I reckon we have got it right with the summer pre-season at Casey and moving back to AAMI/Gosch's for the season.

Nasher basketball is the greatest individual Team sport ever, especially at young age groups you can have a dominant player that can get the ball in the back half pass to no one and score or a big kid that stands under the ring and just grabs and shoots. Footy you need to team mates, it is highly unlikely that you can score unless a number of your team mates touch the ball. Your better players make you better as long as they buy into the teams structures and rules. If you lose one, you can cover if you start losing 3-4 of your better players you will struggle. Richmond lost the best FB in the game and went on to win a flag, Hawthorn lost the best forward on the last 20 years and went on to win a flag. I'm sure Richmond would have loved to have Rance and Hawthorn Buddy but the team structures covered them. With out a team mentality you can have a superstar in your side and finish last

Beveridge will be on the same page as Hardwick as his team plays similar to Richmond, they are 2 sides that like to keep the ball moving forward be it with a correct or incorrect disposal. Both Richmond and Bulldogs have mastered the new disposal of dropping the ball to advantage. Geelong are getting pretty good at it as well. That will be the issue you remove prior opportunity and teams will just work on dropping the ball to advantage. Common sense, if you do not correctly dispose of the ball reward the tackle, there needs to be some sort of prior opportunity allowance. If you just did this I reckon 10-20% of tackles will be rewarded with a free kick

The debate is starting with Damian Hardwick saying we should remove prior opportunity, that means any player tackled that doesn't get rid of the ball or the if the ball isn't knocked out in a tackle it is holding the ball. So who do you reward the ball winner or the tackler. To me if the ball isn't correctly disposed of, which is a kick or handball a free kick should be paid. Players shouldn't be able to just let the ball go when tackled. The bulldogs and Richmond have mastered this art, the incorrect disposal to advantage. You need to encourage players to win the ball first, if you have no prior players will wait to lay a tackle. Pay incorrect disposal and that will reward the tackler.

This is why membership tallies mean absolutely nothing. Hawks 80 odd thousands members but only 14,000 turn up to the game. When we had these games we would get 15-20,000 with only 24-25,000 members. Still remember one game, I think it was against Fremantle at Princess park, we would have had 5-6,000 people there.

That is great but when you look at our list he is one player that would have some trade value and we have others developing that could fill his current role in 2022. We would be spending to keep a number of players the better you get the harder it is to manage salary cap, I don't think we will be able to keep him when he becomes a RFA.

I can see us offloading Angus Brayshaw at the end of the season. I think with Jordon and Sparrow plus the young blokes we drafted in 2020 will give the club confidence that if a first round pick was offered for Brayshaw you would take it. I also think he will be looking for out, he isn't a wing and will want more time in the centre square.

Good to see the AFL trying it's best to kill this competition. Sometimes growth isn't for the better, AFLW should be for show casing the elite AFLW, should be 8 club tops and have a really good product, to increase to 18 is silly. Great for young girls playing the game they need to find another 120ish players to play AFLW. Big call by AFL, still has it's head in the sand about the massive decline in Boys playing the game

So a club that decides to off load a number of senior players wants to get access to priority picks, sounds like a familiar story.

I agree he is a must keep player, Jackson will be on West Coast radar to replace Nicnat. Reality is though if he doesn't break into the side and cement his spot he will look elsewhere for opportunity.

No doubt he will be moving on if we don't see him secure his spot over the next 5-6 weeks. TMac and Jackson are playing well enough to keep a spot, B Brown will have a few weeks to find form.

Only 1 real priority to sign now is Weiderman.

Yep, the only thinks to take from that game 1) North are in for a long period of pain at AFL level 2) D Tyson Trade is a win for Melbourne 3) Bowey can kick the ball at elite level 4) D Smith can move well and a year or 2 of development and he will be in our AFL backline mix

You find Baker will be injury sub for afl and petty on stand by for our talls