drdrake

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

No idea

I think it is the percentage of inside 50m that result in a score so 100 entries they will score 19 times.

As soon as we accept that we will use Casey as our Summer base and that we will get a HQ at Gosch's Paddock the better we will be. Whether that HQ will be on the corner of Hoddle and Swan or Over the Carpark near the current training oval will the only real sticking point. The next is getting funding so we need to find our angle, you need to have something that adds to the community even if it is a small percentage of the complex, I really hope we are looking at the Reach Foundation located in the Jim Stynes center of being the best that you can be.

We need a quality midfielder with speed and that can hit targets, outside Langdon we are still a bit slow in the midfield and we don't have any elite kicks in there.

The back 6 last year was by far our best unit, they have continued to improve and have the opportunity to be together for the next 3-5 years outside May, Lever, Tomlinson, Rivers, Hunt, Salem still have a lot of footy ahead of them.

Yep, TMac has the spot he keeps it whilst form is good. M Brown will make way for some one, I think it will be B Brown. I don't think B Brown/Weiderman/Jackson/TMac can all fit into the same side, three off them do with Fritsch who really plays a hit up leading forward as well.

He is a defender that had run and dare but couldn't kick, that was his issue ran off HBF great but turned it over and was then out of position. Seems to be kicking with in his limitations now hitting targets and picking better options. Also helps that our back line balance hasn't been this good for a very long time. May/Lever/Jetta/Tomlinson/Rivers/Hunt/Salem they are a strong unit with confidence. Salem and Hunt have the confidence to create off half back knowing that the other defenders will work to cover their man.

Do it like NFL, play State of Origin the week before the GF with all non GF teams players available or rebrand it to an All stars game east coast QLD/Vic/NSW/Tas V SA/NT/WA. Get rid of the bye after the season and have it before the GF, give players a chance for the new concussion rule as well. Missing a final is hard but missing a GF due to the 12 day rule would really suck.

I went to the border Albury/Wodonga a bit a few years back, basically every person I visited that had boys playing footy their kids very signed to GWS academy. Clubs will sign anyone they get priority access to, sign 1000 and hope there is 1 they can get on the cheap. On a side note do we still have our father/Daughter academy? The Swans do a heap of development in their academy and are seeing massive rewards from this. The Victorian/SA/WA have extremely limited priority access to Academy players whilst the northern states I believe still have priority access to anyone in their zone.

GWS had a very simple game plan, stop us scoring and get us on the rebound. They basically played a 2 man forward line with every other player behind or around the ball. Once they won the ball it was a mad dash forward. Worked well in the 1st qtr with fresh legs but then tired. The lose of players didn't help. It meant our forward 50m arc was always congested, we adjusted to move the ball through our spare players. A win is a win, wasn't pretty but we grinded this one out.

I'm involved in a local based club, we book and pay for the slots we use, our cricket pitches are covered last week of March. We have rocked up to Junior matches/training and pick up groups have removed the cover, set up games on the oval and protest aggressively when we tell them this is a booked slot. Good for us now the council has gone back to dumping sand on the pitches so they can remove the temporary covers we did have. If we aren't using the oval go for it, the issue that casual groups face is you want to use the ovals the same times the clubs do, after work and weekends. So who should have priority access to an oval, the paying tenant or casual users that get upset as they don't want to pay anything?