godees

I don’t see the suns beating Collingwood. Our best chance is GWS beating saints then us taking the percentage into our own hands against Essendon. Freo is also a decent chance

1 minute ago, Demon17 said:

They will next weekend as we did in 2017. Freo are not now playing like a bottom side and have an excellent strategic coach in Longmuir. GWS showed how to put the Dogs away in last years finals. Aggressively tag Bontempelli

Longmuir was probably part of taking us down in 2017. Hopefully he can do us the favour this time

Interestingly, we now can’t finish lower than 10th (unless there is a percentage battering next week). So the pick we gave up in the trade with North will be 9 or higher. 2-3 academy players very likely to be top 5 or 6, pushing it out to at least 11. Looking like astute trading in the end.

It shouldn’t cost us. Bulldogs can only jump our percentage if they win (or we lose) and they will jump us anyway in that case

Watched a few mins. Umpiring putrid. In dogs favour as usual

Need some Clarko genius today

We should have done the same with Vince last year. We could have used him when we were ravaged by injury!

13 minutes ago, Kick_It_To_Pickett said:

I think we should rookie him. Allow him to work with the kids in the 2s next year and he is a good insurance policy. If we can get him 7 games plugging holes next year, I’m all for it. He is definitely past his best, well past, but I wouldn’t be tossing him on the scrap heap if he isn’t ready to give it away. If Collingwood can find a rookie spot for Dunn, can’t see why we can’t do the same. This is what separates us from other clubs sometimes. I agree with the article. Don’t disrespect those that have given immense service  

It is also a sneaky way to add an extra assistant coach without it being under the soft cap. I believe that’s what the hawks may be up to with Burgoyne who is playing at a similar quality to Jones this year.

2 hours ago, Whispering_Jack said:

I have an idea.

Why not pick a team as close as possible to the one that represented Melbourne the last time we played at the Gabba?

It was against Collingwood and we beat them by 56 points. This was the team:-

MELBOURNE

FB Michael Hibberd Steven May Jay Lockhart
HB Christian Salem Jake Lever Nathan Jones
C Ed Langdon Clayton Oliver Adam Tomlinson
HF Jake Melksham Tom McDonald Bayley Fritsch
FF Christian Petracca Sam Weideman Kysaiah Pickett
FOL Braydon Preuss Angus Brayshaw Jack Viney
I/C James Harmes Charlie Spargo Tom Sparrow Aaron vandenBerg
EMG Mitch Brown Mitch Hannan Jayden Hunt Joel Smith

Only three players - Jones, Brayshaw and Harmes are unavailable through injury and I would have Max Gawn in the side instead of Braydon Preuss.

The three to add would be Brown, Hannan and Rivers. 

That makes my changes for this week:-

IN Brown Hannan Lockhart T McDonald Spargo Sparrow

OUT Baker Bedford Hunt Neal-Bullen Preuss Smith

It looks better to me on paper than the team we sent out against the Dockers. Let’s see how it goes on grass.

I like this. I’d like to see Jetta again this year also. 

18 minutes ago, leave it to deever said:

I wonder if they trained too hard bw games.

Apparently had a full contact session the day before Sydney...

20 minutes ago, Elegt said:

Our main avenues to goal are 

1. A tall young 23 year old KPF with no agility who got 2 touches last week

2. An old lumbering KPF who can barely jump off the ground

3. A skinny small forward who leads to the pockets, can't kick and rocks up to training late

 

Desperately need a big KPF, by far our biggest need

 

Conveniently picking our Weid’s worst game of the year...

16 hours ago, Watts the matter said:

Can you name the players you would take before him? Keep in mind he went pick 8, which is the pick we had.

Keeping in mind that we haven’t seen a lot of the players from last year yet: Tom Green, Jake Riccardi, Trent Rivers, Mitch Georgiades, Will Day

Don’t rate Serong. Average AFL player potential. I don’t want that for a first round pick. Plenty I would have taken before him.

Jury is out on Pickett. Has shown glimpses at best. Could be a complete flop or the next Jeffy Garlett.

If we win all three games (however unlikely that is) we make it

14 minutes ago, CHF said:

No problem from me with any of the outs.

Giving Smith another run might work but it is not the way I would have gone. Would have brought in Lockhart instead.

Harmes I will be watching closely a I think he has been playing well blow his best form and with a lack of confidence. I hope he turns it around in this game.

Good to see Omac and Wagner retain their spots.

Smith will get the job on Papley I suspect. Has the speed and did well on Danger when he was forward earlier in the year. Smarts...?

50 minutes ago, A F said:

These two things seem at odds to me:

 

He wants lots of money. That will get him end of first round. 

We won despite the questionable selection. Of the ins only Gawn and Rivers strongly justified their selection. Gawn is obvious and we had all been calling for Rivers to come in to allow Harmes to move up the ground. Brown and wagner were ok. Jones was disappointing, as was Omac (but I do think May and lever play better with him in the team).

Don’t mind the Atkins idea but wouldn’t be paying him too much.

We should also have a go at Witherden who has only recently won back his spot in the Bris side (Victorian).

Jack Sinclair could fill a need for us on the cheap. I’d also have faith in Burgess and co to get Cockatoo back on the park - Geelong couldn’t ask for much given his injury history.

11 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

vandenBerg, Hannan, Jones and Pickett laid 3 tackles between them.

I love vandenBerg's intent but if he's not tackling, I'm just not sure why he's playing.

I'd like to see the pressure act stat (does anyone know if it's available anywhere), as I'm sure the FD look at it, and it might be what keeps Pickett in the side.

Doesn’t have the media hype but his record speaks for itself. Takes the best key forward every week and keeps them quiet, as well as his (mostly) excellent kicking out of defence.

They aren’t back. They played Hawthorn without Sicily, O’Meara, Burgoyne and Smith. West coast, Geelong and Port will sort them out

Absolutely absurd that Langdon has been fined for that tackle

4 minutes ago, whatwhatsaywhat said:

Revisiting the trade for Pickett: https://www.afl.com.au/news/487043/is-this-a-rare-win-win-trade-2019-s-blockbuster-pick-swap-revisited

He missed that we traded North’s first rounder back a few spots which got us the Rivers pick. Makes it look even better for us

Also Pies looking pretty tall despite heavy rain predicted pre-game

Rivers is very slight and gets moved out of one on ones too easily. A bit of time in the gym this summer and he will be a fixture in the back 6 in 2021. 
Happy with the changes. Thought they might manage Sparrow or Jones for Viney but otherwise as I thought.