Dappa Dan

You'll cop it from the sooks... but I don't see why that isn't tried with every player. Especially in our current predicament. It's all about adding strings to your bow.

Yeah exactly. How many of our players, with ball in hand open about 70 out do you find yourself rising off your seat to get a closer look at the whole forward line? Salem, Lewis, Viney for decision making, Watts for decision making and execution, Oliver, and Petracca from 100 out has an uncanny knack of finding Jeffy inside fifty. So many of our other players though, you look through the gap between your fingers....

Yeah, he didn't play badly. But his game vs Crows is what we need from him. Actually, we need the midfield games of Oliver, Petracca and Viney from that week to roll through to finals.The mix of offensive and defensive stuff. Viney kicks a surprising amount of goals. We'll need all of them.

I read that somewhere, that due to the evenness, that could happen. Have you done ladder predictor? Any way I shake it out it seems like 11-11 is 9th and 12-10 is 8th.

So we agree then. Can win or lose any given week. ie... 6-6... equalling 11-11, which won't be enough. You're skewing your stats. Watch port closely. They look a strong side. I have them at 4th on ladder predictor. And yes we did catch Crows napping. Look at how they've played the last two weeks, specifically at names, compared to when we played them. The amount of good players they had in their side playing badly on that night, that are right back in form now. That won't happen again. If we played them now, even at the G, they'd be warm favourites. They've earned it. People can claim their own crystal ball is smarter than mine. That's the fun of it. But the sides there have shown they can dominate teams that are mentally on and off. And as you say, on and off describes us to a tee. So much comes down to Gawn and hogan. I love both of them, and have since their first games. But we're asking a lot for Jesse to kick 6 every week and Max to smash ruckman after ruckman after a couple of months off. I want to see Pies, Dogs and West Coast wins, and I'll get back on board. Pies we're better than (though they have the midfield and ruck to hurt us in our strength). Dogs absolutely slaughter us usually, but we did get a hold of them a couple of years ago. West Coast we should have beaten last year so I'm hopeful there too.

Before round 1 most on here picked the Saints. People are kidding themselves if they think they've gotten bad suddenly. How many games have we won at the G this year? I'll give you Pies and Lions though. Having said that, I had us beating Tigers, Hawks and Freo handsomely. I can't see how anyone thinks the draw is easier on the back end, other than to say we get the Lions there. GWS, Crows, Dogs, Saints, WC, Sydney, Power and North would have been 8 goals up at half time in Darwin had they been our opposition this week. There's no picking anything this year. Any given week we can smash good teams interstate or lose to scrubs at home. We need to go 7-5. I think we go 6-6 and just miss out.

The only game you're worried about is GWS? We have West Coast in perth who nearly beat GWS there yesterday. The reigning premiers playing pretty good footy. Crows are flat out better than us, and we won't catch them napping this time. Power are absolutely awesome this year IMO. On top of that other games like Sydney, North and Saints, if they turn up, can beat anyone. But this is more about us than the opposition. We've gotten a lot better over recent years, but we're not finished yet. And a lot of people have Gawn and Hogan coming back and playing the best footy of their careers. I don't see it that way. I reckon we're a chance any game. And we're a chance to flake out any game. With a SUPER favourable draw in the first 10 weeks, we're 5-5. The second half is nowhere near as helpful. Add to that this year is a nightmare for the tipsters. Who the hell knows what's what.

They're all such obvious answers... Except one. Given we're 5-5 and getting Gawn and Hogan back you'd think we'd be a good chance to go at least 7-5. But take a look at the draw. Holy smokes do we have it tough. No finals this year.

Errrrry day

The turnover that started our run was all Vince. Just sayin'

Classic case of stats watching. He's been playing in the ruck and forward out of necessity. Put him in defense and he has 10 marks, 8 r50s, 25 touches, and about 15 spoils on a good day.

Who's kicked 5 in the last two weeks. Daniher's skinny too. Smashed us. I hope we take Moore seriously. Cox though, they're welcome to play. lol

199cm Moore? 211cm Cox? The minute you switch off and don't take them seriously, that's when they get up and about.

Any kicking skills will up us massively. lol At one point in the second half Watts took a mark uncontested on the paint of defensive fifty. I was overjoyed. Love when he plays between the arcs.

I like these posts. Tracca, I think, isn't going to be a 22 game midfielder like Clarry and Jones are. He's a bit more of a Stevey J, Chapman type. Will go through there and do amazing things like in the Crows game. But by gee he's heavy, and I worry about his speed and engine. His ceiling on those won't be as high as a Scully type. Pedo. The only issue with him is how Goody overlooked him early in the year. He's best 22 now even with a fully fit list.

He showed a little bit of improvement on this, Goody even highlighted how he's jumping at the ball. Then in the last 2-3 weeks he's been as bad as at any stage in his career. Remember his juniors tape? Taking pack marks overhead? We've been had.

You should have led with that. Yeah I can see your point. I'm glass half full on both. Bugg just kept getting on the end of it as a deep forward, when we were crying out for a target. He's a bit of a mr fixit. Like a very very poor man's Yeo. I suspect you may be right on this one. The defense has struggled at times lately, and that's partly because starters like Wagner haven't had continuity. If he does stay in, I'd love to see Salem rolled through the midfield and half forward. Kicking inside fifty has been absolutely our worst facet all year. Unless it's Salem with the ball in his hands. He can get a kick off half back if needed, but let's see him up the ground where he can really hurt teams.

Marking? Absolutely. I reckon you ask most tall skinny guys (like me) if they improved as they aged as a mark, and I reckon you have to. Size, bulk, faith in your own body, knowing pain and contact isn't anything to be afraid of. Those things only get better as you age. Kicking? Not so much. I'm not seeing the massive problems with him as a kick. Again, grading on a curve, how many 196cm players can kick at all? The shape and technique are spot on. Better than his brother. If he has a target to kick to, he's fine? I guess I'm saying I'm not seeing the glaring problems with the basics that everyone else is. And yes he's loping around a bit. That happens when you're enormous. I get that there's players like Gawn who are incredible below their knees. And he doesn't have the fast twitch movement, dash or bulk of his big brother. But I'm not seeing massive horrible errors in contests. He gets beaten, but then so does Rance, Tarrant and others. He gets vilified on here, mostly because as a club we need a whipping boy. We used to have 20, now we have maybe 3. Smith's a beauty, but that's a big call. Firstly, how do we know he'd go on for 10 weeks as good as his first 10 minutes + JLT? He's not immune to form. ALso he's 5cm shorter than OMac. Could he spoil and negate Ben Brown? Cox? Waite? Lynch? Wright? Lobb? Jenkins? Daniher? Hipwood? Every team seems to have one, and Smith will fight manfully but won't be able to spoil easily. I tell you what I'd like to see. A realisation that we're still getting better. We're not playing a grand final this year. Or a prelim. Actually making the finals at all is a success. Players like OMac are the reason why. The club are right to be looking for a big bodied KP defender. We're years off OMac being productive. In the meantime, slot in a May, and teach OMac dual roles. Frost can go forward, and can play deep defense or rebounding. TMac has been rebounding his whole career, and goes into the ruck and forward. I suspect OMac needs another 5-10 kilos to be of any use in another role. I think you're right, he should be developing still somewhere in the 2s... But the in is basically anyone with height. Gawn and Hogan in, TMac back to defense, done.

Because? Salem comes in. Absolute certainty. Who's your out?

And a lift in pressure from our mids. Jones for example was very quiet until he took the game over. Viney was subdued. I loved watching Tyson come off the back of the square.

Yeah the "at the moment" part isn't of that much concern to me. He's 25 games in. I reckon Watts didn't play a good one for his first 50, and he's not even as tall as Oscar. Frost was absolutely awful for his first 5 years, now look at him. I had Frost easily as our worst KP defender and just not a footballer. At OMac's height, age, and experience it would be unbelievable if he was good at all. I've seen him play well in the past, and there's not much left in the cupboard that's even close to tall enough. I reckon every side now has a 200cm forward that needs to be played on, so we have to play him even though he's inexperienced. I just reckon the coaching group just see things differently than we do. They see his 1%ers, and they put up with disposal issues. I reckon he makes really good decisions, but can't execute them at his size, and with his turning circle. If you want to specifically talk about his strengths, then all you can identify at this stage is things like height, kicking technique, speed, spoiling technique. But again, Gawn when he started couldn't kick straight, kept getting hurt. All he did was be tall. I reckon in game 1 I had him pegged as a future starting ruckman. Based on effort and attitude. OMac has those as well. To each their own. I reckon OMac is doing as good as you can expect from a low drafted 196cm player.

Hogan in would mean that, yeah. If not, I think it's ok to start him forward, and when we see if he handles Howe and Schade, he can stay, or we roll Pedo through and move TMac to ruck. Has at least the engine, pace and bulk to limit Grundy when he's there. Pedo I think would get run off his feet. Watts will get pushed around in the air. I'm pretty sure early in the year they rolled with all three. Not sure about recently. If I'm Bux, I'm playing Cox. Looking at how we've handled 200cm+ players this year, he would be a good chance to get a game.

If Hogan's in, one of ANB and Harmes comes out. Would be pretty harsh on Harmes after getting us back into the game to be dropped. Poor old ANB. I think if Hogan's in, it'll be all over the media in the leadup, so no need to predict that one.

Fair enough. For mine it's simple. Last time we had a good win we didn't change the side, and I think Goody will try to do that again. Salem in, Wagner out. Most likely. Sooks will call for OMac to go out, but I feel like matchups-wise he'll stay in for White, Cox or Moore.

We're up, aren't we? lol