Lord Travis

Lions haven’t played at the MCG since early 2020. They’re a more mature team now. Tonight is a 50/50 game with big ramifications for both teams fortunes in 2022.

Disappointed Hunt didn’t come back in. He’s been our second best lock down defender this season behind May, and the best for smalls due to pace and agility. Would’ve been handy tonight. Our current backline with Salem, Gus and Bowey for smalls is not working defensively or offensively. We’re 17th for scoring from back half, so that half back dynamic needs to change. Need Hunt or Rivers back in, Bowey out, and Gus shifted further up the ground to fix the balance and get us back to something closer to hat worked last year.

Midfield needs to fire tonight. Clarry is a jet every week, but Petracca has been down on impact since illness. If he can return to form it’ll go a long way to us winning. Mids need to lower the eyes going inside 50 and forwards need to stay in motion and present. It’s really that simple for us. Dees by 11 points.

In: May, Weid, Hunt, Rivers Out: Turner, Gawn, M Brown, Bowey Thoughts: - May straight to full back. - Weid to play second tall forward and backup ruck for Jackson. Jackson and Weid to rotate as second tall forward. - Mitch Brown out, so one less permanent tall up forward. Go smaller up forward to create more pressure and mobility, force mids to lower the eyes and hit lead up targets. - Bowey out. He's been poor recently and needs a spell at Casey to regain form. Rivers and Hunt in. Both to play defence and lock down on plethora of smaller Brisbane forwards. Hunt to play deeper as he's better defensively, Rivers higher to aid rebound. - Brayshaw to play further up the ground; midfield, wing and rotating half forward with Trac. As good as he's across half back, it's the one position we have lots of depth, so we can afford to play him elsewhere to help strengthen middle and forward half for the benefit of the team overall.

There’s obviously some elite players missing. Andrew Brayshaw, Gawn, Petracca, Mills, Heeney have been elite and impacted games this year. Trac and Heeney more so early on, and there’s probably others that escape me. Marlion Pickett is not elite in any measure or stat, even if classified as a wingman. That’s probably the most baffling selection in recent memory. Not sure why champion data exists at this point as their analysis is always wrong.

Take the gun tall forward every time. The rarest position to find a gun, yet a gun tall forward can completely change a teams fortunes. Max King is 21 years old and on track for 50+ goals already. Easy decision to pick him and build around him for the next decade.

Meaningless stat in isolation as they presented it, but it does show how hard it is to reverse form. If we continue to lose, we'll be similar to Dees of 2004-2006 where we were top four for most of those seasons but had a period in the second half of the year where we capitulated and lost 4+ games in a row. We bowed out earlier than we should've those years, especially 2004 where we were top of the ladder heading into Round 18 but lost every game thereafter to finish fifth and lose an elimination final to eighth placed Bombers. Let's hope the short bye break gave the players a chance to reset and we can get back on track. The talent is still out there even with injuries, just need to switch on mentally and bring the intensity.

Will be barracking for the Tigers tonight to keep the Blues a game behind us and keep our top four hopes alive. Feels dirty though.

The scumbag better stay out of prison this time. Much harder to get out out of prison in Bali than in the US 😆

We await the results of the scan. Our season could depend on it. Fingers crossed it’s nothing serious for the skipper. And yes, a 10 day bye seems unjust when other clubs get over 15 days break. We’re struggling with injuries so it’s going to hit us hard.

Gawns set shots outside 50 have a good strike rate. Trac and Sparrow bombing from outside 50 in play are good. Hunt also, though he’s usually running inside 50 if he gets shots these days. Would love for a tall forward to own this and start sinking shots from outside 50 like other teams talls seem to do.

He’s back in WA today with JVR enjoying his bye break. Hopefully he comes back refreshed and has a bigger impact on the second half of the year. Lets get that contract signed soon so it doesn’t become a distraction and effect the team.

After halftime over these last three games, we have scored just 5.16 while having a whopping 25.9 kicked against. In percentage terms, that’s 28.9%. If we are loading, then we miscalculated badly. We aren’t as fit as last year, but our poor form can’t be entirely blamed on loading. Even before these losses we’ve been in average/poor form despite winning. By any metric, we aren’t the team we were last year. We have trust and connection issues. Last year players would trust there team mates to enter a contest out numbered. The one entering the contest would either get the ball free to the waiting player on the outside, or at worst halve the contest and create a stoppage. It takes trust in your mate to go against your natural instincts and hang back. This year we’ve reverted to bees at a honeypot. The trust is gone, players are charging in without thought as they’re now trying too hard and going into self preservation mode to hold their spot in the team. We now see other teams giving us a taste of our own medicine. How many times do we see Sparrow, Viney, Trac and Harmes smash into each other trying to win the ball, only for it to pop out to opposition just hanging outside the pack waiting? It’s a mindset issue that needs to be fixed more so than fitness.

In: May, Weid, Hunt Out: Turner, M Brown, Bowey

With our poor forward conversion and injuries to talls, he should play permanent tall forward if Max is ok after the bye break. He’d get a few free kicks per weeks purely from defenders [censored] themselves at his height or athleticism. If he could stand up and CHF it would do us a world of good. He’s needed more there than centre of the ground IMO.

His brilliance and determination have masked how poor our midfield is performing this year. It feels like an eternity since we won the clearances and could stop opposition midfields charging through the corridor. Would be in a world of pain without Clarry doing his bit.

Lost top spot and lost 7%. Horrible day for the club. It’d be good to win a queens birthday match at some point. Bring back Jack Watts to kick the sealer

Reset of the club needed. Top four in serious jeopardy if we can’t find form soon. Even with injuries, the players we have out there on the field should be able to beat most teams comfortably. This is simply not good enough.

Gone. So disappointing watching the club regress like this. Premiership defense looking shaken now. Gonna be a fight to stay top four now and we’re going to need to start beating too right teams.

Regardless of what the result winds up being today, Bowey needs to go back to Casey. Got a bright future ahead, but he’s been poor both defensively and offensively the past month. Dropping Hunt ahead of him was just an outright mistake.

We’re seriously on the ropes here. Season is spiraling downwards here if we can’t get some fit players standing up to keep us in the top four.

How many injuries have we got? I just saw Mitch Brown playing down back with no Petty in sight after that marking contest.

We’re just not sticking tackles like we were last year. It makes a big difference that pressure, completely changes how they’re going forward and allows our defenders to zone off and intercept. Without the defensive pressure going up, our defenders can’t zone off and can’t stop someone as tall as Cox on the air. We’ve had our weapons taken away for us for the last 4-6 weeks and we’ve been brought back to the middle of the pack. On form we’re obviously not top four, but there’s still plenty of time left in this season to get back on track before finals.The midfield and forward line need complete resets. Midfield getting embarrassed around the ball and poor kicking inside 50. Forward line not converting, even when they manage to get shots.

Turner going well on debut, especially early. Bowey is well out of form unfortunately. Hunt or Rivers would be more effective on form.

Midfield getting pantsed again today. Losing clearances and contested ball, giving them free reign to take it quickly through the corridor. Oliver a lone hand. Spargo had a great second quarter. Huge pressure and clean kicks going inside 50. Jackson is a shadow of himself at present and is getting outbodied too easily. How any league footballer can miss goals from 10 meters out with little angle is beyond me. We’re not converting opportunity when we had the momentum. Will be a tough fight from here to get up.