Nasher

I was being a bit sarcastic Rusty. I don’t see why people think Preuss is the magic bullet, I don’t rate him as a forward at all and obviously our main ruckman goes okay. I don’t think just being tall is enough. That said, I do have a fair bit of sympathy for the argument that he couldn’t possibly have added any less than Spargo or Corey Wagner today.

So we have a ruckman if Gawn gets injured. And anyway we traded him for Dom Tyson, so it hardly counts as a trade.

Topic title and OP updated in the interests of everyone’s cardiac health.

If only we’d selected Preuss. ?

Cripes, here we go. Why on Earth do you want to hear from Bartlett?

I’d thoroughly recommend nobody listen to coach press conferences after a bad loss. There is literally no right thing the coach will say. Or at least, you’ll never hear whatever it is you think you want to hear.

I was in despair at 3/4 time, but I have to say I the last quarter did take the edge off it. I know it’s easy to say GWS put the cue in the rack which masked the gravity of the loss etc - and in my head I know that’s true, but if the shoe was on the other foot you know we’d all be thoroughly fuming, so I’m happy to take the reverse position in this instance. Anyway, we have too many foot soldiers in our team - players who can all play a role in a well oiled machine, but not good enough to raise the bar when needed. It fell apart today because on top of that, the good players we do have left all decided they were all going to play like arze all at the same time, other than Gawn, who was our best player by so far that nobody else is even worth mentioning. Although Baker was definitely a real positive, he took a big step forward today. Meh. Another loss in a wasted season.

Said at quarter time I couldn’t imagine us playing any worse. My bad.

Has he had one clean one? He’s been bloody hot every time he’s been near the ball. At least he’s getting it.

It’s hard to imagine us playing any worse, but only 10 down. Lady luck has smiled so far, hopefully we can take advantage of it and start playing actual footy. All our mids have been quiet. Harmes 5, Oliver 4, Viney 4, Jones 2, Brayshaw one. Can’t see that continuing.

Simpsons reference to Ben Brown. Sideshow Bob is this guy:

Despite everything, our core midfield - our biggest strength - has remained completely intact, and the only one not really in form is Brayshaw. Defensively (as a team, rather than back half personnel) we’re functional now, where we were hopeless early in the season. Our forward “connection” (I’d never heard that term before this year) is just going now, which was also rated as hopeless early. Couple this with the fact that GWS have historically sucked at the G gives me confidence we can knock them over. We’re nowhere near as bad now as people are making out. Looking forward to this one.

I’m gonna leave it open now just to spite you!

I thought the opposite. They’re obviously cactus this year and in the early stages of a rebuild. This means the club can start looking for its new coach and planning around that well in advance, Scott can plan his own future, and both parties get to avoid all the wild speculation and pressure that comes with bottom 4 territory. If it causes a bit of turbulence in a season that is already dead in the water anyway, so what?

This post represents everything wrong with the faux selection committee on Demonland. Saying “let’s see how this plays out”, immediately *after* drawing a (negative) conclusion. By the way I’m assuming letting see how it plays out involves crowing about it if we lose and a big apologetic sob story about how you were wrong if we win.

Phew - official confirmation that it’s a good decision.

Pleasantly surprised Goody didn’t automatically fall back to Lewis. Not that C.Wagner is an enormous upgrade, but it puts to bed any thoughts that he won’t change his thinking on his veterans.

Fair enough; I tend to be in the camp of assuming that won't happen. They've already ruled ANB out, so I'd expect them to have already ruled out Smith too if there was doubt. The rationale being I'm in no position to assess whether it's a 'risk' to play him or not.

A player plays an otherwise good game that has an obviously positive effect on the game, but has one blemish in it. Would you prefer the blemish be: a) 1 dropped sitter? b) 1 shanked set shot from 30 out, directly in front? c) 1 failure to 'go'? For some reason, everyone eventually overlooks (a) and (b) but (c) appears to be a completely unforgivable sin. I reckon if the player committed 5 of them in a game, maybe I could get it, but I reckon too much weight is being put on one error for Garlett. For those who see the world in black and white and think I'm suggesting it should be acceptable not to 'go' when required, I'm certainly not. I'm just suggesting it's one of a suite of things that should be non-negotiable in AFL football, but it seems to get a disproportional amount of focus, despite the fact that it probably has the same outcome on the scoreboard, or arguably less outcome on the scoreboard, than the other cardinal and very rectifiable sins.

All the changes will come from the extended bench. Smith will be named in the final side and expected to play.

Pretty hard to pick from that extended bench - Harmes is the only lock. Stretch and Fritsch are both only hanging on by a thread; you'd think Goodwin would pick Lewis even though most of us now wouldn't; I really want to back Weideman in to get going again; Preuss was playing okay before injury. I don't think Spargo or Wagner play. I'd pick Harmes, Stretch, Weideman and Fritsch (in: Weideman, out: Neal-Bullen). I think Goodwin will pick Harmes, Lewis, Preuss and Fritsch (in: Lewis, Preuss, out Neal-Bullen, Stretch).

I applaud your creativity in finding a way to use an overwhelmingly positive thread about another player to pot Petracca for no reason. Well done ? ?

All the players named on the extended Melbourne bench get named at Casey, it’s just how it works. Harmes is very obviously not going to play there. Stretch and Fritsch might though.

Chris Mainwaring was a Malthouse era star, if anything can be inferred from that.

Great post, particularly agree with your analysis of Preuss vs Smith. I thought Smith was important last night - not just for the mobility he adds as you said, but also for the times he didn’t fly when TMac had a one-out. That’s how he got his goal - he stayed down and it fell out the back, but a few minutes earlier he stood to allow TMac to fly, which should have resulted in a mark. He forced accountability in their defenders, which disappeared as soon as he was knocked out. I also think the rating of Preuss around here is way over the top too. I’m a fan, but in a “now we’re not stuffed if we lose Max” kind of way. He’s a lumbering dinosaur as a forward, which makes him useless defensively. The likes of McGovern could defend against him and still peel off, all with their eyes closed.