Fat Tony

Big call to be trading down from #1 if Harley Reid is on a Petracca/Dusty level. While we can dream, I doubt Freo will be that bad. The other thing to think about is where Kynan Brown falls on the draft board? If he has a great year and rises in the pecking order, we will be forced to concentrate our draft capital/taking one of the top players, trading our pick out for an established player or pushing picks into 2024.

With Gawn out and May returning, Goodwin has a few things to consider. Tomlinson has been pretty good this year and Petty has been a bit down compared to previous seasons. One option I think we should consider is throwing Petty forward. JVR could also come into the side to replace the out of form TMac, although this role would also include part time rucking.

With Max out injured for a stint on the side lines, it will be interesting how we adjust our game plan. In the clearances, I expect to see Grundy take a lot of balls out of the ruck contests and our midfielders to be a bit more defensive. I expect we will go with JVR this week as our second ruck because he should provide a bit more energy around the ball than TMac can. (TMac's place in the side is also under pressure due to form.) Around the ground, our defence will need to stand up without Max's marking and we will need to be a bit quicker to transition defensively without the ball. Going forward, we will likely look to spread the ball a bit more, kicking to Petty or Petracca on the open side. (This tactic has worked well this year.) In a post game interview, Petracca said he felt we played a bit safe with the ball. I don't think that is right and we actually transitioned the ball ok. We were just belted in the clearances (centre clearances and in our defence).

Didn’t think you could make the hawthorn jumper look uglier but I was wrong.

It is now up on the AFL site. The Gawn news was uncertain but the tone was not that encouraging.

Is there much difference between scenarios 2 & 3 in terms of how the opponent is set up defensively?

I think we sought to kick harder, flatter and straighter inside 50 on several slow/congested entries in the Richmond practice match. I think we hardly did that at all last year. I also think we have also been looking to try and enter our 50 from a position closer to the corridor this year. Instead of kicking to the pocket from 15m inside the wing boundary, we are looking to kick from 30-40m inside the boundary. This gives us more angles to work with on entry and gives us a bit more cover if we turn it over or they rebound quickly. I think a lot of the uncontested marks against the Dogs were a function of the way we looked to exit our defence. The Dogs lack of defensive system meant we could attack through the middle on occasion, which helped us find uncontested marks inside 50. But, our method did also result in a few very bad and uncharacteristic turnovers (Oliver and Petty kicks as examples).

Not being a lock in a defence that includes May, Lever, Petty, Salem, Rivers and Brayshaw is hardly a reason for delisting. David Astbury played in 24 games in five years from 2011-2015 and then played in three flags.

I wonder if the sub on Friday night will play 2 games (assuming they only play limited AFL minutes).

Gawn, Petracca and Oliver are all flying at the moment and we are 39.5 wins and 12.5 losses in our last 52 matches. The Lions are a tough ask at the Gabba but we are great on the road. We should be confident that our best will beat any team except maybe Geelong.

This is one for Werridee.

Laurie had only 17 AFL fantasy points against the Dogs and 14 against the Tigers in the practice game. There is no way he is currently in our best side.

I’m hoping we pick our best side in a game which could decide our ladder position come finals.

Laurie should go out regardless of how many of the four injured stars are returning. Jordon and Melksham are miles ahead.

Ben Brown when he missed his kick in the goal square?

Harmes had 42 pressure acts which is exceptional. Next best was Kossie with 30. Your views on Harmes are no longer objective.

Did he play VFL today?

I thought he was training with the massage table.

Smith would’ve been an option had he been fit. We will just need to limit supply and make sure we get a second player up in contests.

I think Pig makes more sense than McVee given the size of the Dogs forwards.

Probably not because he’s contracted to 2025 and the soft cap hit would be so big.

I would theorise that Langdon always played the non interchange wing because he very rarely went off and it meant that the slow (Jordon) wing was able to be used to facilitate interchanges more easily. On kick outs, I would guess that the kick left strategy was because our kick in players were all lefties (May, Salem, Pig) and they could take territory more safely to left side. It also made it more easy to know what which side Gawn was going. That said, it certainly is a contradiction to my overall thesis. I would hope we see Langdon and Hunter swap this year with their preferred foot on the boundary this year. This will help us kick out on the full less often and should help us move the ball quicker. One drawback I see of changing our game plan is that we don't have like for like replacements for Langdon or Hunter if they get injured. Consequently, I could see us going back to last years game plan temporarily if we lose a winger.

It appears from the preseason games that there has been a pretty big shift in the game plan. Last year (and in 2021) the game plan centred around a fast wing (Langdon) and slow/defensive wing (Jordon/Brayshaw). On the slow/defensive wing side, we kicked long to packs with multiple talls, with crumbers like Petracca ready in position for a soft drop crumb. The plan was focused on not giving away scores on the counterattack and maximising our contested marking advantages due to Gawn. We saw some changes to the game plan in Round 23 last year and in the finals when we looked to switch a bit more, but this was implemented too late in the season to be engrained and we suffered from bad turnovers in the Finals (Sydney game in particular). This year, it appears we are going to be more willing to spread the ground coming out of defence rather than just going to one side. You can see this from our kickout strategies. This will open us up a bit more to counterattack, but it should gives us much better quality entries when we break through and are able to go coast to coast. We are also being a bit more central and targeting one on one contests with penetrating 45m kicks when going inside 50. I put the changes in philosophy down to 1) adapting due to not winning the flag last year (i.e. last year was the recession we had to have) and 2) the addition of Hunter on the wing. It looks like Hunter is a key inclusion and has given Goodwin the confidence to be a bit bolder with our ball movement.

That’s true. But my thinking is that Laurie needs to dominate VFL football first. He hasn’t shown enough to warrant the promotion. Jordon looks to have been squeezed out by Hunter’s arrival and the want to push Kossie through the middle.

Taking Petty out of defence would certainly make it worse but it would still be excellent with May and Lever, with Gawn or Grundy dropping back. Our strong midfield and zoning means that our defence will always get an easy run as well. Our defence was excellent before Petty came into the team.