Fat Tony

I wish Grundy would take the ball out of the ruck more.

Great win considering the umpiring didn’t go our way and we made some silly mistakes. The goal kicking accuracy was the difference. The three kicking turnovers in the last quarter when we were about 14 points ahead were ordinary (Lever, Rivers and Hibberd?). We needed to go long to Gawn in those situations.

Did May hurt his hamstring?

Assuming Gawn returns, we will need to start afresh in terms of our selection and structures. In terms of our key targets, I think we will see Brown, Gawn/Grundy and one of TMac, JVR or Petty. I would be tempted to go with Petty forward because we should get Lever returning and Hibberd appears to be available. Our backline looked really good against the Swans because Rivers and Hibberd were able to play as interceptors. Spargo going out due to concussion means we could reward Laurie for good VFL form or even blood AMW. That said, I would look to play Kossie more as a forward this week and bring Jordon into the 22. Fat Tony’s 22+1 Hibberd, May, Rivers Bowey, Lever, Brayshaw Langdon, Oliver, Hunter Pickett, Petty, Sparrow Fritsch, Brown, Gawn Grundy, Petracca, Viney McVee, Jordon, Chandler, ANB Melksham

Does Hibberd come back in this week (if fit) to play on Dustin Martin? I don't think he is really worth worrying about that much, but Pig has a good record on Martin.

He looks to me to play a bit like Darcy Fogarty for the Crows, who is not a natural runner and also a bit undersized for a key forward at 194cm. Jake Stringer is 192cm and Cam Zurhaar is 190cm but both can take hangers. Powell-Pepper is 187cm but he is probably a better natural runner than Sestan and is fringe player. Perkins is 188cm but can run. I just think to make it Sestan will need to develop a fitness base like Petracca, De Goey or Martin and be able to push into the midfield because I question if he can become a good enough aerial threat at 186-188cm to be a good deep forward. In short (pardon the pun) 186-188cm is too short unless you can take hangers or you can run 10-12km of fartlek.

Does Sestan possess the ability to take a hanger like those players though? I haven't seen that yet. All those players (except Membery who is taller with long arms and plays tall) have elite springs, which makes them aerial threats. Sestan's obvious AFL traits are ball handling, strength and kicking.

188cm is only big enough if he can run as well as Petracca or Sparrow, who are miles ahead. Extra centremetres never hurt!

Great insights. I see Laurie in a similar vein. He lacks athleticism which makes it hard to see his role at AFL level. I think Merrett is much quicker and a more dynamic and a more penetrating kick. I see him more like Jade Gresham, albeit I think Gresham is better in the air. Still, it is great to see he is getting so much more of the football, albeit I would like to see more kicks than handballs at VFL level. Woey obviously had a poor kicking day yesterday judging by various reports but he has been tidy in previous games. Did he just have a bad day on return (in the wind)? He has a bit of Billy Stretch about him. Sestan looks very good with ball in hand and in the contest, but he is still a way off AFL fitness. I also wonder if he is a bit short for a player of his profile.

Laurie has no overhead game at all. He is competing with ANB, Spargo, Chandler and Kossie, not Melksham.

I think May looks unwilling to go to full pace. Last week he let Darling win a ball on the boundary and gave him a 15m leg rope. This week he didn’t look to have any intensity and struggled in the air.

It is positional and role. Melksham plays an undersized key forward in our system. Jordon is a midfielder. I think we should be rotating the sub role but that’s a separate issue.

I think it’s time to start a Deathriding thread for Essendon. I know we don’t have their draft pick but I hate them so much!

I don't think Fyfe is a good enough kick to compliment our midfield including Oliver, Petracca, Viney and Langdon (which already provides us great grunt and breakaway capability but are not the most effective kicking). And he has proven to be an ineffective forward in the back end of his career. That said, you might take him on a very low salary but there would probably be better suiters for him (i.e. Geelong, Collingwood or Port)

I hope they start using the sub to rotate our lesser players. We are coming off a short break and also back to back road trips this week. "Squad mentality" means rotating and not playing your best 22 every week. This approach gives us the chance to experiment, develop and freshen up over the course of the season. We obviously then will pick our best 22+1 in September and probably also on the big 8 point games. Jordon should definitely come into the 22 this week, with one of Sparrow, Spargo, Chandler or ANB getting a turn as sub. (Or we could go smaller with Brown not selected and Petty going back to replace Hibberd.)

Channel 7

We will take 24 at least. Tomlinson looks most likely to be travelling emergency.

Gold Coast will hand No.6 draft pick Bailey Humphrey his senior debut against St Kilda on Saturday night, while Mac Andrew will play his first game for the year after serving a club-imposed ban for drink-driving during the off-season. Humphrey was the player we were rumoured to have been wanting to trade up for.

The Pies have a list very well suited to playing ballistic football through the corridor. Not many other sides have a group of smaller players who are such good kickers (Daicos x2, Pendlebury, Sidebottom, Maynard, Elliott & Noble). It is a hard strategy to form a plan against because you need to hope they miss targets through the corridor or just give up territory and defend the D50.

Yes ANB had Covid I think

I got the impression that Goodwin wants to persist with 3 key forwards (including Petty) and so TMac would probably come in if Brown is unfit.

Firstly, I don't think we should consider being the sub as being dropped, more rested/freshened up. I hope we give Spargo and ANB a turn as sub at some point this year. IMO we should be using the sub role (during the season) to give all our lesser players a rest and then subbing off some of our top end stars off if the scoreboard is lopsided. (Oliver won't like it but premiership > Brownlow.) Last year we generally played 3 speed forwards (Pickett, ANB and Spargo), one tall (Ben Brown), one defensive tall (TMac or Melksham), a mid size (Fritsch) and a midfielder/forward (Sparrow). This year Chandler has come in and has shown he can be an AFL quality player, so I can see our system still working well without Spargo and ANB. Note: ANB missed with injury against Hawthorn last year.

Go Crom! (I don’t even know what that means.)

We owe this mob for 1994, 2018 and for their oversized share of the GST.

Did Joel Smith train?