RalphiusMaximus

Nope. Finally saw him play and to me he looks a hell of a lot like Cale Morton. He's more physical, but that skinny build will hamper him.

The issue, once again, is that we have no plan to score goals. There is absolutely no point in dominating possession and winning contested ball through the midfield if you can't kick goals. We win by small margins because we lack the ability to finish our good work with scores and this is entirely due to our lack of a cohesive plan for our forwards. They don't work for each other. They don't create space for each other. They rarely lead. The NEVER block for each other. All we ever see from them is clustering at the top of the square and waiting for the long bomb. All we ever see from our midfielders is blind bombs or chips into the pocket. I keep saying this. Chaplin has to go. We need someone who can get our forwards playing as a cohesive unit and produce a better plan than "bomb to the hot spot." Not only has it cost us a place in finals, but it's going to cost us Jesse and possibly the Weed as well. How long are they going to put up with standing under a high ball waiting to get smashed? Sooner or later they'll jump ship to a team that knows how to use their forwards.

The thing is, it's all very well to talk about the size of defenders right now and Lever is right in the middle of the field (and taller than I thought), but it doesn't address the issue. A few weeks ago BEN BROWN tore us apart. Now he's an ok player, but he's no Wayne Carey. In round six, Joe Danniher kicked six straight points before his one goal. That could easily have been a seven goal haul to win them the game. Darcy Moore isn't there yet, but he's a mobile 201cms. GWS have Patton at a shortish 198cm and Lobb floating in at 207. Port have Dixon and the Hoff at 2m+ and Ryder chipping in at just shy of 2m. Boyd at the Doggies is 2m. Even Brisbane have Schache (for now) at 199 and Hipwood at 202. These guys stretch their arms up and we have nobody short of Max Gawn who has a chance of getting a fist to the ball. We need to get pro-active and try to find a solution. Maybe that means grabbing an American Basketball reject and training them to spoil or converting a spare ruck (like we have one).

Jake's a bloody good player, but he's an upgrade rather than filling a hole in our side. I'd prefer to see us chasing someone with a few more inches to them who can go with the 2m forwards that seem to have sprouted all over the league.

Paddy Mac today managed two goals and a report in the VFL. Developing nicely.

He needs to kick more often. His refusal to kick cost us repeatedly today. That little farce with Hogan where they just handballed to each other until they got caught was idiotic, as was his handball receive and run down the boundary ending in being tackled out of bounds for a HTB against. I don't know why he won't kick, because he's actually quite good at it. Whatever the reason, they need to get it sorted.

A couple of weeks ago Goodwin came up with a very apt description when he said Oliver is one of those players who get faster the closer they get to the ball. He tends to just cruise around, but he accelerates through packs to either burst out or tackle whoever got to the ball ahead of him.

I don't know where most clubs rated him, but the Doggies held a function during the offseason where their head recruiter was on the panel and a mate of mine asked what he thought of Oliver. He said Oliver is the sort of player they would have loved to recruit, but he had him as second round. Of course, they didn't have a first round pick, so this could have just been another way to suggest that they would have taken him with their first pick if he'd been available... Regardless, I'm pretty happy to have him in the side, especially now that he's kicking more. Last year I was a little worried that his kicking could be a weakness, but seeing him wheel around in traffic and belt a low hard pass to the wing/HF was just awesome. The kid's going to be a player.

We had that assistant coach under Neeld...

Was pretty happy with Petracca too

I read that as us being the most likely destination if he did decide to come back to Vic. I could be wrong, but it sure sounded good to me.

Well, we always knew these three were on the chopping block. I'm glad we got Grimes to his 100th at least. Now we just need to hope we get some good pace and disposal into the club in their place. In particular the disposal, which is something all three lacked.

This weekend was the first I've seen of him, but he certainly looked like a good prospect. His first quarter in particular, I think he had 10 disposals. Moved really well and laid some really nice tackles. It's a good sign for a basketballer to take to the physical side of the game so readily I think. Some of his disposals were a bit ordinary, but others were fine. I don't see any point in upgrading him next year, but he certainly looks like he'll be a player in the future. No rush for now.

Gawn and Dangerfield on the footy show tonight had a nice little chat. Gawn again talking up the armchair ride he's giving our mids and how underappreciated it is. Danger responds that obviously nobody appreciates how hard it is to tap a ball as opposed to actually catching it. This was all in the context of Gawn coming equal fourth in the PA MVP. Nice effort there Max.

Thon Maker. Was he in the u18 AFL ranks a few years ago? He's just gone No. 10 in the NBA draft.

Yep. Viney got 24.

And the club record for contested possessions broken while we're at it.

With those numbers, how could they not give it to him?

Was that the one on the wing where he wrestled and tossed his opponent aside?

11 touches in the second quarter was a great way to make a statement. Having first hands on our first three goals in the final quarter when we were fighting back from a 20 point deficit? That was just priceless. I admit I was wrong on this front. I was a big fan of Parish, and while he will clearly be a player, Oliver has come on beautifully and shown he already has what it takes. Amazing bit of drafting.

Found it. Near the end of the second quarter: 3.36 to go in the second he marks in the centre circle. Attempt to give the quick handpass to Watts which is tapped down by the man on the mark Watts picks up the spill and dishes back to Oliver Oliver short chip to Hogan, play on is called and the ball is knocked out of Hogans hands. Oliver follows up and takes the ground ball at full speed, crashes into a tackler and dishes back to Hogan fro the ground Hogan is tackled and the ball spills Oliver grabs the groundball while still down and dishes to Hogan and N Jones at 3.23 to go. That's one mark and four disposals in 13 seconds resulting in us getting a F50 entry although it doesn't get much further. Oliver also followed up again to pick up the ground ball coming out of our 50 and I don't think was credited with a disposal for letting it be jarred lose in the direction of a teammate. If he can have that sort of impact more often he'll give the Brownlow a shake sooner or later.

Needs to work on his field kicking. Pretty happy with the rest of his work. How was that passage in the second (I think) where he just turned into a wrecking ball and crashed contest after contest and kept winning the ball? I'm pretty sure he wasn't credited with all of the disposals he got from that minute or so.

There was also the broken back Sylvia copped after being tunneled by Butcher. Again, no case to answer.

Interesting point from the game today. When Pedersen was dumped over the boundary at HF, Oliver was a few feet away and turned to jog off and set up for the throw-in. A teammate (I think vandenBerg) yelled at him something along the lines of "He's your teammate, give him a hand up!" by which time Pedersen had already picked himself up. Still, it's another example of team-building and player-driven standards in action.

A previous coach misread his name as Clarence rather than Clayton. It was mentioned in an article a while back.