Adam The God

Murphy will play on JVR, I reckon, and there's Maynard too. They've got plenty of defensive options. It's more about making them accountable and hurting them on turnover and bringing the ball to ground to prevent the intercept.

Smith and Fritta both played on Moore last time and Fritta had 6 scoring shots.

Who's first for CPs mate? Any idea?

I reckon Sparrow can do the job. But I don't think it fits with our philosophy.

Melksham's injury might mean he has to play deeper for longer. We'll see. We've definitely got some weapons up our sleeve.

That's a good list management strategy there, Ethan. 😉

I'd rather him at the feet of our rucks. How often does he win that first possession in the middle? It's that rare mix of agility and ability to read the play.

It depends if we want to spend the salary cap on another mid or if we want to spend it on a KPF to support Petty and JVR.

I think it's the breakaway pace that Parish has, IMO, that would be attractive and different for our midfield, but I think he'd have to get way better defensively if we was to get a game with us, and who does he replace in midfield?

Sorry to quote myself, but just thinking further on this. The more players stationed in our defensive half, the easier it will be to generate scores in our forward half, because there'll be space if you win the contest in the defensive zone. Without Daicos, I wonder if we do try something unusual like +2 behind the ball? I think it's very risky against Collingwood's kicking and run and carry game, but maybe if we win territory (which is likely), we can defend those counter attacks and slingshots with more numbers behind the ball. Have we shown our hand to Collingwood? Very interesting...

How many times has it become obvious that the Melbourne way, just like it was at Hawthorn, is to back in your own system? The most we do in this space is play defensive forwards on interceptors, which IMO we very likely pioneered. And occasionally we'd run soft tags through the middle (Libba and Neale in '21 come to mind). I said after the Port loss that despite letting Butters run around without a tag, to 3/4 time in that match, when he had done his damage, we led, and that as a team, we simply didn't get the job done that night. Had we tagged Butters or had we tagged Gulden, we have to change the way we want to win the ball, defend the wider ground and how we want to move the ball. I think in a final we'd likely use a soft tag on Butters, because we haven't shown our hand in this space at all for close to two years now, so it's an option. But I wouldn't tag a Gulden. I might tag a Nick Daicos though. Fortunately, we may not have to deal with that prospect. Goody's philosophy is pretty clear in the way he defended Clarry after the Hawthorn match.

I'm not convinced from looking at the vision that we did go +2 behind the ball. Either way, I think it's something you can do on the SCG and would get massively exposed on the MCG, where the opposition can use their +2 at the contest or from their own half back to cut any defence to shreds if the ball use is good enough. That was a move for the smaller SCG and nowhere else, if in fact we did actually play +2 behind the ball.

I rate him, but I'm not sure how he fits into our midfield, let alone the salary cap question.

Imagine Jimmy and DeeSpence in a room together discussing the MFC. What a barrel of laughs.

He never turns up when we win... It seemed like we revealed a few cards yesterday. A few positional tweaks and set plays. One in particular completely caught Sydney off guard, where we went wide to the right and got it to centre wing with uncontested possessions. A bit like we did against Hawthorn with the cluster from the defensive side of the centre square. I think we'll have an array of ideas that we'll now look to unleash during the finals series that we know can come off in big moments, in high pressure finals, because we've seen it happen before in '21. Due to injury, our forward half is more unpredictable than any of our competitors. What do our other competitors have up their sleeves?

Kozzy can play anywhere.

125 pages. Wowee. Well done Demonland, and just about perfectly played Freo (minus round 11).

I'd prefer us beating Sydney, and GWS beating Carlton today, which would leave Carlton playing an elimination final against Sydney. Sydney then take care of Carlton and go out themselves in the semis. Perfection.

No we won't...

No way North gets three top 9 picks...

In opposition to the top dog, @binman, I'm expecting us to free the shackles and I think we'll allow this game to flow free a bit, to minimise the crash and bash, and we'll also be psychologically freed to play with less fear of failure given the double chance is locked up. Additionally, it'll give us a chance to defend faster ball movement in preparation for Collingwood. It'll be interesting to see which way we go, I'm expecting us to win it though, and we won't want to head into a QF off a loss.

I would in this draft. But I'll back JT. If he thinks the talent will still be there by then, great. Remember, that it's very likely a North compo pick or NGA access dilutes the top 5, and then you've got the Suns getting access to another top 3-5 pick in Walters. In other words, it's not really the top 4-5, it's the top 6-7.

I'd like to think this has been a 3-4 year strategy of waiting to fill that list hole with FAs when that age bracket reaches FA eligibility.

Not necessarily...

I'm sure you're right, mate, but that seems ridiculous that the top team can basically potentially manufacture a shorter turnaround for their opponent. Hugely unfair, despite the fact they've done the hard yards and won the minor premiership during the H&A season.