Adam The God

3165 may be using flagrant language to describe Jack, but it's an opinion and 3165 doesn't have to be 'respectful'/share your opinion.

Gus is playing that role. He sweeps behind the stoppage (front of defensive contest), which is the role Salem and Bowey played in 2021. Agreed, and yes, I'd like 2021 Salem, please.

Didn't think I'd be keeping too close an eye on this year's crop, but thank you Fremantle. 😉

Give me Salem's cleanness at ground level and ball use any day.

I know this isn't a thread on LJ, but if Freo weren't based in Perth, would Freo really have set their sights so strongly (if at all) on LJ? It feels like they had tunnel vision because LJ was a high draft pick West Australian, and so cleared out 3-4 best 22 players to fit him in. LJ may well end up being a star, but it appears Freo have this hyperfocus on WA products to the detriment of their actual list needs. If I were Freo, I'd have definitely enquired, but given they already have Darcy, it wouldn't have gone much further if I knew that getting him would mean having to clear out 3 or 4 best 22s. That's insane and it's a philosophy that Melbourne clearly don't share. No one player is bigger than the club. I wonder what Longmuir thought of the trade...

My recent critique on Gus is he tends to try to bite off too much with his kicks (he's not a great kick under 30m) and has been fumbly the last few weeks. When Salem is fit again, we'll have a tough decision to make, because for mine, I'd take Salem's poise and ball use every day of the week. So we'll have to find another role for Gus.

I assume the Trac thing is a reference to the West Coast fans mocking him about his Instagram cooking.

Where did we finish in order to get LJ though? 17th. That's what I mean. The elite of the elite are usually top 5 picked. Unless you have some low finishes (bottoming out), you need 2-3 strong hands in the top 20 to lay the foundations. Don't get me wrong here. I've loved our list build, I'm just being realistic about what we'll need to do to go again without bottoming out. Unless of course we get lucky like Geelong and a Dangerfield and Cameron fall in our laps via FA.

I love our recruiting, but our absolute elite players aside from Max were top 5 picks in their draft year (Clarry and Trac) or in trade form (Lever and May). Take Clarry and Trac out of our midfield and we're not a top 8 team. This is usually how it works and why eventually the fork in the road comes. Do you keep topping up with FAs or do you bottom out and go back for the elite top end talent?

First time in our history.

To my eye, Tom Sparrow was excellent too. The young guys really stepping up. Sparrow, Rivers and McVee. Don't you love good drafting and development? 👌 Didn't love our fumbling, but loved our defensive intent and our slingshot the other way. Happy to bank that win and move on.

I've always been in the leave Petty back camp, but now that they've done it, I want them to give him a good stretch of games forward. We can make a decision when Max is fit again.

Omg, I forgot Flash!

Well, only if your name was Roo, otherwise you'd probably think you were being booed or that Roo doesn't really work as an appropriate nickname for AF.

I doubt we'd have the salary cap, which we'll likely need for JVR and Jefferson in time. But who knows? If it's Brayshaw vs Serong, getting Brayshaw would mean Viney could play forward or burst midfield. If it was Serong, he'd take Sparrow and JJs midfield minutes and play half forward the rest of the time. We can dream. 😁

Oooh, I feel like Werridee. Here goes! Jetta May Bowey Lever Frawley Whelan Langdon Oliver Yze Lyon Schwarz Fritsch Farmer Neitz K Pickett Gawn Petracca J Viney Stynes White Green Jones Note, I was born in 1987, so don't remember Flower. Jackovich was great fun, but didn't play long enough. Loved T Viney's toughness, but like his son, his disposal was a killer. Bruce was a very dangerous player on his day. The Febeys and the McDonalds (Junior in particular) were good value, Tingay was solid, Jurrah was brilliant and Woey is unlucky not to make the list.

I was thinking at quarter time last night, surely the Suns can play four quarters these days or even a half or maybe three quarters? But no... When the Suns were on, St Kilda couldn't move the ball and no King or Membrey meant they couldn't dump kick it either. The Suns young ruckman was killing Marshall too. But after quarter time, they failed to win ground ball, 1v1s or set up behind the ball. I reckon they may as well put the Suns in the bin. A terrible football club.

Wowee. I love this one. Almost funnier than Dylan Stephens lying on top of Ollie Florent in celebration and then rolling off him immediately when he realised failure to make the distance from 45m.

I actually think PartyTimeJohnny was taking p. And if he wasn't, I'm sure he'll say he was. 🤣 Nowhere to go now, Johnny. 🤪

Top bump this. 🤣

They're in such a fish bowl that I wouldn't be surprised to see a new Freo coach this year. As long as they don't go after Yze.

Yep, good call.

Interesting take. You're definitely right in that we like to play 7 defenders, but I assumed Petty would go back this week given the three West Coast talls, but maybe Hibbo plays on Waterman?

The selection decision this week is a horses for courses decision. Goodwin spoke of a squad mentality in his most recent presser. JJ will get his chances this year. Bringing TMac back for Brown, and with Kozzy coming back, it was always going to be about team balance given the even performance last week. I think Goodwin pumping up JJ was the right move in the press, given by that stage they would have known we needed to replace Brown with another tall as Petty couldn't play forward when West Coast have three tall forwards to deal with. Therefore, they knew it wouldn't be a case of Kozzy just replacing Brown and leaving JVR and Petty forward. I like JJ and everything I've heard from the coaches that coached him at CGS is that he is a ripper, and that appears to be backed up by Yze's comments on his training habits. However, IMO he's a solid B grader with no elite skills. Doesn't mean he couldn't make A grade if given the opportunity, but if we lose him, we lose him. I think he'll nail Harmes' spot this year and JJ will get Harmes' contract moving forward. He doesn't make the same mistakes that Harmes does, but he's less explosive, which is part of the reason why he doesn't seem to be in direct competition with Sparrow. Anyway, people have to accept the squad mentality approach we're taking this year. It won Geelong a flag last year and in the EPL, it's the go to approach for player management. The Manchester sides have won countless titles operating in this fashion. It's the sensible approach, and with the talent we have across the squad, it keeps everyone on their toes. Making JJ the sub is an interesting one and may have something to do with the running needed on the wide expanses of Optus, but Melksham seems to me to be the perfect sub. I'd hazard a guess they wanted to reward JJ for his game and so the potential that Melksham could provide forward of centre late in the game was overlooked for the run JJ could provide.

Collingwood will end the game with more scoring shots. Brisbane forwards cheat. They don't track the runners off half back and have let Collingwood ping off their all night. Meanwhile, Joe Daniher's best game of all time.