Adam The God

I'd be wanting top 5 picks just to start the convo. You build a midfield around Clarry.

Chook has arrived. 👌 Anything else for us, @Chook in Perth? Please and thank you.

Petty won't be going. We love him. And rightly so.

Yep, and I reckon the Carlton FD and MC worked out in the second half of 2023 that they played better without him and with the speed of the modern game, found he was a bit of a liability if he wasn't kicking goals and taking marks.

In many respects, Lobb is the perfect ruck/forward to add to our list this stage. He's not the guy that's going to take over from Gawn, that'll be a fella by the name of Sean Darcy in 2025 or so ( 😉 ), but he is perfect for the time being.

You just need Lobb to provide reasonable back up ruck work and then an ability better than Gawn or Grundy to play forward and it's a win. He could absolutely nail both roles.

McKay, JVR and Lobb forward, Petty back. It's aggressive, but I like it if true.

Me too, in that he is deadset useless when the ball hits the ground and if he's not marking it, he's a bit of a liability in general. However, Petty and McKay would be bloody hard to play against, particularly if we got the balance right at ground level. I'd prefer others before McKay, but ultimately wouldn't say no to his marking and his scoring power.

@Engorged Onion, would you mind putting your hand up for one of our psych positions at the MFC? Then we can get early tidbits in these threads. 😜

It's only a matter of time before we get a riddle... 🤣

I agree we need to keep replenishing our elite talent, and I also agree thst Max isn't just any old ruckman. But you take Max out of the game and it means we have to play differently. Perhaps it means less long bombs to the wing? Sometimes being without makes you better and more unpredictable.

Sure, but we can cover him. Particularly, if he's no longer the Max of old.

I really don't think our window is tied to Max or even May for that matter. At the moment, IMO, our success hinges on Oliver, Petracca, Lever and Petty. May is important for 2024, but beyond that, I hope we can draft O'Sullivan this year and make do defensively, while improving our forward half.

You're kidding, right? Who the [censored] is number 13?

I think it's our set up and our cattle. We're better playing territory, forward half game, but still, we averaged 50+ points from turnover this year, so we were able to slingshot fine.

Easily.

Thanks mate. 👍

Yeah, they definitely take the game on. Their midfield cattle isn't great at winning contests, but N Daicos, if allowed to run from one end to the other and connect their play, has the ability to hit targets that open up the game. He's not the only Collingwood player that is an elite kick, but their better cattle for score generation is elite kicking. Our elite players for score generation tend to be our contested players who aren't elite kicks, but win contest after contest. A good system should play to the strengths of the list. But it always comes back to defence in big finals. I'd also love an NGA prospect like Quaynor. He's an out and out star. I recall him being beaten once by Cameron yesterday that led to that goal, but otherwise he and their defenders rarely lose contests behind the ball. He certainly doesn't. I'm certainly guilty of underrating their defenders and their capability to win crucial 1v1s.

They were so offensively minded, they won a GF by kicking 12 goals. Their ability to stay in games, particularly in the finals series, hinged on their ability to defend. Not their ability to attack. They managed 9 goals, 8 goals and 12 goals. What an offensive master-class! They won the flag due to their defence...

Great post as always mate. It's one of the reasons I hope we don't have any major recorrections next year. We need better ball users in our forward half and better finishers inside 50, but games still hinge on defence, so the idea that we revert to something akin to 2018 ball movement with overly aggressive positioning that could see us done out the back is foolhardy. Particularly, with the speed in the game nowadays. Equally, it's unlikely we abandon our territory game, because that means either allowing the opposition extras at stoppages and either losing stoppages and slingshotting, or ocassionally winning clearances and scoring from most of those opportunities. It puts us at a disadvantage and doesn't play to the elite cattle we have. We're going to win our fair share of stoppages with Oliver, Viney and Trac in our midfield, so we need to look at other ways to improve our strengths. IMV, we should continue with territory, but get better players in the forward half that can execute when it does go in there. It'll be interesting to see which way we go.

With the exception of the GF, games were played in their back half, so they defended brilliantly, but that meant heaps of space in behind the opposition when they eventually won the ball in space. That space enables dangerous forward entries.

If we don't land a KPF, I'd be taking O'Sullivan. Not sure if he's considered an elite kick by recruiters, but he appears a nice kick. I think we want better finishers forward centre. Let's see... @ChaserJ, would you say Watson's kicking depth is much longer than a Charlie Spargo? Seems to struggle from over 35-40m. I was put off by his recent game. And yes, I know, no one should judge a player by one game.

Reckon the rumours and riddles will start hotting up this week.

They were the most consistent team for the year and had the least structural injuries when it mattered. The one week when they won territory, they were as inaccurate as we'd been in our two finals. My view is we left a flag on the table this year, but clearly our injuries in the same zone of the ground caught up with us, and our inability to convert our territory dominance were the biggest reasons for this. We'll make tweaks, list changes and be there again next year. Given Collingwood actually won something this year, I expect this to solidfy the sort of ball movement all teams need. But the elephant in the room to the 'we need to be more offensive' group is that ultimately defence is again what won the finals. Collingwood's explosive ball movement was not a huge factor in the finals series. It was their defensive unit that exceeded expectations IMV, and won them the flag, rather than their forwards or their offence. As is always the case. Clearly Bobby Hill was the exception to this, without him against us in the QF and no Bobby Hill yesterday, and they don't win either game, so one forward certainly had a say in their results. But for the most part, having the entire team behind the ball and then countering attacking worked. Defence will still win finals and GFs remains a truism, it's just about our coaches maximising our territory dominance and kicking a winning score when the forwardline is crowded like it was for Collingwood yesterday.

Hang on. Do you know this for a fact?