Adam The God

Spot on mate. Precisely my feeling yesterday.

JJ cannot play any other available position, other than midfield (wing is not available anymore). That's why I think Harmes will be ahead of him next week if Clarry comes back. JJ struggles at half forward. We saw it against Adelaide's half backs, he's too slow and doesn't read the play quickly enough. I like JJ, but he's midfield depth for when we have injuries like Clarry's. As was Hunter actually. He's been a great recruit IMO, despite what some say.

I reckon Harmes will keep his spot and JJ will make way for Clarry, but I've been wrong before.

Take the win and move on. The most frustrating part was obviously the Petty injury. Although the first quarter wasn't good enough, I expected a response from North under Clarkson in that first quarter, so I wasn't pulling my hair out at quarter time. And by half time, we'd wrestled back the momentum and from there you could tell we would control the game. Kozzy was outstanding. What a game. ANB, another, made a couple of characteristic errors, but gee, he holds our game together. I've really come to love him. One other point that seemed obvious to me yesterday was that quite a few of our younger players seemed very either fatigued or uncertain/unsure, and made uncharacteristic errors or failed to win or halve contests they would normally manage. Namely McVee, Bowey, Rivers and even Sparrow. The latter may have just been getting up to speed again post injury. I think we need to set the back 7-8 now and leave it, because chopping and changing between Smith and Tomlinson is not ideal and creates uncertainty and diminishes cohesion that we've built back there. I can only assume Smith's inclusion over Tomlinson was a load management thing for Smith, and wanting to give him a full game, rather than him making it up on the training track. It's also possible we had an eye to the Carlton game next week, which will be a much tougher test. We will also be going into that game knowing whether Geelong has beaten Collingwood too, which will mean victory over Carlton leaves us a game behind Collingwood with two games to play and they'd still have Brisbane in Round 23 and a packed MCG with Essendon pushing for finals in Round 24. Fascinating few weeks coming up. Again, very glad to get the win.

Which is exactly what was happening in that first half yesterday, leading to May trying to zone rather than play 1v1, and we got caught out.

The suggestions of May going forward seem to forget that we're a defence first team that wants to play three key talls and plays much better defence when we have three talls. If we take May out of the back 7-8, which IMV would be a terrible move, who is replacing May at the other end? And don't say we're going to play Smith, Lever and Tomlinson together. Smith was a deadset liability in defence yesterday. He flies for that pack mark that he tries to take as a defender every time he moves back. He never takes them, and palms them directly down to the opposition, and away they sweep. Aggressive positioning is fine if you understand zonal marking, but he's another Frost. Too unpredictable in the back half. If we go into a final with him starting back, we will regret it. If Smith is going to play, it's as a forward or as a sub that we don't rely on to play defence from the get go, but as a bandaid option. Against Carlton, it's the right time to see if Grundy can work as this tall again, in combination with JVR, Smith and Melksham. JJ shifts to the sub role and it becomes JJ (and Hibbo) and Petty for Grundy and Oliver. Harmes is fortunate to keep his place, but can play half forward better than JJ and is always where the ball is, just needs to be a lot better when he gets it.

It'll be for Smith, unless we cop injuries.

Well done, @Dannyz. All over it again.

Of course, they could be tapering. My point is I doubt it, because why would you taper into the last month of footy? Super dangerous... But if you want to go with tapering, sure.

I've said it before but he was a poor sport when they lost to Geelong in that QF or it might have been the loss to Sydney. He was interviewed on the ground post game and immediately complained about the umpires.

Equally, this could be classed as backing in their system to get the job done. Would you have said we were arrogant not to tag Butters earlier in the year? I wouldn't. I'd say we backed our system. McRae said in his post presser, they tried to shift Daicos deep to throw the tag, but it didn't work, and then they just ended up going with it as their coaching team felt it was throwing off their own game too much, trying to engine space for Daicos. But that to me tells me they're either unsure of their own weaknesses, or he's playing games there with his answer.

Some nice MFCSS already building in this thread, just to offset the over confidence.

Post taper is optimum and then fitness fades progressively from there. We've got three straight years of evidence on how we approach player management. There's a possibility that Collingwood are managing loads, but why would you want to enter the finals with a string of losses? Historically, the premiers enter the finals series on a run of victories. The only outlier is the Bulldogs.

I'm not sure that was the case. He was pushed out the door and didn't want to go at all.

My point was more that like The Australian newspaper did for years in politics, the Fox commentary (and 7), sets the tone for the AFL media narrative for the following week. But you're right, it's irrelevant what they say.

I agree with all of this Binners except that Port looked fatigued. They looked dynamic playing on the counter and dynamic from stoppages to me, but whenever they were winning the territory battle, it was harder for them to score because a) they had less space in their forward half and b) they only had Marshall as a legitimate tall target (Lord doesn’t count). This is a problem we've seen with us this year at times (and other teams), that when we're winning territory we have no space to work back into when we generate re-entries. Upon reflection, Geelong will likely struggle even against a struggling Collingwood, but with finals on the line it should hopefully be a bruising encounter.

They're not loading. You can't load and then taper in time for finals... They're suffering from a similar experience to us in 2022. They've been the hunted most of the year, they've been repeatedly tested, and now sides have worked them out.

The commentary on the AFL website has the reason for Collingwood's demise yesterday being they didn't treat Hawthorn with respect. Nothing of sides being able to implement the same blueprint to beat them. No wonder McRae was twitchy in his post presser. 😉

Even with a close loss, Fox set the tone vis a vis Port after the game, by (probably rightly) discussing their injury list and outs. They maintained that they weren't worried by Port's form slump and they just needed to get healthy again (Brad Johnson). They've lost 4 games in a row, mounting injuries and are 3 weeks out from finals. Get real, they're in big trouble.

Which was also 2021...

Geelong are playing for their finals spot, to defend their premiership. (they'll likely be 9th at the end of this round) They've got Brisbane in Melbourne, desperately playing for top 2 to secure a home final at the Gabba. And they've got Essendon, who themselves have North and the Giants away. On current form, the Giants win that but that's still a huge game in Round 24.

You're definitely an odd poster mate. It's like you've stepped out of a cave in the last 10-15 weeks and realised we're a really good team, with a really good coach, but before that we fluked a flag and then somehow managed to finish 2nd last year.

IMV, he probably won't make it at the MFC, but we'll see.

I reckon top spot is on too. Macrae looked lost for words in his presser today. I knew sides would start to seriously tag Daicos in the back end of the year, and that Collingwood are all or nothing, without nuance to their game, or a plan B. Blue print continues to be clog them up at half back, choke them in the corridor and they have few answers.

Laurie is a half forward to be fair and hasn't had a shot quite yet.