Adam The God

Was speaking to a Collingwood VFL player today who is good mates with Nick Watson. Reckons he'll be an absolute gun, despite being a messy user of the ball. He also said Dursma will be the best player in this crop. Take that with a grain of salt. Found it interesting as this bloke has grown up with both of them.

Maynard would have been the perfect heir to Hibbo. Pity that didn't come off. Oh yeah, and Cox is still a nuffy.

Some hilarious speculation on Facebook that I happened to be sent tonight. Needless to say it was rubbish, but so bizarre and ridiculous, it had to be made up by a Collingwood supporter.

Without Clarry, it's pretty dangerous to go -1 every week for four quarters. We needed a huge game from Trac last week and a huge game from Viney this week.

It also comes down to what else does McRae have? Does he have an ability to tweak his system or is it always just about run and gun?

Gold Coast are going to be scary good in the next year or so. And they get to add two more top 5 picks for free and another top 20 - if that list is anything to go by...

I reckon the fact it was close, despite our clear dominance, will work in our favour @Macca, but only time will tell.

Unless we can land a Larkey, Naughton or King, an A grade tall, I reckon we'll go for mids or small forwards this year.

I don't think this gives enough credit to Goodwin and co. Our press was highly sophisticated. It wasn't merely a frenzied press (ala 2018), it was denying corridor and pressuring into wide areas. When they did get it into the corridor, we sweated on them for the turnover. As for corridor style and attacking game plan being the best strategy for winning games, the best strategy for winning games is the strategy that is able to be replicated under intense pressure in finals. And good defence always beats good offence in finals, because the games are often arm wrestles that have less open space and more pressure. Relying on handball chaining like the Bulldogs do will only get you so far. Collingwood have at least four elite ball users (Daicos, Daicos, Sidebottom and Pendlebury) who can also do damage, but it's the forward handball that enables quick ball movement. Because they run and gun, it's a hard thing to replicate in finals without costly turnovers back the other way. I guess we'll see in due course though.

It seemed to the eye that much of the time in the past fortnight, Max was rucking more like Grundy, and that is to drop it at the foot of the contest. I reckon Yze (and or Stafford - has he still got the rucks as well as forwards?) should get a fair bit of credit for our midfield work in the last fortnight too. Really good stuff considering Clarry's absence.

I think once we got the lead, this was a tactical tweak to ensure we didn't leak goals from defensive stoppage. Despite Daicos' goal, he was manned by Gus, so we had 1v1s all around that contest. There might have been a good block or two in that play (likely a set play), but I'm sure we realised we couldn't simply allow Daicos to sit off the back of the contest, because he's deadly.

Sorry. Evened up the stoppages. In the last quarter, we started manning up the Collingwood spare off the back of the contest. Not sure I noticed it before the last quarter.

Do we think we'll allow +1 at contest against Geelong? In the Collingwood game, we evened this up in the final quarter. @Lucifers Hero has pointed out before the +1 that we allowed last time against Geelong. Do we allow it for 3 quarters or even most of the match and tweak it if necessary?

I wondered about this wing role option for Bowser too, although I think he could be really exploited with his lack of height and potentially even his tank at this stage on a wing.

I'm not sure he dealt with the Grundy departure particularly well and is trying to make up for it internally, and externally it would seem.

I don't really. I don't consume footy media at all. Except I mostly listen to Andy, George and Binners, and that's it.

I pay enough for Kayo, Binge, Amazon, Netflix and Stan haha.

I don't have a subscription... 😞

Come on mate. Both Daicos boys are as good as, if not better, than Sidebottom by foot, and Pendles was also turning it over under our pressure and defensive structure. If we bring what we brought yesterday with goal kicking accuracy, we won't be beaten by Collingwood, no matter who they put on the park.

Again though, you're talking about disposal efficiency and mistakes. I'm talking about his role in the team if we're at full strength.

At the MCG, I'd suggest they'd probably get a bigger gate than down there too.

I'd argue Salem is an elite kick, but it's a bit of an eye test sort of argument. It's not like saying someone like Clarry is a contested ball gun, because statistically, he just is. So it comes down to opinion. I disagree with DS on this point FWIW. You seem to think this is about mere errors from Gus. My point was we have better players who are specialists in their roles and when they're all fit, I wondered where Gus would fit. We now have two specialist wingmen in Langdon and Hunter, so ideally Gus isn't needed to plug a wing role there. We have Tomlinson, May and Lever as the defensive talls, with Hibberd, McVee, Salem and Rivers/Bowey playing medium and small, and providing (in Salem, McVee and Bowey) elite disposal and speed off half back/getting back in defensive transition. That's 7-8 players. There's no room back there without injury. Our midfield with Clarry back has Clarry, Petracca, Viney, Sparrow, with stints from Rivers, ideally Kozzy and we probably have room for one more mid if Bowey or Spargo don't play. Given Gus' versatility, strength, contest work and ability to read the play, as @old55 says, he'll be ahead of JJ and Harmes. So that's probably his spot. But at full strength, I think he's closer to the fringe than many people think. His cultural contribution will probably see him play whatever though.

Do we have to call differing views clueless?

McRae's post match loss against Geelong (?) or Sydney (?) in the finals last year was far from humble. He showed his hand. Goody is never a poor sport, McRae... well, he's had most of it his own way, and the one time it wasn't he cracked...

So maybe he's better to play a defensive role on a winger or a mid or even a half forward?