Adam The God

Good call. Maybe I judged his last few weeks too harshly. In other news, Grundy only played 67% ruck time. I presume that's in preparation for a big game KB or simply managing his loads. We looked better at stoppages with Max tonight IMO.

And how good is it to see May back on song? Al dente.

Very likely correct. I guess was thinking more what I'd do, rather than what will happen there.

Yep, this makes perfect sense. Which means Smith will keep his spot next week (thought he was serviceable and created the first goal for ANB) and then rotate with JVR for the rest of the season forward, I'd say. I'd be quite happy to give BB from Rounds 18 onwards (5 MCG games, a trip to his home state and the SCG), but can understand the Round 15 onwards view too.

I don't want to be negative and I know many have been raving about his performances lately, but Rivers is really struggling. I don't want him with ball in hand, because he's so unreliable by foot. I want him taking those great intercept marks, going back with the flight like he did so often in 2021 and did again a couple of times tonight. But I don't want him sprinting off half back, trying to bite off more than he can chew, because he's been butchering it. He actually looked incredibly fatigued tonight. I lost count of how many times he'd kicked 45-50m kicks off the side of his boot and his kicking really lacked penetration. We have Clarry to fit in next week (confirmed by Goody again in his post match presser) and I just wonder if Rivers gets a rest. Hibbo in for Bowey, Oliver in for Rivers.

Btw, another thing I noticed tonight was we played a hybrid 1v1/zone across the first 20-30m. We definitely played tighter if not on a man, very close to it, and played a zone directly behind it (30-40m) and then 1v1s. We've definitely tweaked this. We did lose this shape when Carlton transitioned to the other side of the ground a couple of times. We simply played zone on transition. We'd have to continue this 1v1 set up in transition against a good kicking team like Collingwood. But could afford to go zone against Carlton, who butchered the ball at times. It'll be fascinating to see how we defend stationary plays from our half forward on KB. Also, another thing, we were mixing up our kick outs a lot more. Lots of shorter kicks to 35m out and either handball receives to get it to the edge of the centre square (our attacking side) with a longer kick (centrally), or another change of angle from the first shorter kick out, into the corridor or close to centre wing. Our ball movement was a little predictable at times (a little too often we went long to contests - mostly to Max 1v2 or 3), but nowhere near as bad as last week. And I think early on in the game, we were better at lowering the eyes and looking for lead up targets, who would often not mark.

Yep, that's the way I'd play him. Play him almost like a dummy wing, but play Lingers and Hunter as the true wingers. Alternatively, if we can generate a situation where Gus plays as a defensive winger at half back (filling the spots Langdon usually would), we could potentially use Hunter and Langdon as attacking two-way-running wingers.

Yep, good calls. And I thought our half forwards brought the heat tonight, which meant there was a fair bit of inferred pressure that led to turnovers. What was really interesting is that last week we managed one score from a forward half turnover (Gus' miss). This week to three quarter time we had generated a season-high 32 forward half intercepts, but scored an equal season-low of 10 points from this source (as per the AFL ap). We need to tidy this up (particularly against Collingwood), but as Goody said in his presser, it was a pretty dominant display from us this week.

I agree to an extent. The dilemma will come as early as next week. We'll want to play three talls again, with Hibbo replacing Bowser, but I'm not convinced there's a good match up for Tomlinson, who remains undersized for a second key back. Maybe it's not a huge issue against Collingwood. Gus is a butcher in the midfield IMO and gets lost in transition, but he's so much smarter playing behind the ball. That's really his position. I felt Gus was much better when Bowser went off, because we shifted him behind the ball. He did a couple of really calm and clever things after that.

Oh btw. McVee looked better tonight, but how bloody good is Salem? I don't care what the DE stat was saying at quarter time, he was so clean, calm and effective. We've missed his assuredness back there, and I think it makes Bowey and McVee better, freeing them up mentally and literally to join in on slingshot offence. We look so much better when we've got the three talls and the beautifully clean Christian Salem. In fact, shout out to our entire defence tonight. Thought they were really solid and generated great run off half back. Certainly helped by Carlton's poor forward pressure though.

Tomlinson was always undersized in that contest. I thought he did reasonably well. And sure enough, Lever started to look good again.

You beauty. Never looked like losing. Should have won by 7 or 8 goals easily, but fatigue hitting our guys hard. Happy with any win tonight. Bowser makes way for Hibbo, but would have loved Bowser to play KB as well. It is what it is though. Really need to get our ball movement going if we're going to beat Collingwood. Missed too many opportunities to slingshot and score tonight. Ground ball was way better though at both ends of the ground. You ripper, go Redlegs.

You didn't name your coach...

But give us a best 22 anyway, mate.

McKay has 9cms on him. Let's hope McKay continues with his mental demons and Tomlinson can halve contests. For the record, I wanted Tomlinson in against McKay, May to Curnow and Lever third tall/interceptor, so it's the right move, but in an ideal world, we'd have another 197cm Petty to play back as well as forward.

And like Selwood and Dangerfield last year, Hibbo and BB are most certainly being managed this year. I agree with @Jaded No More in that we'll see BB in the second half of the season, when games start to congest more and hopefully our midfield and forwards are running on top of the ground. The rest of the team can make up for BB's and Max's weakness at ground level, meanwhile they can become super dangerous tall targets if we can move the ball quickly to 1v1s.

I've never been a big fan, but you can't say the FD or Goodwin aren't adventurous. Smith's agility in the air and on the ground could be huge in our forward half. He just needs to make sure he's a threat on the scoreboard too, otherwise teams will zone off him. And not just Lever. If Lever is freed up to intercept, our smaller half backs can get on the move too. If we can get our defensive intercept game going, watch out.

Don't worry. I won't say told you so.

How did the Tigers go in 2018? Did they go back to back? And the Lions is 20 years ago. Shall we ask the 1950s Demons too? And how about the Hawks of '09 or even better yet, Geelong of '07, '09, '11? A complete strawman...

I thought we were a chance, but I understand how difficult they are to win.

If you've read any of my posts recently, that Hawthorn side played "duds" in their first 9-10 rounds too. That's the whole point of the comparison. You seem to equate history to stats. I'm talking history here, which is knowledge and fact. We can break down specific stats and talk about how much we agree or disagree about the thesis that is supported by the stats, but you're living in a fictional world, where previous premiers never beat up on lowly sides, never lost games and were perfect all the way through seasons. It rarely happens And you're having a go at stats, but using them in your example here...

Yes... but we were talking about scores conceded from stoppages... not our ability or inability to intercept.

And my realism is often characterised as head in the sand nuffiness.

And what about Hawthorn's 2015 premiership side? Or Richmond's 2017 premiership side or countless other examples. The fact is we sit 4th with the best percentage in the league. At the moment, everything else is irrelevant except Carlton this week.

Football is hugely complex. Just dipping into tempo and expecting that this will somehow beat the modern zone is... I can't quite believe you're putting it forward mate. I've seen you and others write that all we do is bomb long to contests**. Well, if you play tempo (ie slow), you will not beat the modern zone, and you'll end up having to bomb it long to contests to get any sort of decent forward territory. Sure, there's a time for tempo, but as a way of defending and conserving energy, not as a way of scoring or expecting clean forward entries. ** I'd take issue with this assessment. That's mostly all we did against Freo, but for the majority of the year, we've been better than our 2022 incarnation in that respect.