Adam The God

I agree that the Cats looked slow, but I still expect them to take it up to Collingwood. Their game earlier in the year saw Geelong at least 2 or 3 players down and Collingwood managed a 22 point win, but still conceded 103 points. I expect this game to be a harder slog for both sides and lower scoring than that affair. The fact Geelong need to win it to not only keep their season alive, but present the illusion that they can defend their title, will make them very tough to beat. Brisbane and Melbourne have shown teams how to beat Collingwood. Do the Pies have a plan B?

They're kidding themselves. You really don't want to find out at Round 21. You want to find out at Round 4 or 5 at the latest, and you've got to have a plan B that you can go to. So far, Collingwood haven't demonstrated any capacity in game or otherwise, to play a different way. They're only effective when they're attacking the game. Conversely, we've shown we can win in a hard defensive slog that relies on ground balls, CP and intercept, and we can also win in a stoppage-based, intercept slingshot shoot out.

His lack of ground pressure and follow up work would be the query though. Could get shown up majorly at the other end of the ground.

The answer to this is to draw bigger crowds in Melbourne.

I reckon you'd fit in nicely to the AFL media landscape Roosty...

I meant which player, but thanks. Haynes is 31, so not sure too many would be interested...

And dump whose salary?

Haven't watched them since 2021. The AFL media is a trashfire.

Let me rephrase. Would not have played 100 games if his name was A F.

Would not be playing if it weren't for his name.

I'm happy to answer this one. Tell him he's a nuffy.

I wonder if Petty's emergence will see us recalibrate our drafting choices for Curtin? There's no way he doesn't get to West Coast though.

I was saying to my Carlton mate (who was laying the groundwork for a Carlton loss due to injuries) that they are a better side without McKay, because they can play a smaller set up around Curnow (who is the better player) and don't get slingshot on as easily. I also said that if Clarry gets up, it pushes things in our favour, but if he doesn't our outs are bigger than theirs or at least the equivalent.

Not a big call at all mate. He just needs to play a full bloody season please. His marking and his accurate kicking means he's going to get 3-5 chances a game at least.

He should have read Demonland first. ;)

Again, McRae's presser was telling. He said they tried to play Daicos deep to throw the tag, when that didn't work, he said it was throwing out what they wanted to do too much (ie I read it as their ball movement), so they just went with it. And look at the result, they lose by 7 goals. It's not a good indication of their system to be that reliant on a single player. I thought we were reliant on Clarry, but as you say, that's proven to be incorrect.

FWIW, Lloyd and Barrett both have us as the number one seed now. Lol.

Post of the year.

We weren't flawless in 2021 either. For example, we needed Fritta to kick 6 to get over the line against North in Tassie with almost the exact same score (103 to 73 that year). In the corresponding Round 21 game in 2021, we fell over the line against West Coast in Perth by 9 points. At this time of year, you just need to get the job done. Preferably without injuries, which was the biggest negative yesterday. You only have to look at Collingwood and Port stumbling.

No, the Pies are beautiful, mate. They play with great arousal, they get the crowd going and lose by 7 goals to 4th bottom. Get your red and blues glasses off FFS!

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.