Adam The God

Sensible list management. Who know how much longer McDonald amd Brown have as contributors. A two year deal is good for both parties.

Haha, that is an important distinction. Read things properly, AF.

I like Sparrow as a player, but jeepers, some are really putting their neck out there. @Chook a top 50 player? I hope you're right.

@WERRIDEE, you have the same profile pic as @Yokozuna and when I saw the profile pic in the latest post of this thread I got excited haha.

Yep, agreed, but Luke is never afraid to change things up if they're not working. But you're right, if you have a stoppage players like Libba and Bontempelli you'd be mad not to back them in a Grand Final.

Interesting. So it's still very much the usual suspects in there. Will they change it up? I don't think so, unless they're not getting enough wins at the contest and our guys are well on top. As Clarkson said on 360, you don't want to pull a rabbit out of the hat on Grand Final day. You back your system to win out. I know their entire system flows from the contest, but I think their three starting mids, alongside Martin, will be relatively predictable in terms of centre bounce at least. Does Dunkley go into the stoppages around the ground as a negating mid, probably, but I think we'll have plans for that and a couple of things we'll try if things don't go our way and they're able to chain out of stoppage too easily. I think we'll go 1v1 at the contest and back our guys to zone off, allowed by the pressure created from our mids.

Brown is occasionally funny, but he's got no idea what he's talking about, which just goes to show being an ex footballer doesn't automatically mean you understand the game or how to analyse it. The best thing he has to offer is anecdotes of his 2001-2003 Brisbane days and Leigh Matthews. That's about it.

Seems like a very good family man too. That's important in footy clubs...

Everyone OTC tipped Melbourne to win the flag on Saturday. Brilliant.

Watched it. He was so bloody good. He's such an impressive guy. Seems like a legit great bloke.

Was it that successful though? They still lost that prelim doing it. I reckon we need to play our game. If we're on, we play a pretty bruising game, so that will take care of itself.

I think their talls are a bit like ours. Their number one priority is bringing the ball to ground for their smalls. As Naughton and Scache did last week. Ground balls will be massive. Really hoping it's a dry night.

I wouldn't be so sure on this. I have a feeling Schache will need to play the Bruce second fiddle role to Naughton and they'll use English or even Hannan as the decoy on Lever. They'll know they have to occupy Petty, May and Lever. They won't be able to leave one free, although they may decide Petty is the lesser of three evils and allow him to zone off. As @Dwight Schrute says, their problem is goals. If they don't get them from midfield, they're going to need Naughton, Schache and Hannan kicking goals and if English can keep Lever out of the game and maybe even snag one himself, they might see that as a win. The Weightman match up will be really vital too. He did kick half their score against Essendon after all. So is that Hibberd or Rivers or even Bowey?

Totally mate. As for the contested possession stuff, with Bontempelli's fitness questionable, they may have to go back to Libba at the coalface, which makes them more one dimensional and brings a tagger into the game. @Lucifer's Hero you don't happen to have CBAs for the Port v Bulldogs game do you? Was Libba back in there more? Without Drew starting on him in the first quarter, he was certainly controlling things from the stoppages. When Drew went to him at the end of the first, I wonder, and I didn't notice this, but I wonder if Libba then moved to half forward to throw the tag. He certainly didn't have the same influence after quarter time.

I tend to agree with the line of thinking that @binman has pushed on the podcast. He said that Champion Data had that Round 19 game as being a draw, and that those who want to read into that game too much will be misled. Our win over them in Round 11 was far more convincing and IMO a greater predictor of the sort of game we're likely to see in the GF. We were off that night in Round 19 and still got within 4 points late on. I think had we taken our chances earlier in the game, we'd have won the game. But given the loading regime the players were going through at the time, we seemed to be struggling to break out of a jog. I remember Langdon in particular, who usually looks like he's running on top of the ground, seeming like he could barely get out of a stride. He's looked back to his best since about Round 22 against Adelaide. But on the Round 19 game, Bontempelli kicks 2 stoppage goals through poor marking and that's essentially the game. Everything went right for them, including the umpiring. I, like others, can't see us letting them get easy stoppage goals like that, nor allowing Daniel to run around without frontal pressure, they've now got no Bruce which limits their forward structure, and there also has to be a question mark over Bontempelli with that knee. Port didn't test him at all. I think you're right though. Scoring accuracy is absolutely crucial in the modern game. We need to kick straight and take our chances, but if we bring 22-man heat, their game doesn't stand up. It's a bit like the Geelong methodical kicking model and how it breaks down under pressure, the Bulldogs' handball game has to be precise, even their kicking game (as we saw with multiple turnovers at Marvel when they tried to switch in Round 11) has to be precise. At the other end, we have the best intercepting midfield in the game and could cut them to ribbons again if they don't get it right. Unlike the Bulldogs, our game doesn't rely on perfect footy. It relies on structures and work rate. Even if the work rate is slightly down, the structures compensate for this and keep us in games. The commentators have been big on this during the finals series and I think to a degree they're right. We don't need to finesse our possessions by foot. It's winning the contest, having a solid structure behind the ball if we do lose it, and slowly grinding opponents into the ground. They may beat us if we have an off game, but if we bring our best game, their game will breakdown and ours will grind them into the turf.

It was interesting opposition players not really rating or wanting to rate Clarry.

Yep, go back through my posts. You won't find me wanting my team to relocate. I drag it up now because the thread was brought up again and having read through it now your comment was still just as a foolish and defeatist as it was then.

A lot of meat and potato footballers have won Brownlows. Wines is a good player, but he's not in the class of Oliver or Bontempelli or even Petracca. Still, when you've only got Boak to take votes off you, it helps. Wines seems like a nice guy though. Glad Bontempelli didn't win it. Barrett won't know what to do with himself.

That was a quiet game for Clarry. Sure he got 28, but he didn't have his usual influence. Eh?

He was quiet in that game.

Because the likes of Barrett froth over him in the media too. This influences. Gives me the [censored].

My brother in law is kindly Facetiming me his TV screen haha.

Wifey just checked for me as we're Apple TV as well and the GF is on 7+.

Great listen. Thanks mate. PJ started the wheels in motion, but once those wheels were in motion, many others have carried the load as well.

He played on Callan Ward for 58% game time, 22 possessions and took a great contested mark on Ward on the wing. You could tell he was a special player then.