Adam The God

I'd be tempted to play Smith as medi sub. Then if a forward or a back goes down he could step in. Not a great option though, I'll admit. I don't trust either of them. We may actually not need the extra tall if May goes down. Petty to Naughton, Lever on Schache or even Hibbo on Schache or Gawn in slow plays. Not ideal of course, but you roll with the punches.

East Bentleigh represent. 😉

I just don't trust him, mate. His kicking between the arcs is still very hit and miss.

This is a good point about Smith and his recent hammy, because I was thinking he'd be the best medi sub for flexibility, but maybe Hunt offers the most flexibility? You'd hate to lose May to a hammy and then sub on Smith who then tears one too, and be down man.

I wonder if they'll park Max on someone like Schache so he can intercept, and also free up Lever. He basically played on Hawkins in the slow plays the other night.

Haha, predictable. They've forgotten about the tackle on Petracca in the 4th and are focusing on those Weightman frees.

I'm talking purely about ground balls in our defensive 50. Demonlanders continually bring up this idea that we're weak in D50 ground balls, but there's no evidence to support this.

They get their goals from midfield. Naughton just ensures interceptors can't dominate games. Naughton has averaged an elite 2.7 contested marks compared with Fritsch's 0.6. However, Fritsch has averaged 1.9 marks on a lead, which is elite and edges Naughton with 1.8. Even enough comparison on some numbers, but Naughton beats the best defenders. Fritsch gets the third or fourth best, and when he's got the best (see Rampe versus the Swans), he's struggled to impact at all. But Fritsch is a smart footballer and has finally in the last 6 weeks or so, brought a defensive game. Naughton is their focal point. Keep him quiet and they'll struggle without Bruce, unless Schache plays out of his skin.

Our weakness at defensive 50 ground level has become a bit of a Demonland myth. Neutralise Weightman and Bontempelli and it goes a long way to getting it done. Often we have Langdon, Gus, our other mids and even Kozzy and ANB pushing up to neutralise defensive ground balls. Whereas, conversely, limit Daniels influence at the other end and we could get them in offensive ground balls.

The only two teams I thought could beat us if we managed to get to a GF were the Bulldogs and GWS. Really wanted to face Port. Sure, we're good enough to beat them, but everything has to go right. That said, the best defence usually beats the best offence.

I don't want to gloat, but you should have chosen us, Smith, you [censored].

Jason Bennett. He's a former FOX Footy commentator. He did the VFL on 7 for a while, but I reckon they've realised he's their star. A much better commentator than the majority of them, and when the lead is no nonsense football, it sets the tone for the rest of the commentary team.

So happy for you mate and all our other Perth Demons.

He actually appears to be a Salem clone. Solid in the contest, good footy IQ (ie reads the play well and makes good decisions) and is a beautiful user. Some of those passes through the eye of the needle last night were insane. I think what Bowey has on Salem is leg speed. Our development and coaching (along with recruitment) has been A grade in 2021. Tom Sparrow also very good the times he was involved.

Wow. I reckon that was Max's best game and Salem's best game for the club. And they did it in a bloody prelim. Incredible. A terrific, focused, ferocious team performance that went some way towards erasing that dark day in 2011. You made us proud, Redlegs. One more win.

Good seeing Rob Sitch rolled out to discuss us on Fox. I remember when I saw him last. It was in the Qantas Lounge in 2018 in Perth having just watched our team get smacked in the prelim. Come on, Melbourne.

Yeah, big loss for them. I wonder who else leaves the Swans thia off season.

I love Luke. He's a family friend, but I hate the Bulldogs, so I find this funny.

I trust Tim Lamb, but I guess we'll see.

I like the idea of recruiting in waves. As much as he's a nufty, David King mentioned on FIRST CRACK this week that the industry thinking is you draft an elite core and bring them through together. This has certainly been our model. The older core is May, Gawn, Brown, McDonald, Jones, Hibberd, Melksham and Jetta. We've traded in four of them and home grown the other four. Ideally, you start with 8-10 solid older guys, but due to our recruiting and development in the 2007-2012 period, we've had to rely on slowly building that older core. Ironically, that allowed us to pick up high end draft capital to continue building that elite core. Starting in 2012-2017, we drafted the next core. This was the core that we had to get right, but for many years the club talked about bringing through an elite group of guys together and then adding to it. That elite core is now Viney, Salem, Petracca, Brayshaw, Oliver, Langdon (at the end of '19) and Lever (at the end of '17). Throw in support players like Harmes, ANB and Fritsch (who some might argue could fit in the elite category), and you've got your middle core, driven by elite talent, that needs to get somewhere between 23-27 before they peak together. We're now seeing this. Then, because you don't want to drop off a cliff when that middle core retires, you carefully build a younger core that can play support roles for the meantime, but have enough upside to potentially be as good. Eventually, they'll take over from the middle core, and you target the 2018-2023 recruitment periods to build this core. That core now looks like Petty, Spargo, Sparrow, Jordon, Jackson, Pickett, Rivers, Bowey, Laurie and who knows whether Hore, Turner, Rosman and Declase will make it, but if they do, you've built some nice depth across the ground. You then add an elite midfield talent like Cerra to that mix in 2021 and work out HTF you'll get an elite KPF onto your list before Brown and McDonald come to the end. The internal thinking I'm sure is that as your two older cores propel the team up the ladder, you then start to become a destination club if you're serious, and this makes filling those holes in the younger core easier. So Cerra now views Melbourne as the minor premier and at the very least, a prelim finalist. Maybe he can be wooed? And Ben King starts to think Melbourne is in a better window than his brother's team. Maybe he can be wooed next year? So not only does this strategy rely on good planning from the outset, smart and excellent recruiting, and an ability to be creative at the trade table, but it relies on you becoming a destination club on field to offset the lack of trade/draft capital you'll increasingly not have at your disposal. Geelong have shown this and with perhaps a more dynamic game plan, they might have done more damage at the pointy end over the last decade. Where we might differ slightly from a club like Geelong is that we're targeting players for our younger core (18-23), rather than targeting players in that middle core or older core. Geelong have done this because obviously FAs require only salary cap and not draft capital, so must be in FA age range to land them, but I think we've been ahead of the game for a few years now when it comes to pick trading and getting good deals done for the right players. I reckon our long term planning may well look to continue 'topping up' the emerging core, rather than the older core. As elite young talent is shipped off interstate, I'm sure we're tracking the talent we really rate up on the Gold Coast, at GWS and anywhere else across the country. We can then target guys in the 21-25 age bracket to extend our list's longevity. The next 2-3 off seasons will be fascinating.

I'd be going Hunt ahead of Hibbo. Hunt's height isn't an issue. He's not bad above his head and with four Geelong talls likely, having Bowey, Rivers, Salem and Hunt rebounding with our mids, we could sling shot hard against Geelong's talls. Not only am I concerned Hibbo might be done, he doesn't have the leg speed Hunt does. Hunt has also shown repeatedly he's willing to take the game on even when the rest of his team mates aren't.

Yep, I reckon he's coming.

How was this framed? Because saying his "main priority" is us is quite a big statement to just throw out there...

You're on hundreds of thousands of dollars if you're Neale. Being a recent parent myself, being in lockdown the way we are, it's effectively the same thing as being interstate. It's not ideal, but it's manageable and my business is certainly not doing as well as Lachie Neale's deal would be doing for their young family. I reckon the Lions need to stand firm...

For all he's done since, Steven May also turned up in terrible nick and spent most of his first season injured with us. Lever's knee injury was an accident in his first season. May, however, was, by all reports, out of shape.