Adam The God

Maybe this is something we've leaked to the press to give Freo less leverage? Make it seem like we've moved on and will take him or leave him. Doesn't feel like the sort of game we'd play though, but we are having to deal with Peter Bell. If the frame is we don't absolutely love him at all costs and we're happy to move on, but for the right price we could get a deal done, then our alleged cooling makes sense.

Draft picks are overrated, but top 5 draft picks are the cream of the crop. If you're drafting the best inside/outside mid in the talent pool, you're getting an elite mid. This isn't Barry Prendergast anymore. JT doesn't miss with mids. If Reid is possible without giving up players that we want to keep, and only costs us draft picks, and JT rates him as highly as I'd suggest he does, just do the deal. Oliver, Petracca, Viney, Reid, Brayshaw, Sparrow, Rivers. Trac and Reid playing forward and then with mid bursts. A huge opportunity to take another step and improve our elite talent.

I find it interesting how opposition supporters still think we win games by May and Lever taking intercept marks. Sure, we can win that way and it won us a flag two years ago, but we've rarely won that way this year. St Kilda being the exception because King went down, freeing up May and it had a flow on effect to the rest of the back 7. I know we know our team better than opposition supporters and we have a media that is obsessed with shallow analysis so supporters are unlikely to gauge the real strengths and weaknesses of all teams, but we much prefer to score from intercepting higher up the ground now, with our back 7 behind this as cover. But I guess I shouldn't expect clear and insightful analysis from Richmond nuffies.

Woey currently gets lost in the zone and doesn't have the running power/capacity of Charlie. I still like Charlie's game sense and ball use, but Woey's game sense and ball use has surprised me.

How much better does LJ look in our jumped than Freo's? You made a mistake, LJ.

Yes, Jed is the WA boy. Jesus, how old are you DS? 403? Very rude question... :P

Wow, TMac and Smith is an intriguing play. I don't think Tom will have the athleticism anymore and could be exploited the other way, but I could be wrong. As you say, I'd replace TMac with JVR. I do worry about Smith's footy nous and forward craft too in comparison to BB, but love Smith's athleticism. A tough one. With Grundy/Gawn resting forward too, we might not want BBs lack of ground ball ability on top of that. The one major variable is that finals are often very different and more contested than H&A games, so we might be able to play BB, Gawn/Grundy and JVR forward in a final.

Anyone that thinks Grundy won't be in the team come finals is away with the nuffies.

So no real analysis, just another best 22. Thanks for that mate. FWIW, no way Woey is ahead of Spargo.

Agree.

You can see how two small forwards have transformed Adelaide's forward half game. If we end up managing two top 10 picks and not trading/being able to trade for pick 1, Watson in our forward half would be handy. And as @Nascent suggests above, Watson and Duursma would certainly improve our danger in the forward half. With Kozzy, Fritta, JVR, Chandler and Jefferson that's a promising forward half.

That'll be 3 weeks from the 3-4 weeks, mate. Where's the mixed messaging?

I watched Gawn live today and I felt he needed to take more contested marks, but completely dominated at stoppage. We need Grundy to manage him though. And Max knew this mhimself, hence his push to get Brodie to the club in the first place. And Jack is bursting for every minute he's out there, but it wasn't a flawless game either. Brodie Smith kicked his goal, because Jack basically let him wander off unattended after Jack had worked brilliantly to get it over the boundary for a stoppage. You're totally off on Max here though.

Jeepers, you're a bizarre poster mate. You have have some hits, but a lot of misses. If you were a footballer, I'd say you wouldn't make it.

Yep, I was one of them. Bad call. He's been great the last 3 years.

Interesting. I'd personally be happy to keep Clarry off one less plane than he needs to be on, but I'll back the FD. What does this look like do you think? Is it built around a particular player or two, or built around a different system or approach altogether?

I think we just need a better midfielder (ie Clarry) and then we can go one less mid. It looks like Clarry will only have to play 2 (or 3 at best) H&A games before finals, so I'd expect us to revert to less players rolling through the midfield. Clarry, Trac, Viney, Gus, Sparrow, Kozzy and maybe even Rivers is plenty. But each to their own.

True, but I said consistent performance, I didn't say irresistible for 4 quarters. We need to implement our defensive system across four quarters. That doesn't mean we have to play be brilliant for 4 quarters. Just do most things to a good standard with the ball, and defend well, make the right decisions without it. So when momentum is against us, we can weather the storm and then conversely take our chances when we have it ourselves.

Agreed, but I'd counter is by saying the backs do not like the run and gun, because on turnover we don't bring them enough cover. I hope we can strike the right balance. That's what the H&A season is for. 😉

IMO, Melksham played a very Melksham game. Which is to say, not like last week or the Carlton Round 21 game last year. Paging @george_on_the_outer...

It'd be ironic if Petty replaced May, Tomlinson stayed in and May missed out on a premiership. ;) Never gonna happen, but if we had a fit Petty, I would seriously consider giving May a week or two to rest. I'll look forward to this. A poster without less feel for the game or the team they're following, there probably isn't.

Great post, although I think people forget that we lost the 2nd and the first 15 mins of the 3rd quarter in the GF quite comfortably. We played a great first quarter, an irresistible 10-15 mins at the end/second half of the 3rd, which knocked the stuffing out of the Bulldogs, and then we hit them with a great last quarter. So I think it's really important to remember that even in that huge GF win, we struggled to play 4 quarters. I think if we can find 4 quarters of consistent Melbourne football this year, no team will beat us.

Agree with this. I hope we play the opposition in front of us @rpfc. For example, I hope we play Collingwood exactly the same way we played them on KB, but with greater accuracy. But if we're playing Brisbane or Port, I think we could allow the game to open up a little more and go more offensive as you suggest elsewhere on this thread. He didn't do his regular radio spot on Monday morning because he was too sick, so even though he trained all week, I wondered whether this was a factor today. Because he was definitely a little bit off at times.

Great post mate. ❤️🙏

Agree with most of this mate, but not convinced Hibbo gets a game anymore. Who does he replace? I think McVee was well beaten today, but he probably gives us more offensively than Hibbo these days.