Adam The God

Neggie neggie.

Very good call mate.

Wowee. You never can pick our selections. At least we'll keep the opposition on the hop too. It's a distinctly different approach from Goody and the MC. He's valued stability and continuity for so long, but I wonder if we're starting to properly manage our players now that they are getting older (like say Geelong do), and that that takes priority over continuity. As to these selections, I'd say they'll play Fritta in the defensive role on Sicily then. And I got my wish of ultimately only having one of Melky and Fritta in the team. Viney is a big out given his great defensive roles as of late, but I wonder if this means Clarry plays a defensive role on Newcombe, or whether we simply go head to head with them at stoppage. JVR was the obvious change for second ruck, so hopefully Turner stays forward with him. But Jefferson is a head scratcher, because it's bringing in another guy that lacks physicality and pressure (ie Fritta or Melky). To me it says they're comfortable with three tall forwards, which I find strange, but I was wrong about Melky and Fritta working last week, so maybe I'll be wrong again. It's not giving our forwardline much time to gel, but on the plus side we're less predictable and our mids won't get in a groove of trying to target the same forwards every week such is the constant change.

Thanks for that Maxie. I agree.

And that's against a Geelong side that is pretty ordinary from stoppage themselves.

Now?

It'll be an interesting tactical battle, won't it? We'll have a plan, but I wonder if we'll change it up if it's not working...

This is why I only listen to the Demonland podcast, not the Debrief nuffies who lack analysis and are all emotion. I have enough emotion with a four year old. I seek to understand things and you won't get much of that from the AFL media or legacy media TBH.

He's got an excellent record against Hawthorn. He takes marks for fun. One of my mates is cousins with a Hawthorn leader and he said to my mate "we keep kicking the ****ng ball to Gawn every time, he's everywhere. We try not to, but he's just there". 🤣

I have no idea why people watch AFL media. They are like legacy media. Increasingly hysterical and hyperbolic as they desperately fight for attention in a media landscape that is fracturing. If you don't like what's being said or disagree with it, don't watch it, and they become increasingly irrelevant.

He was arguably the best player in the competition at the time.

Have you seen much of Benji mate?

For those saying JVR vs AJ, whilst I like AJs attack on the footy and the man, IMV, he's been a liability in the ruck every time he's been in there this year. JVR is actually a very reasonable second ruck, and to.compete with AJ on the scoreboard, all he probably needs to do is kick a goal. So it's JVR in for Petty. It'll be interesting to see what happens to Clarry, but I'd be happy to keep the same midfield mix again this week.

To be fair to ANB, he always had good goal sense. And Chin's problem has been hitting the scoreboard consistently, something Nibbler was always pretty good at. Chin has become a really important part of the team though. Loving his season.

I think some are overplaying the "Viney is a tagger". I'd say you could call it a tag in the first half, but it was gone by the third quarter. I'd rather reframe his role as the defensive mid. Because that's what he's been recast as these last few weeks. Instead of the see ball, get ball. Play the more defensive role and you'll get footy off the back of that naturally.

We picked Frawley ahead of him... 🤷‍♂️

I think Kolt's issue is he lacks polish. I like his energy though.

I know it was against ordinary opposition, but our transition and ball movement is getting way better. If we'd been able to tidy up our forward entries in the first 5 weeks, we'd have won a lot more than we'd lost. Now that our entries are improving, we're starting to look dangerous with the modern game. If you think back to the last two weeks, we looked to use uncontested possessions at the back to shift the zone, whereas today we were far more direct, probably because we don't rate the Eagles and their set ups and personnel, which is fair enough. I'm hoping we see a lot of uncontested possession at the back next week and an emphasis on aggressive forward handball. There does seem to be an interesting coaching philosophy evolving though. Previously, Goody would be quite rigid in his game day coaching and his processes. Now, the game style seems to change depending on the opposition and even depending on the state of the game, from quarter to quarter. Many have called for that flexibility. It means we don't become all duck, no dinner like Collingwood. The problem is if you're not being all duck, no dinner, you don't get to practice the ballistic transition game style that has become modern footy. For now, it's starting to work for us, but it means we're trying to shift between styles mid-game, so that depending on the opposition, the type of footy we play might vary. It also depends on our leaders being able to implement this shift mid-game. I suspect, if we keep winning though, most won't care what game style we play.

We may well make the switch with JVR to CHB.

Let's hope so. I'd love him in our forward half alongside Kozzy. We need more x factor.

I want Adams in there soon. So we can see whether he's an answer at AFL level.

I must say, I think May is near the end. He's always panicked with frontal pressure and he's never been a good user, but he no longer really wins contests either. It might be a big call, but I think if we're to get better this year, May will find himself on the fringe of the 22 by the end of 25.

Well, I was wrong on Fritta and Melky in the same forwardline. Both looked dangerous and Melksham played his best game in a long time. Outside of stoppage, a very ordinary first half again, but Max Gawn. Wowee. What a champion. However, I'm going to knock this BS idea that no Max, no Melbourne. Take out Martin and Richmond probably don't have 3 flags. Take out Daicos and they don't win in 2023. These hugely influential players are so influential because they're near impossible to stop. Anyway, Trac and Chandler were good, kudos to Turner for getting on the scoreboard in the second half, another pretty good night from TMac too, Viney's attack on the man all night was really important, and 17 tackles inside 50 again. 👏👏👏

As in trying to show his credentials, or deliberately being so difficult to work with they'll trade him?

Definitely top 5 this year, probably top 3. Bowey, TMac, Chandler have been brilliant from Round 1. Max has entered the conversation the last few weeks, but started the year slowly.