Adam The God

He injured himself the previous week during a contest against St Kilda. He looked very sore after it.

With the austerity mindset from governments at the moment, I wouldn't be surprised if any headway made previously is now redundant. Unless it's solely public infrastructure, I can't imagine they'll be able to sell it to their constituents.

And instead of Bowey, replace him with Petty.

It also is randomly shown well before SG has finished.

I think we can win it from 4th. Particularly, if we play Collingwood in the QF.

I hate Geelong too. Half my family is Geelong, the other half Melbourne. That would be dreadful, but I expect Geelong to drop at least 2 more, possibly 3, which they can't really afford.

Lol, it wasn't that long ago that some on here were saying 2023 would be a super draft and a bunch of us were saying every year is allegedly a super draft until it isn't. But if JT doesn't rate the crop, we'll trade the picks for a ready made. We win either way. So it'll be fascinating to see which way we go.

Indeed, but do you think Brisbane will go 6-0 or 5-1 from here? They could well fall in a hole too after their capitulation the other night. They've still got Collingwood, Geelong, the Q-Clash and Adelaide.

The question the media should be asking is will it be JVR or BB that Grundy takes the spot of. I also think a big variable not being spoken about in all of this is how the game changes in the finals series. It's not as open, it's more contested, it's a lot of long to contests etc. If Brodie and Max can bring the ball to ground forward of centre, they'll have done their job from a forward perspective. It's then ensuring they impact the game in the ruck as well. Prior to the Brisbane game, the most underrated game Max played this year was against Collingwood, where he repeatedly ensured the ball was not intercepted and brought it to ground. That's not evident in the stats, but he was essential that day. In the same game, Grundy had 2 shots on goal of his own and they basically shared the ruck that day. Max had 37 ruck contests, Brodie 42. We won clearance, CP and intercept. That's the model that can work going forward IMO. We'd like to get a more even performance from both of them though, but in particular Max.

We're only 3 wins behind Port and their percentage is very ordinary for a 2nd placed team with 14 wins to this stage. Port could very well lose their next 3 games (Pies, Crows and Cats at Geelong) and then have an improving GWS at Adelaide Oval to contend with. I admit it's unlikely they drop that GWS game, but if they do and the rest, there's a chance we could go 5-1 from here and still take a home QF. This weekend is huge.

Grundy will be in the team for finals and he'll be in the team next year and beyond. Bookmark it.

Terrible idea. Defeats the purpose of getting the job down during the H&A season.

Love it. How good is Bowser as well! And Grundy is impressive. Thanks Wheelo!

Surely, if we keep Walker quiet, it'll go a long way to winning this one.

Also, that AFL article on his rising star nod notes nothing about the sorts of opponents he's had this year. Choco and Chaplin should get great credit for their development of our young backs. How Judd's so seamlessly fitted into the system back there is so exciting.

I know Quaynor is great in these 1v1 percentage wins. Just wondering, @WheeloRatings, where does Juddster sit in league wide statistics? Please and thank you. 🙏

Clarry arrests that momentum in the 2nd and 3rd. There's no way you keep him quiet for that long.

His name is Clayton Oliver. Little Petracca time in there either and that'll happen. But we really missed Clarry in this game.

We regularly put time into Neale when we play Brisbane. We've done this every game since 2021...

The Brisbane game was a near shoot out and we were quite happy to be super aggressive with our ball movement and our zone pressing high up the ground. Given Brisbane's lack of pace, our zone could play higher and only be at risk to a Bailey or someone like Cameron out the back. Do we think with Adelaide's pace, it's more likely we'll sit our zone deeper and let them try to move the ball through it, with our aim being to force them wide and then slingshot on the counter, ala the Collingwood game? Or do we go super aggressive like last week and try and blow them away?

So we lost ground ball again. And our pressure rating is again instructive. We've still got a fortnight at least before I expect our pressure rating to start to meet the AFL average. Be an interesting watch. Thanks as always, Wheelo.

On that limited vision he looks very outside to me. But if JT rates him, I'm down.

Chandler needs to play forward of ball as a pressure forward IMO. If Kozzy is playing higher, which I think is potentially less likely in a final, we need Chandler's pressure. Probably at the expense of Spargo. I think our forwardline mix against Brisbane was off. Great offensively, but too vulnerable on counter, hence the 4 of 5 goals from defensive half chains in the 3rd quarter for the Lions.

Here's the thing though, @rpfc, Grundy will be in the 22 for finals, so I'm beginning to think it'll be at the expense of JVR.

It's interesting how we've tended to go 1v1 at stoppage over the last few weeks and how this has enabled us to often win CP and stoppage. We've deployed Rivers in the 2022 Brayshaw half back role as Gus has taken Clarry's mid minutes, but we're still able to generate the intercept. Against Brisbane both sides were sitting an interceptor 10-15m off the back of stoppages in the centre square. Ours was often Salem. Those interceptors cancelled each other out, but from long down the line plays, our KPBs go 1v1 and one of our small/mediums looks to intercept and the others mop up. Our small/mediums are quite aggressive from these situations and the backs are so in ssyncwith each other. Chaplin is a really good defensive coach. The midfield has totally surpassed my expectations over the last 6 weeks and I'd always thought that without Clarry we'd lose against good stoppage teams. Credit to Yze and mids going through there. I'm hoping it'll hold us in really good stead when Clarey returns. And our ability to play Trac forward and the occasionally inject him into the midfield will be a huge weapon. Fingers crossed Clarry gets back.