Adam The God

Obviously I'd like us to kill them, but I'll be happy with any win and no injuries. Ideally, I'd like us to keep exploring this forward mix and getting some defensive cohesion at the back. May finding some form would be handy too.

And I don't want Brisbane winning any games either, so today is a tough one. I think they're definitely top 2 or certainly top 4 competitors with us.

Does packaging 16, 25 or 35 + a F1 get us another top 10 pick in 2023? On sheer points value, this package would easily be equivalent surely, but whether someone in the top 10 would do it, who knows...

It's all about whether we keep our powder dry on Kings Birthday and tag during finals or whether we try it earlier. I'm sure Collingwood will have plans for it, but you don't want to give them half the season to work out other ways around a Daicos tag. I genuinely think this is one of the most fascinating and pivotal questions of the 2023 season, because his uncontested work is so integral to how Collingwood move the ball.

Reckon he's been one of our better players this year. I'd have him in my top 3 or 4. Becoming really consistent in a very difficult position, but gives his all defensively and is really hitting the scoreboard these days.

Thanks mate. I don't want the physical membership card, just the scarf and thought I'd already selected that option.

This will sound strange, but having looked at the teams, I'm a little worried about this game. At the end of the day, if we can't beat North we should probably pack up shop for the year. That said, Geelong lost to the Suns, so who the hell knows what'll happen.

I'd say Richmond and Hawthorn are both the two biggest bandwagoners in the league, with the most fickle fan bases.

May is usually incredible 1v1, but when the ball hits the deck, he panics big time. He always has. His lack of calm in those moments usually flows onto his team mates. I think he's carrying an injury at the moment, because he's not great 1v1 and he's trying to zone off far too much. Part of this could actually be the move of Petty forward unsettling May and creating this psychological do I zone or play 1v1? I'd look at getting Turner into the team and keeping Petty forward. Turner will free up May and/or Lever.

He's apparently even more highly touted than JVR... @Pennant St Dee

Howe has had multiple pings at Melbourne since leaving and I hope he never wins a flag.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was the fish bowl of WA mentality, which had Lobb being a traitor in the papers all week.

Absolutely no way.

Rivers did play midfield, but only 1 CBA and a little bit around the ground. Agree on Kozzy though, but without Spargo to play alongside ANB and Chandler, they probably thought the balance would be too off up forward without Kozzy. I think it could have got him into the match though. He was quite sluggish and only 10 pressure acts, which was just about our lowest.

I wonder if we should be rotating Fritsch and JVR as the deep forwards leading out from the square/deepest forward and the other playing from 40m to high half forward? We ideally need another tall as you say to play that link role (our game tends to breakdown onnthe slower plays without it) and leave Fritsch as a dangerous proposition on the 3rd or 4th best defender, but until Jefferson has more build and tank, and until TMac and BB are in form, we're probably better going with this set up. Very good signs. Got an amazing temperament. Gets angry with himself, which is fine, shows high expectations, which in turn feeds into his competitiveness, but has an ability to reset and go again. He's a beauty and I reckon JT has nailed this pick. Reminds me of Charlie Curnow. Less springy maybe, but good in the air, great follow up work on the ground. Give him a partner like Curnow has, and even Max could do for the moment, who draws the defenders, leaving the opposition not knowing who to put their time into, and possibly giving JVR the second best defender and we're away. He could very easily kick 30-40 goals this year, which would be an incredible return for a second year (first year) KPF.

What hasn't really been mentioned is that along with giving that silly goal away when May took the intercept mark, Cumberland kicked his three on McVee. When Hibberd went to Cumberland, he barely touched it.

Not to mention he took at least one of those marks on Bolta...

That was deliberate every day of the week. Players know that unless you are spoiling a marking attempt and you don't keep the ball in play it will be paid deliberate. It was a ground ball and Gus punched out. I agree, little else he could do, but the free kick was there. I thought the umpiring both ways was dreadful, but particularly towards us. And you could tell there were a lot of nuffies that don't often go to the footy supporting Melbourne last night because they were getting angry at very text book free kicks like the Gus one. Some were definitely there, but majority were just terrible decisions and some of the 'even ups' to us were laughable.

If I brave the replay, I'm keen the check out how often we did the following... we seemed to do something different with our zone tonight and I couldn't work out if we were letting the zone accidentally go this way or whether Richmond were using it against us, or if it was a legitimate tactical tweak. I noticed it in the third quarter. When we were defending a stationary kicker at half back, for 30m or so, we went 1v1 and behind it we played zone. One of my St Kilda mates reckons St Kilda were doing something very similar early on in the season. 1v1 defending inside D50 and zone when defending the corridor and the higher parts of the ground. I wonder if we're taking cues off Ross Lyon or if it's something we've come to ourselves? Because it means if you can prevent the running handball off half back and hold up the kicker, the little short angled kicks into the corridor and along the boundary, are made into legitimate 1v1s, so it forces the kicker down the line and plays into our intercepting hands (literally, hopefully). It is vulnerable to the switch though, which would mean the defensive team would have to implement a zone in transition rather than 1v1 or simply play 1v1 right across the ground from certain plays. It would seem flicking the switch between the two modes would be way too difficult to coordinate.

It was actually pretty much a 50-50 split. Gawn had 15 CBAs and 35 ruck contests, while Grundy had 14 CBAs and 35 ruck contests. I suspect they wanted to give Grundy a lighter load this week given he's run solo for a few weeks, so it was probably more about protecting Grundy than anything tactical. I actually felt the game turned in the moments when Grundy was at the centre bounces. Max's tap work remains far too predictable, but equally Grundy doesn't quite have the chemistry yet with the mids, so room for improvement. I worry sometimes about the aggressiveness of Max's ruck work too. He often taps defensive side in a D50 stoppage, which really puts pressure on our mids and defenders. But don't get me wrong though. Very happy to have Max back, as I'm sure Grundy was too. It's certainly a trend in our games isn't it? That's 3 out of 6 matches where we've really, really struggled for ground balls in our defensive 50, and just generally struggled for ground balls. In the first quarter, Richmond were +10 in ground ball gets. If we can't mop up ground balls, our game falls over, as would anyone's. I reckon we're still really struggling with when to go and when to play tempo and possession. Tonight, we went too fast and too often/at the wrong times. I'm hoping it'll come together the more we practice it. After all, it took Collingwood 10-15 rounds for it to click last year and become instinctive.

Anyone not got their scarf yet? I only renewed in something like September last year. 🤦

The other thing about St Kilda is they started this way last year too and were flying at 5 wins 2 losses (one loss by a point) until they met us in Round 8 and it all fell apart after that. I think it's a little early, but given their defensive start (points conceded and what they're doing with their zone), they're definitely in the top 4 or 5 IMO.

Because women are socialised differently. They usually get judged on outward presentation, whereas if you dress like a slob, not much happens.

Smalls. Kozzy, Chandler and a Papley/Weightman type that can hit the foot of the Gawn and JVR contests. We'll still need the ANBs and Spargos, but that's where we could really excel. Unless of course, we landed someone like Ben King, leaving Max able to play forward or behind the ball, in tandem with Grundy.

My Geelong supporting uncle was saying a couple of weeks back that they were missing too many defenders and you can only cover so many injuries, and particularly if they're elite players like Stewart. At the time we had a conversation about the last three premiers and that they were the teams with the least amount of injuries at the right time, and it's that little bit of luck that goes a long way to winning a flag. Richmond had a blessed run, as did we in 2021, and Geelong for most of last year. When the Bulldogs won it in 2016, they are the outlier, given their horrid injury run that year, but it seems highly likely that whoever gets the best run with injuries this year will win it. Collingwood are the potential outlier there, given their system is still strong without a ruckman. But there is a breaking point, and if we have Max and Grundy running around against no one on KB, our mids are going to be able to get the upper hand.