Adam The God

Where did we finish in order to get LJ though? 17th. That's what I mean. The elite of the elite are usually top 5 picked. Unless you have some low finishes (bottoming out), you need 2-3 strong hands in the top 20 to lay the foundations. Don't get me wrong here. I've loved our list build, I'm just being realistic about what we'll need to do to go again without bottoming out. Unless of course we get lucky like Geelong and a Dangerfield and Cameron fall in our laps via FA.

I love our recruiting, but our absolute elite players aside from Max were top 5 picks in their draft year (Clarry and Trac) or in trade form (Lever and May). Take Clarry and Trac out of our midfield and we're not a top 8 team. This is usually how it works and why eventually the fork in the road comes. Do you keep topping up with FAs or do you bottom out and go back for the elite top end talent?

First time in our history.

To my eye, Tom Sparrow was excellent too. The young guys really stepping up. Sparrow, Rivers and McVee. Don't you love good drafting and development? 👌 Didn't love our fumbling, but loved our defensive intent and our slingshot the other way. Happy to bank that win and move on.

I've always been in the leave Petty back camp, but now that they've done it, I want them to give him a good stretch of games forward. We can make a decision when Max is fit again.

Omg, I forgot Flash!

Well, only if your name was Roo, otherwise you'd probably think you were being booed or that Roo doesn't really work as an appropriate nickname for AF.

I doubt we'd have the salary cap, which we'll likely need for JVR and Jefferson in time. But who knows? If it's Brayshaw vs Serong, getting Brayshaw would mean Viney could play forward or burst midfield. If it was Serong, he'd take Sparrow and JJs midfield minutes and play half forward the rest of the time. We can dream. 😁

Oooh, I feel like Werridee. Here goes! Jetta May Bowey Lever Frawley Whelan Langdon Oliver Yze Lyon Schwarz Fritsch Farmer Neitz K Pickett Gawn Petracca J Viney Stynes White Green Jones Note, I was born in 1987, so don't remember Flower. Jackovich was great fun, but didn't play long enough. Loved T Viney's toughness, but like his son, his disposal was a killer. Bruce was a very dangerous player on his day. The Febeys and the McDonalds (Junior in particular) were good value, Tingay was solid, Jurrah was brilliant and Woey is unlucky not to make the list.

I was thinking at quarter time last night, surely the Suns can play four quarters these days or even a half or maybe three quarters? But no... When the Suns were on, St Kilda couldn't move the ball and no King or Membrey meant they couldn't dump kick it either. The Suns young ruckman was killing Marshall too. But after quarter time, they failed to win ground ball, 1v1s or set up behind the ball. I reckon they may as well put the Suns in the bin. A terrible football club.

Wowee. I love this one. Almost funnier than Dylan Stephens lying on top of Ollie Florent in celebration and then rolling off him immediately when he realised failure to make the distance from 45m.

I actually think PartyTimeJohnny was taking p. And if he wasn't, I'm sure he'll say he was. 🤣 Nowhere to go now, Johnny. 🤪

Top bump this. 🤣

They're in such a fish bowl that I wouldn't be surprised to see a new Freo coach this year. As long as they don't go after Yze.

Yep, good call.

Interesting take. You're definitely right in that we like to play 7 defenders, but I assumed Petty would go back this week given the three West Coast talls, but maybe Hibbo plays on Waterman?

The selection decision this week is a horses for courses decision. Goodwin spoke of a squad mentality in his most recent presser. JJ will get his chances this year. Bringing TMac back for Brown, and with Kozzy coming back, it was always going to be about team balance given the even performance last week. I think Goodwin pumping up JJ was the right move in the press, given by that stage they would have known we needed to replace Brown with another tall as Petty couldn't play forward when West Coast have three tall forwards to deal with. Therefore, they knew it wouldn't be a case of Kozzy just replacing Brown and leaving JVR and Petty forward. I like JJ and everything I've heard from the coaches that coached him at CGS is that he is a ripper, and that appears to be backed up by Yze's comments on his training habits. However, IMO he's a solid B grader with no elite skills. Doesn't mean he couldn't make A grade if given the opportunity, but if we lose him, we lose him. I think he'll nail Harmes' spot this year and JJ will get Harmes' contract moving forward. He doesn't make the same mistakes that Harmes does, but he's less explosive, which is part of the reason why he doesn't seem to be in direct competition with Sparrow. Anyway, people have to accept the squad mentality approach we're taking this year. It won Geelong a flag last year and in the EPL, it's the go to approach for player management. The Manchester sides have won countless titles operating in this fashion. It's the sensible approach, and with the talent we have across the squad, it keeps everyone on their toes. Making JJ the sub is an interesting one and may have something to do with the running needed on the wide expanses of Optus, but Melksham seems to me to be the perfect sub. I'd hazard a guess they wanted to reward JJ for his game and so the potential that Melksham could provide forward of centre late in the game was overlooked for the run JJ could provide.

Collingwood will end the game with more scoring shots. Brisbane forwards cheat. They don't track the runners off half back and have let Collingwood ping off their all night. Meanwhile, Joe Daniher's best game of all time.

Couple of vulnerable spots to attack Collingwood, who are the benchmark at the moment. 1) they bring +2 to contest, so if you can win with a -2, they're flakey behind the ball. Alternatively, if you go 1v1 or only allow them +1 at stoppage, how do they go against that? 2) they're very reliant on their half backs nailing targets, in particular the Daicos boys. I'd be getting one of our wingers to run with Josh Daicos and I'd give one of our half forwards a tagging role on Nick Daicos and see how Collingwood's ball movement goes then. Having Hunter alongside Langdon nowadays, really enables us to sacrifice a winger to a more defensive role, and not lose all your outside drive. The intriguing thing for me will be when you decide use these sort of tactics. Do you leave your powder dry earlier in the year / during the home and away season, and then in finals play this strategy? It's unlikely we'd ever tag a player, it's not really a philosophy Goody has, although we were prepared to send Harmes to Libba in 2021 when he was flying, and it had a huge impact. We've done it with Lachie Neale before as well. We denied that the Libba role was a strict tag and Harmes was given licence to go the other way, so I think it's more likely a match up like the above would take that form. The King's Birthday game for me has a bit of a Liverpool vs Man Utd feel to it (I'm Liverpool). I don't usually get really excited about one fixture in particular, but this year's fixture has a lot riding on it and should be fascinating. A bit like the Sydney game, we've become their bunnies and we need to arrest that momentum this time, so it'll be telling how we go and how far we're willing to go tactically that early in the season.

I think many dislike Freo circa Peter Bell because of Hogan and LJ. I reckon most still dislike West Coast more though.

Exactly what I was thinking about earlier mate! I'm not sure I love the mixed metaphor, but everything else about the delivery, the moment and Max's reaction is brilliant.

Agreed, although how good was that come from behind round 23 win to clinch top spot? Hawkins hands on his head like wtf just happened. 🤣 Golden.

Don't get me wrong. I hate Geelong, but we spanked them in a PF. That's much worse than 186.

Round 23 and PF in 2021 cleansed me.

We owe Hawthorn, West Coast and Essendon the most I reckon.