Adam The God

LJ certainly did and surely Kozzie did, although he was nowhere near as good last year and this year.

Well done, JJ! That's terrific and very well deserved. Oliver, Jackson, Salem and Jordon are our cleanest players below their feet. JJ is a beauty though. Not only is his defensive good, but that cleanness makes him a real weapon.

Gotcha, it must be a clean clearance untouched by a defender. So the clearance leading to Sinclair's goal was initially spoiled by May. On The Couch showed the same stats tonight and compared our 1 point to 21 points given up by Carlton with the similar clearance losses. Sunday's game should be fascinating.

Agree with most of this mate. The only thing I'd say is Petracca did his fair share of 'defensive mid' positioning at centre stoppages.

Petracca's man got three of the first 5 centre clearances of the game. He needs to defend better without the ball.

They definitely got at least one goal almost straight out of the middle. Sinclair's goal at the start of the fourth is an example.

I absolutely agree mate that we are placing a greater priority on winning the cleaner, better directed clearance, rather than rushed kick that lacks direction and is intercepted, but I think we're still failing to defend the centre stoppage properly. So there were too many times in the Sydney game and certainly too many in the North game, where our starting mids failed prevent an easy exit.

I'd run Harmes with Walsh all day. Go to stoppages with him and then run with him around the ground. Harmes has the tank and the defensive side to go with Walsh and then hurt him going the other way. Agree Cripps isn't having the same influence, but he usually plays well against us and is still a top 30 player. Yeah, we didn't lack a defensive sweeper. I'm not sure what people are watching. We always had a mid defensive side of the contest. Sometimes that was the wide mid, but most often that was the mid closest to our ruckman. Inside sliders that come off the back of the square don't really look to impact like they did across 2017-2019, because it leaves holes in your defence. Completely agree.

Love it mate. Haha, I hadn't read the thread when I wrote mine. I promise! Yep, this is certainly what happened the other night, particularly in that first quarter. I don't mind this idea, but there are question marks over Daw's ability to run out a game, so having a ruckman that doesn't get to all the contests and can't get it done around the ground is a recipe for disaster. I think they'll keep playing Max. The other out of the box idea could be playing McDonald as a permanent ruck in a few weeks time and giving Max a rest then. I wouldn't move Tom at the moment though as he's in career best form IMO.

Disagree. Most of their clearances were on Sydney's defensive side of the ball up. This meant that many of their rushed clearances failed to penetrate our defensive 50. And Hardwick under Choco and Clarko. There is definitely a precedence for the better sides giving up centre clearances and counter attacking, Geelong did this under Scott for years. Is it a big problem though? The majority of those clearances against are rushed clearances that we can either defend and neutralise or get on our terms and counter attack. The likes of Petracca have to get better defensively in centre clearances. Simple as that. Too much ball watching and gambling. It's a free hit if the clearances are clean and deep. If they're shallow, IMO, it plays into our hands. Just like we want teams to kick down the line to contests against us. We want rushed shallow clearances that our half backs and mids can push up to, swarm and release to outside players like Hunt, Langdon et al. Even in these situations we hold our defensive back 3 quite deep and as David King showed on First Crack last night, we actually hold our anchor defender way deeper than most other defences.

My feeling at the ground was that we were far more likely to win the stoppage when LJ was in there rather than Max, but having analysed every centre stoppage, I think it's more a case of our mids gambling more when Max is in and being more defensive and diligent when LJ is in there. Max's real asset IMO is his around the ground work. He's a good tap ruckman, but he's elite because what he does elsewhere. The last two weeks he hasn't done enough around the ground and his opponent has outdone him. I think he might be carrying something, because he doesn't quite seem there. This is predicated on Max being able to pick and choose when he wins taps under pressure. He and Hickey was a great ruck contest. They probably split the spoils from the centre bounce taps. Hickey got the cleaner taps to his mids though and probably marginally got Max on the outside too. I'd be measuring Yze by what we do around the ground stoppage wise and the work rate and coverage of our mids around the ground. It would be good to get more dominance in centre clearances though, given Oliver and Petracca's contested ability. Disagree. As long as our midfield transitions properly if we lose the clearance, we should have an outnumber behind the ball. Our defensive system is insanely good. Like Richmond level good. It was this mid starting wider of the contest (it wasn't always Oliver) who looked more likely to win the clearance and often did. It's the right strategy. The other mids have to be on though. You only need one player to be off and the rope a dope is on and a clean clearance against is almost guaranteed. We/Max actually did this quite a bit against Sydney, but as you say he does have a variety to his taps, so he tried all sorts of things. I think the centre clearance breakdown is mostly psychological rather than set ups or personnel.

Night shift with a newborn may as well be utilised. ;)

So I've gone through and analysed each centre stoppage clearance for the game. Here they are: FIRST QUARTER 1) We have Oliver, Petracca and Kozzie with Max. The players in a triangle formation in equal distance apart. Kozzie is the only player defensive side of the stoppage (ie behind Max). The tap is a nil all, dropped at everyone's feet. It bobbles between Mills and then Oliver, and then Kennedy, whose brute strength can't prevent him from getting a tumbling kick forward to be marked by Papley. Even in this play, Kozzie is caught a little ball watching off from Warner, who could have received from Kennedy. Analysis: This is a solid, but rushed clearance from Sydney that lands in the forward's hands because Kennedy manages to get a quick kick away before Petracca can reel him in. 2) This time we have Oliver, Petracca, Jordon and Max. You would think this is a more defensive and safer set up. Petracca covers the defensive side of the stoppage, Oliver wing side (he and Kennedy are basically grappling each other without it), while Jordon and Warner are much wider of the ruckmen on our attacking side of the stoppage. Petracca is on Mills, so one would hope is likely to neutralise him or win the contest and defend the back of stoppage. Max wins the tap slightly towards Jordon who goes to attack it, but ends up blocking for Max, who takes it momentarily before dropping it/it being knocked out of hands. Jordon immediately wins the ground ball and handballs back to Max, who then goes wide and high with the handball that hangs too long in the air for Oliver. Max probably should have kicked it or the handball needed to be better/flatter. Kennedy tackles Oliver, the ball squirts free and Hickey picks it up and gets a simple long kick out of the contest, with Max well off him. Analysis: We had the more defensive set up after a quick goal against, Max won the tap, Jordon got it out to Max, who potentially overdid it on handball. Unlike the first Sydney clearance of that quick kick forward, Max tried to go for the cleaner clearance. I can see why you might try for that early in the game, but we needed to get ourselves into the game after a really early concession. 3) The score is 2.1 Sydney to nothing us at this stage. We have the more experienced body in Harmes, along with Oliver, Petracca and Max. Just about the most experienced starting combination we can muster at the moment. Petracca covers the back of the stoppage again. Oliver and Kennedy grapple again wing side, but slightly wider than before and closer to our attacking side of the stoppage. Harmes is well wide with Warner. Max wins the tap again, this time a double-hander and gets it well clear and forward of the contest. Harmes turns and is pursued by Warner. Harmes gets to the ball first, but clatters into the inside slider in ANB, who has come steaming in off the edge of the square to impact the contest (something that rarely happens all night - the inside slider). This moment is unfortunate and a bit clumsy. This spillage leaves Harmes and ANB on the ground and three free Swans at the ball and two Swans on the outside to give to. Lloyd picks it up and handballs uncontested to Mills who has completely lost Petracca and got him on the outside. Analysis: This stoppage was a bit unlucky again. Harmes coming back from injury, potentially lacking a bit of synergy with his team mates. With Max's tap to space, we should have probably at least won a rushed clearance from Harmes or ANB, but Sydney did cover this side of the stoppage well with two defenders pushing up into the centre square. Petracca's defensive accountability questionable. 4) McDonald has just kicked our first and the score is 2.1 to 1.0. We stick with Harmes, Oliver and Petracca, with Max. Harmes covers the defensive side of the stoppage this time. Oliver and Kennedy on the wing side and closer to the rucks than the last stoppage. Petracca has attacking side of the contest with his back to our goals. He and Parker are wider of the rucks. Max almost takes it out of the air, but it knocks our way, he can't gather cleanly, but immediately pressures Mills at ground level and lays a tackle, but Mills gets his hands free and handballs cleanly to Parker on the outside. Although Parker started on Petracca, Christian I think tries to cover Rowbottom, but it is Petracca's man that gets the kick out of stoppage again. Analysis: It's hard to know if Petracca was at fault for this clearance, but Mills gets the ground ball and manages to cleanly dish out to Parker. Without Max stopping Mills, we're in trouble here. Christian probably needs to do better defensively. 5) The score is 2.3 Sydney to 2.0 us. ANB joins Jordon, Jackson and Petracca in our most inexperienced combination for the night so far. Jordon takes Kennedy MCC wing side, but doesn't start by grappling him, like Oliver did. ANB starts well wide of his opponent in Rowbottom. ANB starts behind LJ and Rowbottom is more central. Sinclair is in the ruck for Sydney. Petracca and Florent are our attacking side of the stoppage but some distance from the other mids. The bounce favours Sinclair, but he cleanly taps it straight down to Kennedy, who gives to Florent, who loses Petracca in traffic. Christian's man again. The kick goes inside 50. Analysis: This is a very clean clearance for Sydney. The best of the night thus far, but three centre clearances in a row where Petracca's man has got him on the outside. 6) We had just taken the lead by 3 points, thanks to a Ben Brown major. Max is back in the ruck. ANB is now playing on Kennedy. The two are defensive side of the contest this time. Jordon and Mills grapple on the wing side of the stoppage, while Oliver is 20+ metres (you can tell from the cut of the grass) from the centre circle on Parker. Max and Hickey halve the tap, it's probably marginally Max's win. Jordon and Mills get sucked in closer to the rucks and the ball is tapped behind them, allowing Oliver to burst into the space behind them and then use a handball to ANB, who gets a rushed left footed kick forward, which is marked by Kozzie just forward of centre wing. Analysis: This stoppage set up is the ideal match up and set up for us. Parker isn't particularly quick and he and Oliver start very wide of the contest. Oliver is often very good when he has room to burst into the stoppage and stop the jumper pulling against him. We just needed to get the ball into that space and allow Oliver to do his thing. Our best clearance of the night thus far. ANB kept it simple by banging it on the boot. 7) This time there's 1.30 left on the clock for the first quarter. Max is in there with Hickey. Jordon and Mills are defensive side of the contest, but close to the stoppage. Petracca and Parker are wing side of the stoppage, a bit closer to the wing position this time (further from the rucks), and Oliver is 16m wide from the centre circle with Warner. Max wins the knock, hitting it wide towards the wing position (the wing further from camera side). McInerney comes off Langdon's wing really quickly to gather, but Oliver tackles him, not before McInerney gets a rushed handball away that misses Oliver's opponent Warner. Warner recovers by himself, as Oliver had been drawn to covering McInerney, when all of a sudden Langdon's incredible closing speed comes out of nowhere to tackle Warner. Warner gets a throw away that isn't paid and gets to Cunningham on the outside. A very good hit up, even if a throw. Oliver pursues him out of the centre square and ends up forcing Sydney wide to the back flank to Lloyd. Analysis: I'd say this one, even though Sydney won the stoppage, we recovered well from where we were. We were unlucky not to get a free kick for a throw, but still managed to force them wide and defensive side. We then transitioned across to cover the line really quickly. So even though we lose the clearance, we have the game on our terms almost immediately as they have to kick up the line to our contests. They decide to go short and then they eventually go to the contest that we kill over the line. That's a win for us. SECOND QUARTER 8) Max starts in the middle. Kozzie starts at the back of the stoppage again, defensive side on Warner. Mills and Petracca are on the wing side of the contest, close enough to the rucks, and Oliver and Kennedy start well wide (15+ metres again) of the centre circle on our attacking side of the rucks. The bounce hangs over Max's head, Hickey attacks it and taps it back towards Petracca and Mills, wing side. Mills and Petracca grapple as Kozzie's man Warner comes in behind them and scopes up the quick clearance before Kozzie can stop him. Analysis: Hickey is really aggressive in this stoppage and Sydney manage to block for each other well and win a rushed clearance. Due to the rushed nature, it isn't a targeted clearance, which enables May to read it quicker and get off Buddy to spoil it wide. 9) This time Max, Petracca, Jordon and Harmes are in the centre. Petracca starts wide, offensive side for us. Jordon and Mills grapple wing side, but slightly further away from the rucks this time and Harmes covers the defensive side of the stoppage. Max wins the tap forward, but Jordon is on the defensive side of Mills, so Mills ends up getting to the ball by himself. Jordon tries to close him down, which means Mills handballs to a running Swan defender off the back of the square, who is pursued by ANB. ANB forces a rushed, lucky kick forward (but still in the middle of the MCG) to Wicks and Salem. Salem is pinged for pushing Wicks in the back. Sydney get a clean possession from the free kick. Analysis: Despite not winning the clearance, we're in good shape to defend slow attacks like this. 10) This is the first time Langdon hasn't started on the wing. Gus and Jordon start there here. Jackson into the ruck against Hickey. Oliver is wide of the contest again, probably 15 metres away from the centre circle. Harmes and Parker grapple on the wing side. Melksham on Florent covers the back of the stoppage. Hickey wins the tap down, but Harmes reads it off his hands and takes on Florent and beats him. He runs away with what would have been a perfectly clean clearance, but is pinged for running too far. He takes 11 steps from the point he receives the ball from Hickey's tap to when he kicks it. It felt like a nonsense call and it was. Analysis: When Harmes is on song he really gives us good ball winning ability and toughness through the middle. We should have won this clearance and didn't because of an umpire error. THIRD QUARTER 11) We're up 5.6 to 3.7. Max is back in there. Oliver is wing side closest to camera on Parker, but they're 10m off each other. Petracca and Mills are next to each other on the opposite wing side. Kozzie is defensive side of the stoppage again on Warner. This is a dangerous set up for Sydney. Max and Hickey come together. Oliver lets Parker go and is free directly to Max's right, whereas Parker gravitates towards defending the back of the stoppage (offensive side for us), which is where Max hits it with conviction, as if he expects Oliver to be there. Parker is there by himself and gets the handball to a spreading Mills, who again catches Petracca on his heels at the stoppage. Mills gets the clearing kick, but Petracca's closing speed means it's rushed and lacks penetration. We set up really well behind the ball. It doesn't actually get inside 50. It's probably 70m from goal inside the centre square. Hunt goes up for the spoil and Salem is front and centre, and gets the handball out to Langdon. It's essentially a clearance for us because Hunt, Salem and Langdon are so clean. Analysis: All three stoppages Kozzie has attended to this point in the game, he's been used defensive side of the contest. I presume they like his pace to defend if it gets out the back, and he could be a weapon bursting through the stoppage if the tap is appropriate or one of our other mids wins it. Again, we 'lose' the clearance, but it doesn't hurt us and we immediately win it back with Hunt, Salem and Langdon. 12) A similar set up again. Petracca covering defensive side of the contest in place of Kozzie. Max in the ruck again against Hickey. Oliver and Jordon on either wing side, but again Oliver is playing 5m off his opponent. Max just wins the tap straight down to Oliver, who snaps it on his left boot, but is smothered by Kennedy. The ball loops up and Petracca outmuscles Warner to get a penetrating but rushed snap kick inside 50, which is intercepted by Sydney. Analysis: This is a somewhat lucky clearance, but Petracca's strength enables him to fend off the defending Swan and get it moving forward. Harmes playing inside 50 can't prevent the Sydney defender from intercept marking. 13) Jackson is into the ruck this time against Hickey. Oliver covers the defensive side of the stoppage on Warner. Jordon is wing side and Petracca is wider of the opposite wing side. Hickey taps it down to himself and is tackled by Jackson, but manages to get a handball to Kennedy, who is tackled by Jordon and it is thrown out/spills out. Petracca bursts onto the loose ground ball and despite being tackled by Mills, has the strength to dish the handball wider to Oliver, whose really quick hands find Jackson in space, who in turn, handballs a risky one to Jordon given it's wet. JJ manages to be clean and gets a mongrel kick inside 50. Analysis: This is where the likes of Oliver and Petracca are really dangerous around stoppages. If the ball is loose on the ground, they gobble it up with their intensity and cleanness. They get it to the outside here and Jackson's quick thinking and JJ's cleanness allows a good inside 50. 14) Jackson is in there on Hickey. Oliver is well wide of the stoppage again, but defensive side. Harmes starts on Parker on the wing side. Petracca is on the offensive side and wider of the contest, but not as wide as Oliver. Jackson roves his own tap brilliantly, accelerates away from the contest and kicks on his left foot and gets it to the half forward flank. Analysis: Jackson is a weapon at stoppage. If he's not taking it out of the air, he's staying in the contest to defend or winning ground balls like a man half his size. The kid is a gem. His kick probably doesn't go deep enough and it goes on Spargo's head (not the guy whose head you want to be kicking it on), but Jordon gets over to make it a contest, before Jackson arrives with our mids. Great surge work rate. 15) Max is back into the ruck. Oliver is wing side of the contest. Melksham is defensive side of the stoppage and Harmes is goal side 15m from the centre circle. Max wins the tap down to Harmes who is tackled by Hickey. The ball slips out and it appears Hickey slings him to the ground without the ball, but play on. Kennedy tries to pick it up, but being pursued by Melksham, fumbles it into the path of Florent who has Oliver on his case, and can only kick it off the ground 40m to be marked by Hibberd. Analysis: Both of Melksham's CBAs have been defensive side of the contest, like Kozzie's. Given the score is the biggest margin of the match at this stage (22 points), it's an interesting time to go defensive - having Harmes and Melksham in there. But perhaps it's a pre planned rotation at say the 20 min mark of the quarter? Despite losing the clearance, all Sydney can manage is a rushed kick off the ground that is intercepted by one of our defenders. No damage done. 16) Max in again. Petracca has the defensive stoppage side. Oliver tighter on Parker on the wing side. Jordon on the opposite wing side. Hickey wins the tap down to Florent who can't gather, but instead Oliver's opponent Parker gets the ground ball and in the end a relatively simple clearance. It is not as shallow as the previous Sydney clearance, but it still only just makes it inside 50. Analysis: Oliver gambles a bit at this stoppage. If Jordon or Max win it, Oliver is on the outside to receive. Instead, Oliver ends up looking lazy and his opponent gets a relatively easy clearance. Fortunately, Franklin can't get there and May mops up. 17) Max, Oliver, Melksham and Petracca are at this stoppage. Oliver is at the defensive goal side of the stoppage. Melksham grapples on the wing side. Petracca plays the offensive side of the contest. Max knocks Hickey over and the ball finds itself in dispute on the ground. Hickey knocks/handballs it to the outside. Melksham gets sucked into Hickey on the ground, his opponent Mills reads it very quickly and is incredibly clean when Hickey knocks it into a bit of space. Rowbottom partly blocks Petracca out of it and Mills gets a handball to the outside again to Oliver's man Parker all by himself, who this time gets a deep inside 50. Oliver got caught trying to man Kennedy and left Parker. Analysis: This is a tough one to analyse. It seems that Oliver backs Petracca to impact the contest more, but Petracca is pushed out of it easily and Oliver doesn't cover Parker well enough. FOURTH QUARTER 18) Max starts against Hickey. Oliver covers the defensive side of the stoppage. Petracca the offensive side and Harmes the wing side. All mids start essentially on the outer centre square ring, so closer in tight to the rucks. Max wins the tap and taps it towards Oliver, but Hickey gets there first. The Swans mids spread and Hickey gives to Rowbottom flying past him and they get a really clean look at an inside 50. Probably for the first time in the match, but May leads Buddy to it. It's not a well directed kick and May is switched on. Analysis: We're lucky that they don't get an easy hit up here. Hickey wins the ball and gives by hand far too easily. Three of our guys get caught on the offensive side of the contest and three Swans burst into the space left by our mids. This is probably the poorest stoppage for the game and it starts the last quarter, when they were coming and only 10 points down. Off May's fist, our mids trail in, they surge it forward and Gus probably coughs up that easy goal to Sinclair. Not a good start. Like most of our guys weren't switched on here. 19) Max, Harmes, Petracca and Oliver again. Petracca (offensive side) and Oliver (wing side) are both very wide and Harmes is closer to Max, defensive side of the contest. Hickey and Max both neutralise each other, but the ball squirts out towards our forward half. Oliver and Parker chase after it. Parker gets a speculative kick off the ground, which goes out to centre wing, where Gus picks it up and kicks it on the full. Analysis: Not a good start to the quarter for Gus. He coughed up that first goal and then ends the stoppage play by kicking it on the full and giving the ball back. Again though, not a clean clearance for Sydney, which meant we could get it going our way quickly. 20) Jackson into the ruck for the first time since the middle part of the third term. Up against Hickey still. Harmes stands defensive side of the stoppage. Petracca is on the wing side and Oliver offensive side. There's 15m between each 1v1 contest. Jackson wins the tap. Ball is in dispute. Jackson is about to pick up the ground ball when Harmes does it first and handballs instead to Florent. Harmes goes after him and the ball spills, and Harmes, Warner and Oliver end up holding it up for a ball up. Analysis: This is an example of where the synergy isn't quite there yet with the mids and in particular a returning James Harmes. They just get in the way of each other and then make a poor choice, but manage through second efforts, to lock up the contest and ensure we don't get hurt by it. 21) Max back in the ruck against Sinclair. Harmes at the offensive side of the contest. Oliver on the defensive side with Parker and Mills and Petracca on the wing side. Gawn and Sinclair halve the tap. Oliver lets Parker run and Parker wins the clearance before Oliver can stop him. Parker's kick is a little impacted by Oliver's shove, but it's a big clearance given we're 9.6.60 and they're 8.9.57 with 11.52 left on the clock. Rivers and Hibberd do really well to pressure their Swans opponents inside 50 and then Petracca and Oliver get back really well and Oliver atones for his error with a clean pick up and clearing kick that goes down the throat of Fritsch in the middle of the ground. Analysis: Oliver needs to play the percentages here and play tighter on Parker. It's a big moment in the match. Momentum is going their way, Parker is dominating and Oliver gambles on us winning and leaves Parker free on our defensive side of the contest. It's a bad play. Probably Clarry's worst moment for the night, in what was an otherwise superb performance. 22) Jackson against Hickey. Jordon manning the defensive side of the contest. Harmes on the wing side. Oliver on the offensive side 15m from the centre circle. Hickey takes it out of the ruck and gets a 15m kick forward. Rivers does well again to get the ball going back our way and then our mids push back to help out, but Sydney cause another spillage and Rivers comes through again inspirationally and clears it on his left foot. Analysis: Perhaps a little bit of inexperience with Jackson? Hickey has tried to take it out of the ruck a couple of times. We need to be awake to this, particularly at such an important moment in the match - 10 points up, 7.25 to play. What this game showed is I think our mids are prepared to gamble a bit more at centre stoppage, because they know that as long as the opposition are only getting rushed clearances that aren't deep, our defenders should be able to deal with these. With this in mind, we often left space for our mids to explode into the offensive side of the contest. It didn't work too often, but with more synergy with Max, it could be extremely dangerous. What we found in this particular game though was Sydney's mids often exploited that space instead. However, what this meant was that rather than having a 35m kick to get it inside 50, they'd have to have a 50+ metre kick under pressure to get it inside 50, as they'd be kicking from our offensive side of the contest. Often their clearances were shallow as a result. There's no doubt Petracca is a weapon offensively from centre stoppages, but is still a bit of a liability defensively. He does seem to get caught ball watching a bit. This is something that happened at times last year too when he went into the middle. If we had momentum against us and we were trying to defend stoppage, Petracca wasn't always our strongest defender in there. Oliver can lose his man a bit too, but I guess this just shows what concentration is required to play the majority of centre bounces for the match. This is where having a Viney to go with Harmes will give Petracca and Oliver more rests, so that when they go into the middle, they're completely switched on. It might even be worth running Brayshaw through there a bit more. Given this point, I wonder if some of our sloppy centre stoppage work can be forgiven due to the lack of midfield rotations? But we're going to have to tidy this up, either through more rotations or by going more defensively in our set ups. There is also a trend at the start of quarters (see the first, third and the last) of our guys ball watching or not being entirely switched on. I think this is contributing to our slow starts, where we put our defenders under early pressure and hand the opposition early momentum. It'll be interesting to see whether our stoppage work improves when Viney returns to play the more defensive orientated midfield role. This is a role I think Harmes can play really well for us too. We just need some more rotations through there IMO. A little side note that I'm note sure is worth much, but I noted something I've never seen before last night. Langdon playing the MCC wing side occasionally. Can't say what the thinking would be here, but there you go.

Oliver and McDonald were our two best players, but our system is so bloody strong. We ground out that win in a very Sydneyesque way. Jackson in the ruck and around stoppages was so important. I thought Max was dreadful again at the game and I presume he's carrying something, but watching on replay, he was better around the ground than I gave him credit for, but Hickey beat him for the majority of the match and Max's tap work is nowhere. Oliver, Jackson and Jordon are three of the cleanest players under pressure in a Melbourne jumper I've ever seen. Clarry has been a one touch footballer since his first game, but Jackson and Oliver are so impressive. May played a great game on Buddy and I thought after a poorish kick under no pressure to McDonald early in the game that cost us, Petty was very good. Was beaten in a contest or two, but deep back he looked solid and his intercept game will grow with more continuity back there. Petracca had a nearly night. Tried to take the game on as he does, but it just didn't quite work. Hibberd will brilliant on Papley, McDonald and Brown worked really well in tandem. Tom seemed to be playing much higher this week and then doubling back inside 50 (see his first goal). Fritsch was appalling and played like he was guilty he'd gotten away with one at the tribunal midweek. He wasn't being tagged or blocked by Rampe, he was just really ordinary. He didn't look fit to me and put in multiple soft efforts at the contest and failed to cover in the system a few times. This is another game I expected us to lose, but it was one of the sweetest wins of the year. If we bring our pressure and move the ball like we have done, we'll genuinely strangle any opposition in the competition and get them going the other way. Our centre stoppage set up really needs work. We've invented a system that allows us to win when we lose clearance, but if we could just get our clearance work functioning better, we'll blow sides off the park. Brown's height will worry a lot of teams this year, while at the other end, Hibbo's resurgence will give us a great mid sized defender to cover the Gary Rohan/Fritsch third tall/medium. We're playing football that will stack up on the big stage. We just need to.remain healthy and tidy up a few areas of our game. Mainly our starts and our clearance work. Thrilled to be 8-0, but now worried about losing to Carlton. They match up well against us, but if we bring our system and physicality, we'll get them.

Yeah, I won't care. Richmond had all the luck going their way in 2017 and didn't have an injury until 2018. I notice all the tipsters on the AFL website, except one, tipped us. So I don't think it will be used as an excuse.

If what @Engorged Onion wrote is true, they should have been Carltoned and denied access to 2 or 3 drafts. Imagine how that would have gone with Daicos having to play for another club. So they are due to be in the wilderness like Carlton have been for 15 years.

Yeah, this'll be interesting. You'd imagine this would have to impact the players. Possibly in a good way, but far more likely in a negative way. Limited line coaches. I wonder how many staff travel interstate. Do medical staff and water people tend to travel or are locals employed?

Tom Morris said tonight on FOX that Guy asked to resign after trade week last year, but will stay until the end of the mid season draft. It doesn't really make sense to me and sounds like Collingwood are continuing the spin.

I remember you started as old on here with the bunny in the snow profile pic. Spunjy makes sense for Bob given the current profile pic.

Is this inside knowledge or your read on things mate? I doubt very much they'll be moving him on if he continues to play like he has. Weideman is the guy that needs to step up now.

Our development was terrible during that time and our drafting was just as bad. Schwab was the one that should have gone, but not sure Bailey was the right guy anyway. Our board and wider football club was a shambles though and it took outsiders in PJ, Bartlett and Roos, and now Goodwin to fix it.

Eddie really said that? Did anyone bring up Grundy when he said this?

I'm sorry @george_on_the_outer. Thank you to you too.

The reason we went and got Brown was not because we didn't believe in Weideman. We wanted support for Sam, yes, but we went and got Brown because McDonald's form fell off a cliff and we no longer believed in Tom. Tom's turnaround in form has given us a great problem to have. I'd be keeping Tom until the end of his contract and I'd hope he'd be a one club player now, with smaller shorter contracts from here on out.

With a bit of luck, DeGoey will be in prison soon enough. Wouldn't go near the alleged rapist. Scum.