Adam The God

Brown was very ordinary for most of the match. Won't be unlucky to be dropped. We need more.

The only error McDonald made all day was an easy kick out of defence to Gus. He missed him and kicked it on the full. For whatever reasons he's a dreadful kick in the back half. Playing Tom back would be a nightmare waiting to happen. Richmond would take him to the cleaners. I'd bring in Fritsch and look at dropping Brown or ANB. I felt ANB was one of our weakest. I'm watching the replay right now and he's was terrible in the first quarter.

That's fine. Goodwin is no longer under pressure. There's no conflict in his current story. Buckley on the other hand... the press always goes the negative narrative.

Totally. That incredible stat from last week that said he'd only lost one 1v1 since Round 10 last year is amazing. Salem improved as the game wore on, but missed so many easy targets early on in the game. Perhaps I was a little harsh on Salem though...

I thought Rivers' first quarter was dreadful. Really improved after that though. IMO, Max nailing the goal from outside 50.

Where are all those muppets that kept saying we'd made a mistake in that trade? Some people just have no idea. A bit like a few of those Hawks muppets sitting around us today. And yes, Lever was brilliant down back. Tomlinson is playing such an important role there to allow Lever the second or third best tall/enables him to play his intercept game.

Nope. We were comfortably outnumbered. Gus is proving a pretty good wing partner the last few weeks too.

Oh, and I should say, there isn't a team I enjoy beating more than Hawthorn. You should have heard the arrogance of their supporters prior to the game, and you probably did. Meanwhile, the wife was at home with the 5-zip boy waiting for an opportunity to turn him to her Hawks and we gave her nothing. You beauty.

I thought Hawthorn's outnumber at the stoppage and our extra behind the ball hurt us early in the game. I'm looking forward to watching the replay to see if we changed things up after half time, but I'm pretty sure we kept the status quo there. Really impressed that we put them away like that in the last. Max's goal kicking gives me the [censored], but that was a beautiful kick from outside 50, but around the ground he was simply superb. His contested marking was absolutely elite and McEvoy just couldn't go with him. I've been saying all year that our poor kicking for goal is going to cost us. We should have been 4 or 5 goals up by half time and certainly by three quarter time. We kick like that next week and we're no chance against Richmond. We must nail those regulation shots from straight in front. The pleasing thing is that we're generating so many of these shots and our poor kicking for goal has only cost us percentage so far. Felt our forward half pressure was absent in at least the first quarter, but we slowly lifted our work rate after that. Petty took a while to gel with Tommo, Lever and Hibbo back there, but after a really good spoil and then an excellent contested mark, he mostly held his own. Needs to be stronger in the 1v1s, but didn't look too vulnerable up the ground against a lead. I worry about Riewoldt or Lynch's smarts on him next week though. I don't think it's fair to say we only played a quarter. We failed to capitalise on our dominance in the second and third quarters, but did just enough. I did wonder at quarter time where our goals were going to come from, but we seem to be able to generate big scores simply on slingshot, with run and carry. Max and Jackson are important for this as when we have nothing short, those two at least halve the contest inside 50 and give us a look at a score or a stoppage. Langdon, Hunt, Hibbo, Gus and even Jordon really give us good spread from the contest and dynamism with their willingness to take on the game. Another solid performance from Hunt, which is noticeable. Jordon got a bit more of it this week and Hibbo gave us really good run early when we were struggling to work hard enough to provide options for the switch - he'd simply break the lines. Salem's disposal by hand and foot was dreadful for most of the day. He's got to do better given these are uncontested possessions he's getting. ANB struggled too. His position might be in trouble from Bedford. That said, he did have 7 inside 50s (equal second most on the ground), so maybe not. Brown and Melksham mostly did their jobs, but Weideman or BB will make way for Mitch. I would give Tom McDonald the three votes today, just narrowly edging out Max. He may not be hitting the scoreboard as much as he did in 2018, but his work rate, willingness to get to contests, impact them and often take the mark is vital for the way we're playing. He really deserves huge kudos for the professional way he's approaching 2021. Well done, Tom. I thought you were gone. Keep playing like this and you're a keeper. Selection next week will be fascinating. And brilliant to be going in 5-0 to ANZAC Day Eve on the big stage. Cannot wait. Don't hold much hope for victory, but if Petty can play with more assurance and we nail all our gettable shots on goal I give us a chance. Edit. Also, the AFL app says Petty is injured. Any news there?

Yep. And the better we are this year, the more likely we are to lure these sort of players on lesser dollars. Go deep and some of our current stars will take less too. Hawthorn and Geelong have shown this.

And they barely played...

Hawthorn have had some dreadful recruiting in the last 4 or 5 years.

The Libs are hated at the moment in WA. The boos he got when on-screen were noticeable.

This is incredibly surprising. I've never felt it's a particularly strong area of Tom's game the tackles, but that's brilliant. He'll keep his spot if he creates a contest in the area and tackles on the ground to prevent easy exits.

If we thought Fritsch's inaccuracy was going to cost us, we can't be relying on one of the worst kicks in the league to kick us a winning score, it's unsustainable. We might get lucky one week, but Max is just a terribly inaccurate kick.

Yep, think they'll smash us. We might have them in the midfield. That'd be it.

I'd love to know the win loss record in royal blue since its return. I'd suggest it's very very high.

Is Lewy still at the club in the part time role or has that position been cut now due to austerity measures? Let's be very clear here. None of us have any idea whether Goodwin has been stubborn at all. If you think back to some of his assistants (Jennings, McCartney etc), it's clear he let them have quite a lot of input to game style and ideas. It may well be a bit of a Demonland urban legend that Goodwin doesn't listen. The coaches who were jettisoned may well have been jettisoned against Goodwin's wishes. We won't likely ever know.

Langdon's ability to get it so consistently on the outside also means opposition midfield's have to be very wary of outnumbering the inside of the contest (which we often let them do), otherwise they could leave themselves open to being burnt on the outside by the likes of Langdon or Hunt. Their combined speed is a very handy weapon to have and not many teams have two of them. This means though that our inside mids have more width to work with at stoppage, so I'll join the love in chorus for Ed. He's a star. He really is. I thought he was great last year too.

To be fair to Clarry, he started like a house on fire against Geelong. He and Trac were involved in lots of early touches. IMO it actually set the tone of the game.

Sorry, again, selfless means not trying to be a hero with your possessions. It may mean playing within your own limits. Jack seems to be doing this better now, but previously, he's resembled a rugby league players attempting to take on 15 tacklers instead of taking the right option. Jack seems to be maturing and understanding that rugby Jack is a selfish way to play and doesn't help our midfield. All of our mids have clearly had to learn how to function better together.

Good post mate. As for your question about Harmes, yeah, I'd have him ahead of Tom Sparrow and/or James Jordon, because he offers the flexibility to play pressure forward or tagger or inside mid. The coaches seem to be able to get the most out of our guys at the moment. I think Harmes will be the same.

Love him. Well done, Clarry.

I should say despite going back on the trade Jack train, I was certainly one of the posters saying he needed to be utilised between half forward as a tackler and rolling through the midfield, so that's at least something. :P

I want to put my hand up and say I was wrong about this. I haven't gone back over the thread to see, but I'm pretty sure I was one of the voices to trade Jack. It turns out he needed a bit more maturity and better coaching. The midfield is working a treat this year. There definitely seems to be a selflessness emanating through the midfield group and Jack seems to be trying to keep things simple. If he does the simple things well he's a very good player. I'm glad. And sorry, Jack.