Adam The God

I reckon he did 2 or 3 times and just beat Hawkins hands down. It was quite an incredible display, but I agree on playing Petty on Hawkins and trying to play off him by 5m, so there's little engagement in a strength battle. I think it was FIRST CRACK that talked about this about 5-7 weeks ago. The way you play Hawkins is you zone off him a bit and try and arrive slightly behind the play, but close enough to intercept or spoil. Easier said than done of course, but if the pressure up the field means the delivery to Hawkins is rushed, this strategy becomes much easier.

St Kilda have modelled themselves on Melbourne in the second half of the year, I reckon. They've nicked our set up behind the ball and place a greater emphasis on post clearance pressure and around the ground clearances, and ground ball gets. It was a similar sort of match tonight to our game against Sydney, in that the Swans were monstering the centre clearances, but St Kilda were intercepting those shallow rushed kicks that barely penetrated 50. Parker is a major offender at those rushed, nothing clearances that get intercepted. He was an offender against us too. For me he's a vastly overrated player. He's good, but not clever or particularly skilled. Certainly wouldn't provide us anything different to what we already have if we were to go after him. It also makes you wonder if Sydney are simply happy to take territory off winning the centre clearances, rather than have quality of clearance first and foremost. We're the opposite. We'd much prefer to get the most damaging centre clearance possible or put enough pressure on the opposition with their clearance so we can intercept. It's a different story with our approach to around the ground clearances of course, where we're quite happy to take territory. I thought St Kilda also exposed their lack of pressure forwards by rebounding with extreme pace off half back. They cut Sydney to ribbons, and stretched them out of shape with angled, wide, excellent ball use, and looked for thst corridor kick almost every time. They're a good team to watch, St Kilda, when they get going.

I'd prefer Weideman than some speculative KPF, yes.

We won't be sending Petty forward, so unless we can effectively replace Sam with another KPF under 25, it does potentially destabilise our long term list build. It also undercuts any forward depth we've had this year, which has been handy. I think we hold onto him unless we can win the flag and attract a Ben King type.

On the flip side of Taylor's brilliant game, Kreuger played one of the worst games of footy you'll see. That game would have made Isaac Weetra blush. He's a key defender in a top 4 team?

And... loving it.

This aged well. He murdered Hawkins in the last. And players always seem to get shiners playing on Hawkins...

How good has Taylor been on Hawkins? He's a nice kick too. You'd expect Hawkins to have most in the contest but Taylor has beaten him a number of times and taken multiple important intercept marks.

For a much lauded defence, Geelong have conceded a lot of goals out the back tonight.

How bloody good is GWS' ball use by foot? There has to be a player or two that'd be gettable there. That said, we now have Salem, Rivers and Bowey who are all good by foot off half back and May is a reasonable kick, while Lever and Petty are reliable kicks. Still, we have no one whose kicking can break the game open, whereas I reckon GWS have 3 or 4.

What are your thoughts @Nasher?

Yeah, different times though. That was 2017. This is 2021 and he just needs to play a role. As for Viney and Harmes, they had me pulling my hair out yesterday, but despite their constant holding the balls, I think they're both building to something. Further, they're allowing JJ some rest from the batter of defensive mid that he played so well earlier in the season. If Viney and Harmes get their decision making right, they, along with JJ, compliment the offensive ball winning ability of Oliver and Petracca. Our midfield has better defensive cover than either of the Bulldogs or Geelong IMO. The Bulldogs are almost all offence, except Libba. In the clinches, this could prove telling come finals. There's no doubt Jack and James have to tidy up their ball use, but they still have the next 3 weeks to sort that. And FFS play Jack majority forward.

I notice some are mentioning Salem might be a little sore. I'd look at Melksham playing that half back quarterback role. Obviously started as a half back in his early career, so if Christian is sore, no experience or foot skills lost there...

I'm intrigued by your news channel mate. From memory, you were also anti Bartlett towards the end. What's the goss?

So presumably we're kicking in somewhere between $250k-400k. That's a good result for a redevelopment and leaves us cash rich to backstop the 2020-2021 financial hits to revenue.

Is this clumsy from Browne guessing that the funding is coming from the pokies sale? Surely it's co-funding with the State Government and our cash generated from the pokies sale...

Thought we looked tired at certain times in the second half and our mids seemed to drop away in the last. Good to really put the foot down though. Bloody good time to be doing it. Need to do the same again to West Coast and Adelaide.

Not a player out there worth a game in the AFL.

No. He never gets on the park.

Such a loyal bloke. We don’t know him. He'll see out his contract. The little bloke is all bluster.

Alastair Clarkson's Curse? ? One can only hope.

We shouldn't rest them all at once. I'd say they'll rest a few more next week.

Isn't this an oxymoron? They're depth for a reason.

Look at this play. Viney shakes off Williams and then Cordy a key position player, and then has the vision to see Kozzy and kicks it very deliberately out to the space in front of Kozzy. It's a brilliant piece of play. https://www.instagram.com/p/CRxhF0lHWPd/?utm_medium=copy_link

I've watched Viney carefully at stoppages for essentially the last year, since @Axis of Bob wrote that brilliant post about our stoppage set ups and Viney'sdefensive importance to them, but at this stage I just have to completely disagree. He ball chases. He doesn't trust his team mates to tackle and our midfield is noticeably unbalanced when he's in there. I'd even argue our dip in form as a team has coincided with his return. That's a loads things, but his return has also totally ruined whatever midfield synergy we'd developed over so many successful weeks. I'd take a fresh JJ over Viney as defensive midfielder just about every day of the week. JJ is a brilliant tackler, but is also beautifully clean below his feet and makes good decisions by hand and foot. He also stays within his wheelhouse and doesn't play hero. Viney forward on the other hand, I believe, is a completely different proposition. He overpowers small to medium defenders, even key position players at ground level, and makes good decisions, and his kicking shortcomings (mostly penetration) aren't an issue when he plays high half forward and deep forward 50. I wouldn't rule Jack out of the midfield necessarily in a final, particularly in bursts, but during the regular season I think he can add much more pressure to our forward half (to compliment Kozzy) without creating this bees to the honeypot effect in the midfield and leaving us exposed going the other way. Anyway, each to their own and I can't see them playing Viney permanent forward, but he and we IMO looked a lot better earlier in the season when he was playing more forward than constantly on the ball.