Adam The God

Not sure I agree with this. I think if we're being honest he's struggled this year.

I'm an MCC member, so I donate essentially $80 odd every year to the club to have a MFC/MCC membership. With the little fella on the way I might buy an extra membership for him, but it really depends on the MCC costs. They are exorbitant. With a Depression on the way next year, it might have to be a wait and see prospect on the second membership.

I'd be going Ben King, not Cameron.

We may well get to 100,000 members next year. ?

Fair enough. I don't think Jack is as good as people think and that losing him won't hinder us in the mid to long term.

Which bit do you disagree with? :)

I'm slightly circumspect on Saad's kicking and his defensive abilities, but if Essendon traded him for an injured Tom McDonald and our pick 22, that would be hilarious. He'd slot straight in off half back and Tom McDonald would slot straight in to Daniher's rehab group.

I'd much prefer we focus on tying Oliver and Petracca to long term deals than potentially sacrifice one of them for De Goey.

I'm fine with the approach of giving ideas room to grow, but Fritsch was Tom McDonald-like with turn overs at half back. I think it also ironically made him softer at the contest. Sure, he would show courage and go back with the flight occasionally, but he was often used as an interceptor/spare, thus not often tackling. This has transferred to Fritsch's game in the forward half IMV and stats would bare this out. That's not necessarily Goodwin's fault, but there's a bit to be said for not stuffing around with dynamics of inexperienced players. Fritsch had just started at AFL level and played as a forward at the top of 2018, all of a sudden he was playing off half back at the back end of 2018. That doesn't give him a chance to build the fundamentals in his game. Brayshaw should have been playing in the middle and not on the wing earlier in the year and Jack should have gone forward. A win win solution. It was rarely, if ever, tried. Then there's Harmes not attending stoppages at all, but playing defensive roles off the back of the square. I wasn't necessarily against this idea at first, but when it was clear our midfield balance was out of whack, Harmes should have been interjected at the very least as a shake up option. As soon as he goes in there in the last quarter against Sydney, he almost single-handedly turns the game. Bad call again. As for the Jones move, I don't have a problem with that move, but it should have been essentially the mirror move of Jack. Play both of those guys across half forward. But we persisted with Jack in the middle and then played him in a defensive role against St Kilda when we'd refused to use this sort of role player all year. Too many poor moves. And when I say pigeon-holed, I don't necessarily mean for the rest of their careers, but clearly Harmes was not used at all in the midfield this year. I agree with the idea that we're still not in the sweet spot RE age/experience or have enough experience/leadership, but I'd compare Jack with Frost. People kept saying how good Frost was and that he still had some learning to do, well, he was 26, the same age as Jack, and still hadn't changed the way he played sufficiently enough. Jack still has the same persistent issues in his game and at 26, it's time to cut our losses.

Hopefully Smith and McDonald will follow Frost. It's time to get Petty back there and invest in the trade market for another KPD IMO.

Potentially.

ie we want him, have offered him a contract, but it's up to him. If anything, he's not putting pressure on Jack, simply saying he'll make the right decision.

Even if Harmes was told he wouldn't be playing in the midfield, look at that last quarter against Sydney. He was most certainly thrown into the middle. And I think this is apart of what needs to change about Goodwin. Being flexible on positions and players. Don't pigeon hole them. It's very ordinary coaching and leadership IMV. Clearly, he pigeon holed Fritsch as a back and Harmes as a back. Both moves were ultimate failures IMO. I don't think we're robbing anything. If Jack goes I'd hope we're able to replace his attack on the ball and toughness around contest, otherwise we may as well pack up shop. The others will provide more consistent, clean take away from stoppage than Jack.

FWIW, I still rate our current development team. It's more the senior side not having a locked in game style that exploits all its available resources, that is the problem IMV.

Really pleased to see Jason getting the credit he deserves. We need to be strategic with our trading and FA this off season to fill some key holes (such as another winger and an x factor goal kicking small forward), but every time Taylor has a second round pick, I'm confident he'll nab us a good player. It's a brilliant feeling given our past recruiting woes. This off season might be a little trickier given there's less exposed form at TAC level to look at though.

Not in my opinion. It will happen because removing Jack from stoppages where he regularly fights over the same ball as his team mates, fails to take the first option and tries to barrel the ball forward at whatever cost, means there will be a predictability to our ball movement from stoppage, but an unpredictability on what happens in stoppage (ie Jack won't fight over the ball and then get tackled). The midfield needs to work far better together. Oliver and Petracca have shown they can do this. Harmes, Brayshaw and Oliver have shown they can play together as a cohesive and balanced midfield that can defend and strongly attack. I don't think we need Jack and we don't need to replace what he brings to our midfield.

Interesting mate. Do you mean he's gettable because you've heard or you're putting it out there as an idea? Would love Tom. Not sure how we'll go with that.

I don't rate his approach and I don't rate his intelligence. I think we have two of the best midfielders we've had in my 33 years in Oliver and Petracca, and we shouldn't be worried IMV about who runs through there with them. I also think Harmes and Brayshaw are legitimate and complimenting mids to Clarry and Trac. I think we need to sort out defensive transition, ball use out of the middle, add an extra runner to compliment Langdon and work out what the hell we're doing with our forwardline. Having Jackson alongside Weideman will give us more mobility and having Petty fit gives us a swing man that either goes forward or goes back, enabling Tomlinson to shift up onto a wing if needed. I think our stoppage set ups have become worse as the year has gone on. I think we need a new midfield coach to get some fresh eyes on these set ups and identify the best midfield mix. I reckon we've offered him a contract, but he doesn't like the figure, but I can only speculate. I reckon we've offered him what we think is reasonable for a player of his limited abilities and are resigned to the fact that if he thinks he's better than our offer, we need to let him go.

I think we've shown in the last 2-3 games we want a different mix in there with ANB and Melksham in there as well. I'd say Oliver and/or Petracca are the first possession mid. Harmes or Melksham as the defensive mid. Brayshaw and ANB as outside mids, if we want to be crude about it, although I think ANB would play a more defensive role too. AVB is probably in there, yeah. I think we need to look at how the likes of Geelong set up. They have Dangerfield and Selwood as the Oliver and Petracca comparison and then a defensive minded player and often another runner in there like an ANB. I don't rate Sparrow, but he'll certainly be played there, as will Jordon. It's clear to me this is all about getting a different mix, so we can still defend, but our offence isn't hampered by 2 or 3 guys going for the same ball. Oliver and Petracca have a really good understanding between them and are both clean below their knees. They rarely get in each other's way, whereas Jack gets in both of their ways. If Jack ends up staying we'll definitely find a spot for him, but we'll manage without him and have a greater chance IMV to develop a bit more controlled (from our end) unpredictability to our stoppage set ups.

I've been surprised by his goal sense over the last two years. He's one of our only forwards with genuine goal sense. I suspect it's forward or bust.

Greater efficiency and balance from stoppage and contest.

Just have to keep them together mate. Number one priority. Add Harmes and Brayshaw and there's a bit of diversity in that mix, alongside Langdon's gut-running.

He continuously failed to provide a contest against Sydney and Fremantle. The team defence against him in the Freo game was not as good as it was against Sydney and he still failed to bring the ball to ground. I think he's had a good year for a young key position forward, but he's been very poor and a deadset liability the last three games IMV. If we're to beat Essendon, he needs to be a lot stronger. For a guy his size, with a few pre seasons under his belt now, he gets outmuscled far too easily.

I thought we played the more aggressive territory press tonight, but their goals in transition were so simple. If you look at the goals they actually score, most of them I felt were weak goals to give up. Either from our completely unforced errors or a lack of two way running. Was this because they moved the ball to fast for our defensive mechanisms to have a chance to react or were our forwards and mids too slow to get back and cover? I think we got some quite easy goals going back the other way, because I felt GWS didn't defend particularly well either. Shoot outs are often about leaky, poor defensive, one-way running teams. I'd characterise both teams' performance tonight as that. I didn't feel like GWS came in to try and stop us from playing how we wanted to play. They were happy for us to play that way and felt they'd eventually come over the top as they did. When Weideman's not marking the ball or bringing it to ground we desperately struggle. We did manage to stop them from slingshotting back the other way when he failed to compete, but he didn't look like marking it all night. Our forward structure breaks down when he's not providing an adequate contest. I think Essendon will let us play the way we want to next week and we'll probably let them play the way they want to, so we'll probably have another shoot out. St Kilda could still fall out of the 8, which would be fascinating.

So impressed by this kid. A real Jason Taylor special. Well done, Melbourne. He reminds me quite a bit of Zac Williams, which is ironic given some want us to go after Williams.