Adam The God

I hope not. Tom is finished. Tomlinson needs to play ruck here. We don't need three defensive talls against North.

I bloody hope not. Gus needs to play the majority of the game in the midfield, not on a wing. I'd play Sparrow at half forward and use him sparingly in the midfield rotation where needed. If the FD see Sparrow as ahead of Gus, we may as well pack it in.

I'm not sure we necessarily have to change it up too much. For the first quarter, I'd be going long to Jackson and/or Tomlinson, unless a free option presents itself up the ground. If Goldstein and their team take too many intercept marks and stifle our play, we change our strategy, otherwise I don't necessarily think no Gawn = game plan change.

I think sometimes a lack of options or a necessity to change, frees up players. Could be the go here

Any time, anywhere. That should be our mantra. The Bulldogs won a flag with system based play. We follow a similar model. If we have injuries, another soldier steps up and plays their role. We have significant A grade midfield depth IMV and that's where we can get on top here.

Tomlinson is a decent contested mark and good outlet from defence too, as we saw at times last week. I reckon it makes us more unpredictable. It might also mean we have to either use May's long kicking to get it as close to centre wing as possible and let Jackson and co bring it ground, or we look for shorter passes and then if we get a look at the corridor, use it swiftly to our mid sized players.

FMD, you're a sook.

Great post mate. Reckon we can sacrifice the third defensive tall (particularly with no Brown) and play Tomlinson in the ruck all day and use his aerobic power. See if he can rebound off Goldstein too. I'm excited to see how we plan this.

Come off it mate. You mean like North declaring Brown wouldn't play yesterday? The teams are announced in less than an hour.

Reckon it will be, unless Jones captains...

I'm excited by what our midfield group can achieve without Max and Viney. I think we'll be pleasantly surprised. Oliver, Gus and Petracca/Harmes. ?

Well done, young man. Star in the making, but gee it's a ridiculous award.

I reckon we need to play Rivers, Lockhart and Salem in the back half with Hibbo, May, Lever and third tall (seems to be Tomlinson at the moment). I agree it'd be good to be able to play Salem up forward and wing, but I don't think either are his go. So Jones makes way for Rivers IMO. The forward mix should be Weideman, Jackson, Fritsch, Melksham with Kozzie, Viney, Harmes and back ups like Hannan and AVB. The main midfield mix is Oliver, Gus and Petracca with Langdon, Harmes, AVB and Tomlinson on the wings. Viney with bursts in the main midfield too. That's 21 with Gawn. I'd look at bringing in another pressure forward. But this last position could be pressure forward or an additional wingman. Ideally, I'd have Petty or Omac playing Tomlinson's defensive position and use Tomlinson as another winger. I don't think we're a mile away from being able to play this set up. Whether we do, that's another thing.

I'm talking about the wing. I wouldn't have Oliver, Petracca, Gus or Viney playing wing, but I'd have Harmes.

That is incredibly sad. He was an absolute jet playing midfield and forward. He needs to go forward as a pressure and marking forward alongside Viney. I'd give him some wing minutes in bursts too. I know he played some half back when he first started, but stop playing him behind the ball when we know what he can do from midfield and resting forward. Absolute waste.

It'll be interesting to see. It certainly applies to our ability to score, but that's because IMV he gets in the way if Weideman and Jackson. Who's North's Weideman and Jackson combo?

Fair enough. I thought he struggled to find the ball until he moved back behind it. But we'll see.

And play him where? At half forward or on a wing? I don't see it. He's not great above his head. I agree that his dinky kicks might be okay going inside 50, but I think getting it in his hands is the harder part across half forward.

Interesting no Brown for them, so it'll be intriguing to see whether they'll be able to kick a score.

The thing about bottle episodes is they're often divisive. People either love them or hate them. I have a bunch of friends that hate that ep of Seinfeld and hate the Breaking Bad episode of the 'Fly' (another bottle).

Yup, 'The Suitcase' is a bottle. Breaking Bad had some incredible bottle episodes and many of its early episodes verged on bottles, because of the lower AMC budgets, but as the show went on, it got more expansive. One of the best bottle episodes ever written IMO is an episode of Homicide: Life On The Street, titled 'Three Men and Adena'. Fontana is a bloody brilliant writer, who created and wrote Oz too. He won an Emmy for this episode that was also directed by New Zealand director Martin Campbell, better known for directing Edge of Darkness in the 80s, GoldenEye and Casino Royale. It's an episode where the detectives interrogate a suspect for the entire episode. If you get some time, it's totally worth it. Genius.

I've done a bunch of Googling and they still say he's unidentified.

The term is a bottle episode. Some of the best episodes ever written were bottles.

Who was he?

I really love how Lockhart's settled into this role, so maybe in time, Sparrow could play there too, along with the likes of Jordon too.