Adam The God

Comparing leaders is a difficult one for me, because leadership can vary so much, even on and off a football field. I think both are terrific captains. Neita led the way with his physicality but his inconsistent goal kicking (you knew if Neita was on or off by his first kick at goal) meant that it compromised some of his leadership ability. But loved him as a player. Whereas, Gary, I loved him too and the thing that would let him down was his body, particularly later on, but the way he got around players and impacted passages of play and kicked straight, put him just ahead of Neita for mine. I always remember how he would almost father the Wiz and to my mind, when Gaz retired, Wiz was always going to go home. Gary had a way with those around him that seemed to foster belief and family. I can see why you would say Neita was a better leader, but I don't think it's as clear cut as "if you can't see that I cannot help you". But that's just me.

It's very different nowadays to what it was. Most kids coming through TAC find themselves at APS private schools.

I'd take the consistent extractor before I'd take the explosive burst, x-factor player, but that's just me. I think great midfields need both and it's great having both on our side.

6 it is then. Struggling to keep up with things in such a strange year.

I reckon some supporters massively underrate Clarry. IMO, they don't realise what he's done for a guy his age is extraordinary.

Disagree with this mate. Trac had a solid season last year, but was still behind Oliver's output and then has played, what, 7 H&A games this year? I agree that Trac has probably had a marginally better season (off a very small sample size) than Clarry, but this seems way too early to call. I think the fairer statement, IMO, would be that Petracca has had a better 7 games than Oliver. But what holds Oliver so far above anyone else except Gawn is his consistency.

Voss definitely said it too. Not sure about Roosy, but Voss did. Not the greatest of sources but... https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/next-powerhouse.736782/

I think it's on the players now and a combination of coaching and sporting luck.

Yep, utterly dominant. What's so incredibly rare is that almost everything Petracca touched was sublime as well. The strongest two hander from Melbourne players I can recall for a long time. And half my family is Geelong and I don't know how many times we've been down to Geelong and watched us [censored] on. That day was very, very sweet and I was hoarse by the end of it.

In my life time (33 years), it's certainly the strongest midfield group we've had. Oliver's the best player in a Melbourne jumper I've seen and certainly the best midfielder by quite a stretch. But now that Trac has come along, in tandem with a ruckman that has already been crowned AA three times, this team certainly has the greatest spread of potential and talent that we've had through the club in 30 years. That definitely speaks volumes for our lack of success over that time, given this group have not made a Grand Final yet, let alone won one, but the overall list and in particular our mids, are starting to enter the prime of their careers (age and experience wise). Let's hope Goodwin and co can get the potential out of them like they have the last two rounds. We definitely need more pace forward of centre and more elite ball use forward of centre, but Melksham and Fritsch could hold the keys there. But I agree with SWYL on this occasion, in regards to actually achieving something. It's all well and good to have potential (which to be fair is what you're talking about in the OP), but it's converting that potential to the ultimate success of a flag that's what counts. This is absolutely the next challenge and what separates the pretenders from the powerhouses. Exactly. Our current midfield walks into both of those sides, IMO. Great post.

Good find. It was my memory that deceived me. Fair enough that Max remembers his own breakthrough game.

And with a game in hand. We just really need to capitalise on every game we dominate out of the middle. With the shortened season, we can't have repeats of the two H&A losses to Geelong in 2018 this year. Given we've got Brisbane this week, a win there will really tell us a lot about where we're at.

I reckon Roos and Goodwin have to take a fair amount of praise for that too.

I find this bit really strange: He found his way back into the team in the middle of the 2015 season, and soon made a breakthrough. From there, Gawn hasn't looked back. "It was purely just marking the football in a game against St Kilda. I took maybe two or three marks and all of a sudden, I felt like I belonged," he said. We decided to play two rucks against Geelong in 2015. It was Corey Enright's 300th. I was at the game and high fived Gus and Jetts after the game. Max hadn't been in the team and was brought in for this game. He took 2 or 3 really strong contested marks and to my eye, hasn't looked back since. It could have been that we played St Kilda after this and that's when he felt really at home, but to me, he exuded a confidence in that Geelong game.

Haha, can you imagine @Jaded if we landed Ben Brown? ?

He started 2018 very slowly too and as we've mentioned before, Gus is definitely a confidence player. Let's hope he times his peak nicely for the back half of the season and hopefully a finals push.

We like our guys taking the game on, it's just clear we now like them having an idea what they're going to do with it when they take the game on.

Fair enough. As I say, don't get me wrong, it's not like he did it a thousand times within game. I only remember two moments very clearly where he panicked, whereas Oscar impacted every contest and then provided some limited rebound and run from half back. Anyway, I agree, in that I think the more games they play together, the more this defence will grow.

Steven May getting votes astounds me. The AFL write up was similarly glowing. He wasn't bad, but our worst defensive moments saw him panicking, either spoiling team mates or mindlessly bombing out of the defence. He was solid for the most part, don't get me wrong, but I'd have Oscar McDonald well ahead of him and even Lever's game was more solid for mine. Anyone else agree?

And I'll throw in Carlton and Collingwood. And Richmond.

Haha, I like the way you've put this, although I'd argue something slightly different with Trac. The two aforementioned I feel safe watching, but with Trac I feel he tries to create even more than those guys, but now what he tries to create comes off. So I'd say I now trust Trac to pull off the outrageous that he so often tried and failed to do in the past. It's certainly a good feeling to have some genuinely elite players on your list, isn't it?

Fair enough. I'd really like to see Jackson retained and an unchanged line up, but each to their own, mate.

Collingwood surprised Richmond in the 2018 prelim by playing a style that was more readily happy to be tempo. Richmond changed it up over the 2018-2019 pre season and slowed their ball movement down last year and it won them a flag. It's taken us a year to change the system. Whether that's coaching, playing or fitness-based, it may well be all three, but now that we're starting to see that change and the ability to switch gears, we become a whole lot harder to coach against. I'd love to be playing Richmond next week for a good test, because whilst they're still probably too clever and crafty for us, our stoppage dominance and ability to change tempo was in line with Richmond yesterday. Our adjusted defensive set ups over the last fortnight would give Richmond a very good run for their money now. I'd argue that the chip game that is very basketball and particularly soccer, is merely a greater evolution of Clarkson's chip game. As I said in a post the other day, this kicking game is one that is very Pep Guardiola in the EPL. Its purpose is moving the ball across the zone at pace, but uncontested, and eventually picking gaps in the zone as a result. Once a team is able to pick gaps in the zone, they're able to go in quickly to the dangerous areas inside forward 50. I'd like to see us do it a lot longer than one game against Hawthorn. I don't think we're doing any of those dot points consistently as a whole. Our alleged increased fitness this year should enable us to play this way though. The way I see it is we saw some positive signs against the Suns in regards to ball use and setting up behind the ball, but yesterday, we saw some great signs and ability to play tempo. I think we need to temper this though as the Suns midfield without Rowell and the Hawthorn midfield without Cegler enabled us first use and when we didn't get first use, often gave our defenders an ability to set up well behind the ball. Brisbane's midfield is decent and Neale and Zorko are at the heart of what they do, so it's a completely different test this coming week.

To be fair, I said we could credit both Goodwin and maybe a newfound willingness to listen to his assistants as well. In terms of agenda, I want Goodwin to succeed, but I have no idea whether he will or not. Rarely are such matters ever one thing. From my perspective, I'm simply saying it's not all Goodwin's fault when we play poorly and not all Goodwin's great work when we play beautifully. I have certainly never placed all the blame for our previous woes at Goodwin's feet. I have previously stated I question those around him just as much as Goodwin. So when we've shown improvement, I think it's important that we acknowledge the work of everyone involved for precisely the reason you've outlined - to avoid the obvious double standard.

I'm only going on what I've been told.