Adam The God

He's in your gun, isn't he, mate? I don't particularly rate OMac or Frost, but I'd take Frost ahead of OMac. When Lever is fit, I think we should see Frost stay and OMac go out, but I suspect it'll be a week by week proposition, because neither are good enough.

Treloar is still a butcher; I'd physically target Aish and Cripps every time (both are soft); Howe is a so-so kick; and their defence is ordinary. However, their forwardline has now surpassed Richmond's for dangerousness. They have so many options and they don't rely on height (except for Cox), which makes them pretty unpredictable. I said over the off season that I thought Lynch would make Richmond more predictable. Let's see how that continues to play out. Richmond's pressure game was barely there tonight, which makes that tough to tell. It was almost like Rance's injury last week knocked all the air out of them for the rest of the season. It'll be really interesting to see how they respond next week. Collingwood, for me, are the ones to beat this season. Their midfield is in the perfect premiership age bracket too. They have the edge on West Coast, if only because the Grand Final will always be played at the G. If they get their chance against this year, I reckon Collingwood will take it. It's early, I know, I know. Let's hope they're peaking too early like Richmond did last year. I wonder how much Buckley will use that Hawthorn keepings off style in other games this year. I also wonder whether it'd stand up in finals. It reminds me of the way Klopp's Liverpool and Guardiola's Man City play in the EPL. It's about possession, possession and waiting for the opposition to break structure, before they try and go in behind you with pace. It suits Collingwood's speedy forward line too. And when that's not working, they have the high kick to 30m out to Cox. A fascinating season ahead I reckon. I'm expecting a lot more tricks from our mob this year, because we've got some innovators, certainly Goodwin and Jennings are. I'd like to see how we work on the smaller grounds and then like last year, how we adjust that game style to the bigger grounds like the MCG and Optus.

No it's not. Oscar was thrashed down there in the regular season last year. Frost is a better bet on Hawkins if May can't get the job done. (Yes, yes, I know that's why we brought May in, but Frost is quicker, so as an alternative, he's handy.) I wouldn't have played Oscar, who I now concede may well not make it. But I'd probably take Oscar's experience over Hore. It feels a bit like shuffling the deck chairs circa 2013 after last week's performance. I know it's not that dire, but I can't see us being able to run this game out either. You don't gain fitness as drastically as we clearly need to, within a week. It just doesn't work that way. This is more likely IMO. I can. Frost can take a small forward and/or so can May. Ablett's too clever for Frost, but Frost would have him for pace. Ultimately though, I think we'll see May to Hawkins; Frost will start on Ratugolea; and Oscar will play interceptor. FWIW, I'd play Oscar on Ratugolea to start with (even though it's a dangerous move) and play Frost on a small, and use his rebound. I'd play Hibberd as the third tall/interceptor. It'll be interesting to see what we do though. Preuss' tank must be a concern for the FD. Given it's a night match though and it'll be cooler down in Geelong, he may well get a look in. When we beat Geelong down there in 2015 (a long time ago, I know), we played Max (in his break out game) and Spencer. We could well do something similar, because with the dimensions of the ground, we may not get exploited for pace as badly as we would on the G. This could well happen too. Good post. I thought Wagner could hold his head high, but he obviously didn't meet KPIs, otherwise he'd still be in the team. Players at Casey weren't exactly pounding the door down to get in the senior team.

There's absolutely no way Viney goes from what he delivered last week to fully fit this week. Not going to happen. But I hope he delivers a bit more this week. It wouldn't be difficult. It was potentially his worst game ever last week.

I wouldn't be surprised to see your bro get a go soon. You'd know more than me, but I wouldn't be surprised if he played as a back up ruckman and a KP swingman when he gets his go.

I'm on the Degoey train now. What a finisher. This is what he has on Petracca. I can't recall our boy kicking that one around the body ever. Degoey does it with his eyes shut most of the time. If Trac is going to reach his potential, which he certainly can, he needs to return to his 2017 finishing. Statistically they're similar, but right now, Degoey is a finisher and Petracca is not.

It's certainly got the spoilt brat, entitled football club about it. When Gawn was banging on during pre season about only being happy going into an off-season after winning the flag, I was thinking STFU and just concentrate on training and preparing for Round 1.

Haha, what a stupid little gronk. Don't contradict yourself in the same few sentences. Was it legal or was Jonas fined? If it were within the rules, there would be no fine. That said, what a whack. I hope that sparks us, because we were pitiful last week.

Our frenetic game style is perfectly suited to a quick deck. That's exactly what we want. It's the big grounds (like the MCG and Optus Stadium) that don't suit us if we don't work hard enough on the defensive spread. The dimensions of Geelong suit us nicely, like Adelaide Oval's dimensions.

We're terrible in the wet. Our game style breaks down really badly.

I reckon it's clear as day RE: Preuss. He couldn't get through more than a half in JLT1. He's a mile off, fitness-wise. I find it hard to believe given he's had more time than anyone to get his fitness up to scratch. To see that he couldn't even run out 3.5 quarters in a single match was deeply troubling and I suspect the FD feel the same way. I don't think he'll get a look in for a while and if he does, it'll say everything about Max.

I'm not sure it's an overreaction. I said a couple of weeks ago that we'd go 0-2. Going by the fitness of our best 22 on Saturday, I'd say it's highly likely we'll struggle to run out games for at least the first 3 or 4 weeks and if that's the case, we can kiss the finals goodbye. I'm usually pretty optimistic on my season outlook and have predicted (as many of us have), our incremental rise over the past 3-4 seasons. I hope we can make the 8, because with Rance going down, I reckon anyone can win it this season. The problem is we don't want to give our fellow competitors for those top 8 spots a month headstart. We were so far off the pace in JLT 2 and Round 1 that I'm not sure it's likely we'll turn it around within a week. It would be very Melbourne if we did, but I can't see it happening this time, simply due to the clear fitness issue. I'm still making the trip down to that hole this Saturday, but unlike last year, I'm not expecting a win. I'm very worried. I only hope the dimensions of the ground will help us and that Round 1 is the wake up call we needed.

Bizzell was okay, but geez, we overrate our own. And this thread is yet another excuse for Werridee to do another best 22. It's Round 2. Do we really need to be doing future best 22s? It's far too early to tell on 3 or 4 of those guys.

I completely agree. I can never hear our cheer squad and our members in the pockets were very quiet. The MCC were up and about at times, but not enough. It was certainly a horrible way to start the year after all the talk over the off season of making the MCG a cauldron (NO) and winning the flag (with that sort of performance - NO).

I know as of July last year we were ranked #15th In the competition for scores from chains beginning in the forward half. Perhaps, this is a telling stat, but I think it might be skewed by the bombing, frenetic inside 50 play that saw us accumulate constant forward thrusts, off the back of our clearance dominance. https://m.afl.com.au/news/2018-07-25/stats-incredible-your-clubs-quirky-numbers

Thanks for that. @WERRIDEE has a bit of history with misinterpreting media and presenting his analysis as fact. Meanwhile, I'd go Oscar out for May. Oscar was terrible on Hawkins because he's not quick enough to go with him. Frost is quick enough. Having Frost and May able to swing onto Hawkins will be handy, and then we'll need another defender with pace to counter Ratugolea. Whilst I didn't think he was horrible, I'd also bring in Jeffy for Spargo. ANB won't be dropped, but if KK was fit, I'd pull the trigger. ANB is still a very, very average footballer.

I know you've never rated him, but just as now, you've never known the ins and outs of our medical team, in order to back up those opinions.

My point was your post implied Misson was doing an ordinary job ("shouldn't be hard to find an upgrade"), so that link doesn't help you or me.

How would you know, HH? Targeting Misson when you've no idea what goes on behind the scenes is a little foolhardy.

Yep, I remember Gary looking a bit hampered, but nowhere near what Jack looked like on Saturday. It's also far more noticeable in the midfield.

I've never seen a player play under such duress. He could barely move. As I mentioned in the post game thread, he could barely move in the warm up that I watched on Instagram. It was bloody evident on Instagram pre-game! I don't know the ins and outs but WTF is going on?

Wondering what your thoughts were @ProDee?

No, it's not the only measure. Corralling would be another (do Champion Data record this?). McDonald doesn't lay many tackles, I agree, but I think generally when we're playing well, our mids, half forward and small/tall forwards are laying tackles, as evidenced by being the best in the comp for inside 50 tackles.

The way Tom grabbed some of those contested marks in the finals last year against good opposition, shows that IMO the 666 shouldn't limit his ability to take those contested marks. I just don't think he's hit his straps this year.

Yeah, which is not quite true, given we ranked #1 in the competition for tackles inside 50 in 2018. That's a furphy. Our work rate was down. Particularly, in the midfield, after the first quarter.