Adam The God

But we have 2 of the top 5 best contested players in the comp in the same midfield, just need the outside polish to finish off the good work.

My favourite pass of his was the beautiful kick to Max on the lead. Perfectly weighted. Not many of our players can hit that regularly.

He played on the wing and at half back...

Yep, that's where I'm at. @Slartibartfast, you'll be happy to know that I see a spot for your mate as a KPF alongside JVR. 😄 I just think if TMac takes the best defender, can still bring the ball to ground, his being run off is really no different to defenders running off JVR or Turner, and it frees up JVR to get the second best defender. I'd happily stick with just TMac and JVR with the latter taking second ruck duties, but if they insist on playing three talls forward of the ball, TMac, JVR and Turner could work.

The basic shots I refer to are Max's from 20m out, Tom Sparrow from 40m out directly in front with a near dry ball and seemingly little wind, and Fritta's snap from 20m at the top of second. The latter is a goal Fritta would have nailed at least 30 times in his career, and would surely be 9.5 from 10.

We had 9 to 8 tackles inside 50 yesterday. I really don't think we lost because we had "three lumbering forwards". We lost because we couldn't convert basic chances in front of goal.

And coming from behind against Brisbane that year at the G.

Lindsay has wheels too, like Windsor, which is super helpful for breaking lines, because I think as others have stated, we were really good with forward handball yesterday. This means we don't have to rely on those angled kicks to shift or break zones. And our chip game was very similar to the approach Geelong tried unsuccessfully a few years ago.

I'm sorry but Rivers is not a good kick. Love him, but a very hit and miss kick.

Yep, I'm fine with us losing clearance numbers, if we're winning scores from stoppages. It then means we're defending from our back half and enables us to slingshot back in behind the opposition to a less congested forwardline. Likewise, potent clearances (out the front ideally), lead to 1v1s as the ball gets in quicker to our forwards.

Yep, I feel the same way about Lindsay as I did about Clarry after his first game, against the Giants, where they both picked up the same amount of disposals on debut. Unfortunately, in Clarry's debut we won by 2 points. Lindsay is gonna be a gun.

He was better yesterday with 3 tackles, mind you he was playing higher up the ground.

Greene played midfield in the last quarter. Our mids failed to track him. Maybe Rivers missed a hand over, but the bigger problem with Riv is his kicking. The rest of our backs went at 100% or in the 80s. He went at 63%. I called it in the second or third quarter, Greene was going to be the difference because we didn't have a match up for him.

I had no voice left after the game today. Don't tell me we're quiet. 😉 I've heard quieter Melbourne games. I thought when we got a few out the front clearances that led to scores, the crowd lifted.

Howes needs continuity IMO. Yoyoing in and out of the team doesn't help him or us. If May is fit, he goes to Larkey and Howes stays.

Spot on, we have very good DE. We let ourselves down in conversion in front of the goal though, as expected score shows.

TMac was terrific today, but he was playing on a beanpole 21 year old and should have outplayed him as he did on a number of occasions. Brave new world sans TMac if May is fit IMV mate. Not going to howl you down though 😄

In the back pocket? May as well try and unearth a player while we wait for McVee to come back, particularly given there's no option of AMW this year.

I think Kozzy into the midfield with out of the front stoppage take aways like today will see us hit up leading forwards more ofren. ie Kozzy is a beautiful field kick. The other guy who I wouldn't be against playing midfield very soon is Lindsay. He has the toughness and speed, but it's his cleanness and ball use that could transform our midfield, particularly alongside say a Kozzy and Clarry. And I'll say it again, vote 1 Jack Viney as defensive pressure forward. Add Spargo and Kolt into that forward pressure mix, and we're getting there.

If we had LJ filling in for Max's rests it'd give us so much flexibility with our forward line up. It'd mean Max could rest forward too.

I agree. And Kozzy's absence is huge, both through the midfield and in the forward half. It's hard to get a read on our future forward fortunes off today given the conditions. Even though Marvel is a funny shape, we'll get a better read next week or the week after.

I'm not sure I completely agree. I think he is certainly more dangerous deeper forward, but on a dryer day he'd be fine as a high half forward. Doesn't mean he doesn't ever go deep, but playing mostly high keeps the forwardline open.

I reckon it's between Fritta and Jeffo for that other forward spot. I disagree with the notion that we need to play 3 talls forward of the ball. Turner and JVR will be fine. The third tall/medium is either Jeffo or Fritta. If Fritta isn't kicking snags I don't think he offers enough. And to be clear, I think he's going through a rough patch and is definitely in our best 23. But he needs to start turning it on soon.

And this week's hyperbole award goes to...

Our forward set up at the start of the game saw us push all our smaller forwards up to CHF (Henderson, Chandler, Sparrow and maybe Fritta, whoever the other forward was), and left JVR in the goal square and Jeffo 20m in front of JVR. It meant when our mids won clearance out the front of the centre stoppage, our mids were kicking to two 1v1s, and each had separation. The resulting opening centre clearance was an entry to the two deepest forwards, with JVR making the contest and bringing it to ground, and Jeffo crumbing it and finishing. Our forwardline functioned so much better today. This will be an exciting watch this year. We just need to convert those very gettable shots.