Adam The God

How long can a club that's never won a flag call themselves "Flagmantle"? If they were a Victorian club, there's no way other fans would let them get away with that [censored].

As SWYL said, I'd rather we fight to keep all our WA talent, and get LJ back as well. How we get LJ back without Kozzy, Rivers et al as part of the package I don't know, but maybe it's some future 1sts?

Thanks for the correction mate. I used to be a God, a nuffy mere mortal these days.

That's a solid team 👌

He'd be very handy. Why would he leave Brisbane? Former F/S too.

Everyone needs coaching. You don't stop learning.

It's all about kicking straight for me and taking chances early.

Never heard of this guy, but get him on the MFC socials I say...

I think we just need to get a greater spread of goalkickers than we did last year. Every team is different. You can't tell me Carlton will roll Curnow and McKay back to the square and their half forwards will become their leading goalkickers. 35-40 from JVR, 40-45 from Fritta, 35-40 from Kozzy, and then our mids and other forwards kicking 10-20 goals each and we're looking dangerous. All perfectly possible if we get our ball movement humming and our contest working.

Whatever the case, I find it funny that Freo now have a distraction, and over a player they stole from us. It's lovely.

They're getting the band back together. First Jones, now Jamar, it'll be Bernie next. 😉

This is pretty much where I sit.

I've come to the view that we only need one stay at home KPF and a KPF/second ruck, and I think AJ would give us a better contest in the ruck than Turner. I'd like to see us play the 2017 Richmond game, where your forwardline functions off a single KPF that can bring the ball to ground for smalls and dangerous mid sized players. I'm not convinced that's an archaic game style. I think we could overwhelm teams with forward entries from our mids.

I get it, I guess where we differ is I think we need to be just as attacking from the back as from the front. Speed and speed of ball movement is vital, right, so I'd be going for balance.

You're right, it's likely they'll go with Turner over AJ, can't see them playing Turner, AJ and JVR, but maybe they will? I would suggest that would be a bad move against a small, fast GWS, on a rainy Melbourne day...

It's out of balance if Bowey isn't in the 22. He's the 7th defender in that team, and Chandler the 7th forward. Henderson would come on at the expense of Chandler or Langford. But you could bring him on for Howes I guess, but the balance is better with Bowey on the bench IMV. I also wouldn't want too many debutants starting. In that team you've already got AJ and Langford forward, and Lindsay wing/half forward/half back as debutants. So my thinking was allow Henderson to have 1 really big quarter where he brings the pressure and busts a gut.

I'd have Spargo in my 23 if he's fit...

I think that back 6 need to play with each other a bit to grow synergy. Windsor will be green through there, but have good leadership around him in Salo, Lever and May. Howes will feature this year, potentially even when McVee is in the team, so he needs some continuity at AFL level IMV.

Of the available players and based on pre season form, my 23 for the GWS game would be: Howes May Lever Salem Petty Windsor Sharp Oliver Billings Sparrow AJ Petracca Fritta JVR Viney Gawn Rivers Langdon Langford Chandler Bowey Lindsay Sub. Henderson

Judd as a Visy Executive. 🤦

One of the interesting things I noted in the Round 1 2018 game against Geelong is that Max would often be used on the wing in usually a 1v1 or 2v2 contest, where our guys knew it was going, and so we were able to get extra numbers to the foot of the contest. The ball would usually go to him quickly, so an entire pack didn't form around him. The result of this would be less arduous for Max and protect him a bit. Slower ball movement would always result in more bashing and crashing into Max, and with our own defensive set up, we've been willing to defend with the help of Max. With the Grundy experiment, I always wondered why we didn't use Max behind the ball when Grundy was rucking, and instead played Max forward. In retrospect, it was probably to protect Max, rather than have forwards fly into the back of his head or stick their knee in his back. So it'll be interesting to see how they try to protect Max this year. Ball movement will be key, and I suspect (and hope) Campbell will get a game here or there.

I think Chaplin is trying to add this and it will be more obvious on big grounds like the MCG. It may also take some time to get working. I just rewatched the 1st and 3rd quarters against Geelong in Round 1 of 2018. Our forward runners and forward handball, our attacking half backs off the back of the centre square, and our quick ball movement from back to front (often aimed at a tall target deliberately spread wide of the corridor with numbers at the foot of the contest) is so exciting to watch. We also leave ourselves a bit vulnerable going the other way, but when Geelong get fast breaks on us, our defenders push back hard, as do our mids, and then slingshot off it. I think with our better defensive personnel (May and Petty), we could afford to play this way in 2025.

We really don't press that high anymore. In 2017-2019, sure, but we have usually five anchors behind the ball. Under Bassett, we may well press higher, but I doubt it. I think it'll be an evolution of the first half of last year, where we actively sat back really deep, so as it allow ourselves space to slingshot back into behind the opposition. This is the 2022-2024 game style. The sides that transition quickly off that slingshot at half back, can hit those kicks and maintain possession can beat pretty much any zone. We need to work out how best to use our stoppage and contest dominance. I'm actually fine with us gambling a lot from centre stoppages and going for pure out the front clearances, and therefore opening ourselves up to losing territory 50% of the time, meaning we play from our back half. But all games are fluid and different, so it'll be about taking our chances when we move the ball inside 50. Where we could get on top is our fitness. Guys like Langdon, Sharp, Spargo, Billings, Sparrow and Windsor are all really good aerobic runners.

No worries. I remember one of the Fox shows talking quite regularly about how we would get the majority of our scores from 30m out in the corridor during 18. I'm hoping with Chaplin back as forward coach we'll revert to this approach.

Thank you mate. I wonder whether you have the stats for 2018 per chance? I'd suspect we were very much corridor and 30m out straight in front team that year.