Adam The God

I don't think many have glorified that year. I think most people on Demonland remind others when they're putting us down, that we did actually make a prelim and so it was not a failed year. And despite us not being able to beat a top 8 team until a depleted West Coast in Round 22 and GWS in Round 23, we still managed to beat Geelong and Hawthorn under enormous pressure in sudden death games to packed MCGs. It was a very good year of progress and for mine nobody is glorifying it, just pointing out that we made a [censored] prelim.

Look, I agree that Clarkson is easily the greatest coach of the modern era, but in the case where his team isn't capable of being able to execute his plan consistently, it would mean he hasn't been that masterful. If you know your team's not up to it to play the style you're promoting, it's idiocy IMO to continue with it. Does Clarkson have another plan? Because the thing about his game style is that's it's very similar similar to Guardiola's at Man City in the EPL. It's about stretching the opposition's defensive formation by moving the ball quickly around the neutral or defensive zone and then exploiting the gaps in the zone with pace and precision. But it doesn't work in soccer either if the players aren't capable of consistently hitting targets either. Guardiola's sides often have unlimited money to spend on the best players, but when their better players have been injured, they've really relied on fast attackers and blistering counter attack, but Clarkson's side, as you and others have noted, doesn't have the leg-speed to exploit this either, so for mine, I'm not really sure what Clarkson is aiming to do with his current team and the system they play. It's too easy to combat against and without weapons in any of the playing thirds, Hawthorn's current team will struggle over the course of a full season.

Money and they probably pitched the idea of live sport being free to the masses, instead of pay per view. It's never about merit in these things, it's always about money. Oofa doof. That's a dangerous idea. Gunston way too clever for Smith. And they may well play Smith down back in place of Jetta, but I wouldn't be playing May forward. The backs need continuity together, not the shuffle of the deck chairs every week.

He's too slow for that role. They'll run off him.

I'm definitely on the King train too mate if we could convince him, but who would you be happy to trade to get him?

Whilst I generally agree it's too early to comment on Jackson, you cannot dismiss that our tall blokes (with the exception of Hogan) seem to take longer than some other teams. Oscar and Weideman are two very good examples of players who may well make it, but have taken much longer than say Curnow or even King to come on.

It'll be interesting to see whether he, Lever and May can get some continuity together. My feeling on the 'all defenders up' problem is that we never get enough continuity in our defensive unit, so there's no trust or understanding yet. Despite what Max says about Oscar's reading of the play, to my eye, May and Lever are much better readers of the play, but Oscar is deceptively quick. Where he really struggled in 2018 was his body strength, which usually comes with time. Another pre season would certainly have helped him. The sample size is too small at this stage, but the Suns game was a good bar for Oscar. If he can aim for that and consistently get there, and the defenders get that continuity together, I think our game can come alive again. We've so lacked intercepting and in turn, rebounding from defensive 50 in the last 12 months or so that if we can rediscover that key defensive trait of 2018, our side will become quite formidable with our clearance team. Then we just have to get forward of centre working!

Yep, my source was wrong RE: stage 4 restrictions today.

Be interested to know if we planned for the event of a written off 2020 season after the shut down in the first place. Reckon COVID still has a bit to go and I'd be very surprised if the 2020 season is completed at all. I just can't see COVID not spreading across the country again. Stage 4 for Victorians tomorrow (yet to be announced) and NSW won't be far behind. I hope we had a contingency after the first stoppage of play to deal with this in the event that there was a second wave.

I reckon Spargo will be okay. He's still young. Not convinced ABN will clean up his disposal, but I hope he proves me wrong.

ANB was involved in a lot pressure acts in that finals series and Spargo involved in a lot of scoring chains. Lockhart looks lost to me, but I'm hoping he might click and eventually fulfil Nev's role. I reckon we have to be a lot more creative and bold with our ball movement than we have been, if we want to beat Hawthorn. This game will tell us a lot. Have we got our backs up and can we continue the momentum for the rest of the season or do we fall short again and end up being a bottom 6 side.

Thought he was spot on all night.

I thought our best centre stoppage clearance team was Gawn, Oliver, Gus and Petracca. And Gus received a couple of nice handballs on the outside and got clean clearances away. That's his go for mine, but in the contest tonight he was as soft as butter. Young Suns players waltzed passed him too many times. Needs to be tougher and his legspeed seems sluggish to me. Reckon he's still a goer when he plays in the middle, but needs to be stronger.

Lack of forward pressure has dropped in the last 5 mins. Need to keep that up.

Can I quote myself? Get the ball out of Max's hands. Your goal, skipper.

This is the reason Hannan yoyos in and out of the side. He's so inconsistent.

4 turn overs before it and completely changed the momentum. Thw most important factor in modern footy.

Petracca again. What a terrible game he's having.

Less of Max with ball in hand, please.

Some horrible work from Harmes and Gawn in this first quarter too.

Petracca 5 touches, 4 turnovers. And people bang on about Oliver.

Fair enough. I'd just want my best ball winner in the middle and as I say, he won't learn anything about his shortcomings from playing forward IMO.

I don't mind being held by the hand in sports commentary, as long as what is being said is constructive and insightful. I think what you propose here is far too chaotic, but each to their own and I'm glad there's a fellow filmmaker on DL.

Agreed. I think Viney plays mostly forward and rotates with Clarry. They compete for the same ball but Oliver is a much better decision maker.

What a great article. I agree with DJ in that they should simply provide more camera angles to their audience. Fox used to do it on occasional games and given what we pay for Foxtel, they should certainly do it now.