Adam The God

Jack Viney is the x-factor.

Good post as usual. Who are our top 6 and do we have enough star power to get the job done this September? Gawn, Oliver, Viney and then maybe Brayshaw? Hibberd? Petracca? Jetta? TMac? It's possible, but I don't think we have enough at this stage. We'd really have to play out of out skins for the next month.

Newfound respect for Greywolf...

Yeah, sorry. Hannan would be ahead of JKH and probably compete with Spargo.

Jetta Omac Hibberd Fritsch Frost Lever Salem Oliver Brayshaw Harmes Hogan Melksham Petracca TMac Weideman Gawn Viney Tyson Jones ANB Lewis Spargo Emergencies Hunt AVB JKH

I wouldn't be taking one of our biggest strengths (a 40+ goal CHF beast) and playing him in the middle unless we were trying to get him into the game. And even then, once he gets a few touches I'd be telling him to go forward.

Clarry will have the Scott Selwood tag. Viney head to head with Ablett - he'll scare Jesus. Harmes to Dangerfield for a tag. Brayshaw v Joel Selwood. Gus has to lift his defensive game, which is probably his weakness, but should be able to win footy on the outside and make ducker accountable. Tyson head to head with Kelly. I'd go Jones on Duncan.

He hasn't played an AFL game yet...

This was also mainly about placating supporters and setting low expectations (ie taking the pressure off the players). It's almost akin to saying "we need to win more games".

Bugg, King and McKenna the others in the gun, surely...

Yep, I reckon if we kick straight our numbers should overwhelm them.

Gun. Wanted him a few years ago. Now, we already have Oliver and Brayshaw that win the ball in a similar fashion. We need diversity in our midfield and he doesn't offer it.

I hope we're putting an offer to Shiel to play with the best midfield in the league at the end of his current contract. Gawn, Oliver, Viney, Brayshaw, Harmes, Tyson and Petracca. Surely, he'd have to consider it. If we don't get Gaff, I'd say "give it one more shot at GWS and then come back to Victoria and play under Max".

None of those midfields were having the same dominance that we've had though. I reckon it'll work. Jason Taylor has been building to this since he arrived. Except, unless we could trade those two top 10 picks that'd be a terrible deal for us. Lose a young gun CHF for two kids that take years to develop, while we're inside our window. Dumb list management IMO.

Only a Melbourne supporter would put it this way. ?? I think the point about all three of them offering something slightly different is a great one. I also concur that we'll set up with three talls next year too. Players like Harmes and ANB, coupled with a new speedster or two at the feet of these guys will be pretty deadly. We may well be able to get away with not having speedsters and rather just hard runners, given the mobility of the three talls we have. Hogan and Tom need to start tackling more in the forward half though. Weideman, when switched on and confident, is really good at this. Particularly, as it allows me to develop and ultimately shine, by getting the third best defender. You beat me to it, mate. Spot on. If I were Melbourne I'd still be saying, look, Jesse, if you want to play in flags and dynasty's like Geelong and Hawthorn, they all took pay cuts to stay together, so you do the same.

Equally, it might be better to play more pressure smalls in that situation. It'll be interesting to see the rule changes and the evolution of the game from there.

I reckon we can play them all in the one forwardline and we showed this earlier in the year. Jesse switching from a wing, midfield, CHF and deep forward. Tom switching from ruck, CHF, CHB (this bit will happen, despite him not being a good defender) and deep forward. Weideman switching from ruck, CHF and deep forward. The beauty of all of them is that they are mobile beasts. Weideman is terrific below his knees as he demonstrated on multiple occasions against GWS and the other two have never had a question mark over them in this regard. In fact, it's probably their key asset. I think we'll look back on Jesse's injury at the end of 2018 and see that it enabled Weideman to gain some confidence at the top level. This will be invaluable for next year when all three play together. I'm pretty sure Goodwin would have kept playing all three together in the same forwardline had we not had injuries and Weideman struggle with form. Richmond changed the face of the modern forwardline last year out of necessity and it may well snag them another flag, but I think Goodwin and his set up will transform the modern game again. Our sheer weight of numbers as we win it at the contest infused with three mobile talls. It's Adelaide 2017 on steroids.

How about Geelong v Melbourne, 2015? Get you chilled out significantly before watching us smash them next week.

Lovely guy is Luke. Some of his family are still Melbourne as he started with us. Then went to the Bulldogs and on to St Kilda. And yep, his father John was St Kilda's recruiting manager for many years.

He's immature but that's the point I'm making. He hasn't broken out yet and kicked 3 and could have easily have 5 or 6. l reckon he's almost there.

He's had a renewed team focus in the last few weeks because he played quite selfish footy at times earlier in the year. They clearly had a word with him about being focused on the team and he's probably gone too far the other way now. I hope he can adjust in time this season to really find that balance.

It's interesting. I've watched the Magpies last few games and De Goey really draws multiple defenders, leaving his team mates free. Against the Giants, it was the first time that I remember Petracca doing the same thing and drawing multiple defenders at once. It happened a few times, where 2 or 3 defenders would be drawn to him. Petracca's ceiling is higher than De Goey's, but it's all about whether he can reach it. The signs in the last fortnight are there and I hope he has a break out game in finals.

Lewis handballs to him, he drops it and GWS gain possession. A chain of nice intricate handballing comes undone when Jones handballs straight to Ward, who laces out and it ends up being a GWS goal. There's at least two off the top of my head... I'd argue it's your bias that's at play here. As with so many Demonlanders, you fail to see the mistakes and only hold onto the fact that Jones stuck by us through the crap. That's not a good reason.

I don't think I got that email...

Yep and my sis was saying that on one of the Facebook pages MFC supporters were saying 'how do we use our free tickets'. So apparently the club gave out some freebees yesterday. Did anyone else hear that? Either way, bloody brilliant that we got 37k there. I'd estimate 1,000 or so GWS supporters. The bandwagoners are back on board, which is great. When times were tough I used to say I'd never welcome them back, but get as many in the gate as possible nowadays. 50,000 members next year if we win a final this year and add Gaff. I reckon that'll all happen.