Adam The God

And Martin the following week...

Fair enough. And I wouldn't bother tagging O'Meara. He's not as good as everyone thinks he is. I'd make him accountable and try to exploit him going back the other way. The Clarkson mantra is backing his players to win the stoppages. He rarely tags. It's a similar philosophy that I believe Goodwin and Roos employ(ed). Back in your guys to win their position. I'd play a defensive forward or wingman on Smith though. Harmed is the guy, I reckon. He can definitely hurt Smith going back the other way and his tank is good enough to stay with him.

I wouldn't tag O'Meara. 1) he's overrated. 2) we should back in our own mids. 3) we can't tag two of their mids and play our own game.

Yep, it's who has more damage. Their pace on the outside (if Mitchell is allowed to release them) could be very damaging. Clarry is a great tackler though.

I wouldn't tag O'Meara and fortunately Clarkson won't tag Oliver. So I only see us potentially tagging Mitchell. You'r right. It will come down to Bernie or Angus.

Bernie is just about done for mine. I'd be trying Brayshaw or head to head with Oliver.

I wonder whether they're thinking Mitchell this week.

Incredibly overrated.

Depends on the order. Historically, anyway.

I should clarify my post. That free kick was always going to be paid. I don't like it, but it's consistently paid.

I reckon we will win this. Hawthorn's ball use inside 50 for large parts of the Richmond game was far worse than our ball use. They constantly kicked to the advantage of the Richmond talls. If you cut off Mitchell or at least limit the damage of his disposals, then it means Hawthorn will have to operate on the counter from half back. They certainly have the leg speed (Smith and their pacey smalls), but I'm not as convinced by their foot skills anymore. If we convert our chances inside 50 (ugh, Bugg and Kent), lay enough tackles across half forward to keep it in there and up the tempo in the midfield, I can't see Hawthorn being able to cope. But Hawthorn are coached by one of the greats, so even though our best is far too good for them, if Clarkson's men can use the slingshot against us and they take every chance inside 50 (think Daniher against us in 2016), they could beat us. My feeling though is this one's in our court.

I agree. It's not the correct interpretation, but it is a consistent interpretation from the umpires. When you take your eyes off the ball as it is in flight, coming inside 50 (often in one-on-one situations), the umpire usually pays the free against the defender.

IMO we sit somewhere between spluttering on and dominating. We are the highest scoring team in the comp, we have a heap of inside 50s, our guys are getting their hands on it regularly, but we're not using the ball as well as we could. We are in the top 4 as a result of our heavy scoring. So that's handy and points to an improvement. It also points to the fierceness of the entire competition this season. Anyone can beat anyone. Being in the top 4 when we're not playing our best footy, but still statistically dominant in a number of categories means that we've got tremendous room for improvement. I disagree with the notion that Brisbane or North are also runs. They can potentially beat anyone on their days. But they won't finish anywhere near the top 8. We will, because we're beating them and winning the games we should win (Geelong being the exception). I agree that Richmond and Hawthorn will make us pay for poor decision making/skills, but neither of those teams are as good as they're made out to be either. Hawthorn aren't as good by foot as they once were and Richmond can still turn it over heavily. So it comes down to ensuring we make them pay for their errors as well. If we can out tackle the opposition in our forward 50, we will win both games. Our statistical advantage over the entire competition at the moment is our ability to get it in there. A fit Gawn and Oliver will go a long way towards ensuring we achieve those forward 50 thrusts. I reckon we're building and if our half forwards bring the tackle pressure and we keep our midfield pressure up in both games, the opposition won't have enough inside 50s to hurt us if we take our chances in front of the sticks.

I agree with you. The taking the legs rule has also become farcical. But the players know this will be paid, so it was a silly one to give away. This IMO was an inexperienced free kick.

As soon as you look at your opponent, which is what he did, and take your eyes off the ball, a free kick is paid. This has been happening for years.

Lever took his eyes off the ball before he got the elbow in the face. That free kick was there for mine.

This is the big one for me too, DA. This was the main reason for my mind that the Geelong game was close at all. Had we locked down this chipping out of our offensive zone early on, I believe we would have won comfortably. But we let it happen. We set our zone deeper, almost to encourage the opposition to empty their defence, so that our next entry wouldn't be to a crowded forward line. This is very much a soccer/football tactic. Press in the middle and across half forward, but not at the goal line. I don't think we can afford to play this way with Hawthorn's foot skills and pacey smalls. Their ball movement will be too slick for this.

I dunno. There's not much substance to this article and it completely glosses over the fact that Gawn was injured most of last year and the rest of the list was plagued by injuries. That is the reason we failed to make finals last year. So all I take from the article is the bleeding obvious - that there is a stark difference between St Kilda and Melbourne. No [censored].

Agree with the first bits, but your bias towards Oscar belies the truth here, Steve. Ben Brown did not get ahold of Oscar at all. I think he beat him twice one out. That's all.

Lol. Did we lose?

You don't need a second tall. Richmond proved this last year and continue to do so. It's all about ball use and getting it in quickly. We're kicking to the advantage of our forwards well enough and until we do, it doesn't matter who's down there. I'd prefer guys you create pressure though and can get it on the deck. Pedersen rarely offers this.

Roughead looks fine now...

This is the kick that we continually allow. It's the kick that Geelong utilised every time out of their defence.

Was sore going into the game and just suffered a head knock.

This is laughable, mate. I don't mind Pedersen. He can get on the scoreboard, but at the end of the day, he doesn't do enough defensively. We can't have that in our forward half in 2018 and beyond.