Adam The God

I would have liked Minson on our list, but I don't think our ruck situation will spell death for us this year. I'm convinced something positive will come from it.

Be interesting to see the crowd they get today. Would be a terrific effort to have got a larger crowd to the ANZAC Eve game.

Yep, agreed.

There's been a lot of crap on this thread, but this is pretty high up there. Do you actually use your brain or walk around in neutral all day?

Rubbish. If he gets called for throwing 1 or 2 times a game and gets away with it 6 or 7 times, I'm happy for him to keep doing it. Have you watched the Bulldogs play? Or Sam Mitchell? Or Joel Selwood? The kid is a star and the only knock on his game at the moment is his ability to hit the scoreboard. If he can do that he'll be a superstar.

Laughable, praha. Did you go to the game? We comfortably had 35,000 there, possibly close to 40,000 even.

As you said, it was his first game back since 2015. I don't rate him, but I rated his work rate last night. If he brings that consistently, he's ahead of a 50+ game player in Kent. Has Kent ever laid 5 or more tackles, let alone 7? It's all about work rate from our half forwards in our current system. If you tackle and harrass and persuade the opposition to turn the ball over, you'll get a game most weeks in 2017. No doubt he has to get cleaner and smarter with possession.

Rance had 4 touches to half time. After half time he was caught holding the ball twice, coughed it up and was outmarked twice by a one-legged Petracca. He was hopeless until Spencer went off and he played spare man.

Oliver clear best afield for me. I reckon he'll have featured heavily in the coaches votes tonight too. If you compare him to Dusty, both players got 32 touches. Clarry went at 75% DE and Dusty went at an appalling 34% DE. There's no comparison. He carried our midfield for an entire half almost completely by himself. With Jones and Viney sore and buggered, we basically had to hope Clarry would win the clearance each time. Loved Hibberd's game. Tough 1v1, elite ball use coming off half back and the goal was a beauty. Oliver's game was something else, in front of 85,600 people. Nothing scares the kid, except maybe ANB in a bin. There was also a kick into the corridor that he turned over. It screamed poor decision maker, but hopefully he can eradicate these errors from his game.

How exciting is it? The atmosphere was electric and I'd say it was 60-40 their way in terms of supporter, but that still means we probably had something like 35,000 turn up. What's even more amazing is that the weather predicted was atrocious and it didn't stop 85,000 people sitting out in the rain. Looking forward to seeing how many we can get to Queen's Birthday, if we can get on a bit of a run in the next few weeks. I hope not. We need Frost and McDonald playing back. Frost allows us to sit a little higher defensively, knowing that his pace will cover us. We really lose something by having him in the ruck. I'd prefer to play Pedo. I think the time has now finally come, due to injuries. Great bit about not capitalising on our offensive dominance. Completely agree. Had me pulling my hair out. And you just knew it was going to come back and bite us at some stage. On JKH, he wasn't great with ball in hand, but I'm not sure whether you watched the number 24 that closely tonight, mate. Absolutely no way he gets dropped after laying the third most tackles on the ground (7). He's met at least one of his key KPIs, I've no doubt.

Glad I missed these threads. One of them was Vince. Let's just say it doesn't always come. Dumb footy. ANB and Harmes both did it too. ANB cost us a goal and momentum on half time. I reckon the weather conditions might have had an impact on this. Leading towards the ball carrier in the wet, rather than potentially drawing a free kick in a 1v1 (as he did) is the safer option.

I actually found the dinky little short kicks inside forward 50 to be far more annoying than our over handballing. At least, our handball usually resulted in an attacking foray or at the very least another stoppage. We were too cute with the wet ball, when we should have kept things simple inside 50. Because our defenders don't yet trust each other. They need to play more footy together.

Myself and others have said multiple times that we'll lose some games we expect to win and win some games we expect to lose. The injuries are tough, but we get some much needed leadership back next week in Lewis and a chance to take on Etihad again. Not to have too much of a go at you BB, but frankly, you sound like a bit of a loony. 'Better set ups'? Nice and vague. 'Players quicker to the ruck'? What does that even mean? We were always going to over possess tonight. That's our game style. I think it'll be adjusted across the season, but the wet weather, as I predicted, didn't help us. And it didn't help Hogan's game this time either.

Yeah, I worry for Spencer's future now. I can't see him getting back, but we'll see how bad that injury is. And yep, I like the idea of Watts playing as a straight midfielder occasionally. Bit Goddard in that respect.

Indeed, mate. I think he's working into it, but he was poor again tonight.

Fair enough. I was happy enough with his defensive efforts too for the most part. Excited by the return of his intercept marking too.

Fortunately, it's a close season and our likely competitors for that 6-8 position have also been struggling. Win next week and we're back on track.

Glad to see you on board now, mate.

Absolutely. I'd prefer Jack playing second fiddle, rather than lead, but I was more responding to Fork's idea of Jack in the ruck at all. I think it's good for his contested game, it keeps him involved in the game and allows him to utilise his skills, and he becomes a handy default midfielder when the ball hits the deck.

Eh? McDonald was superb tonight. Lost one 1v1 battle that I can recall, which resulted in a goal to Riewoldt in the last. Took intercept mark, after intercept mark and offered good offence off half back. I think it's one of the most complete games he's played in a long time.

I disagree. He's become a really important player when the ball hits the deck. We're trying to use his ball use and smarts against taller less agile ruckmen. He doesn't win too many taps, but I think it's a bit of a brilliant move. Each to their own though.

Can I love this post some more?

THE POSITIVES OVERSHADOW THE ERRORS I thought I'd be livid if we lost to Richmond, but for the second time in three weeks, I left the ground feeling extremely optimistic about our future. Yes, we over possessed. Yes, we used the footy poorly going inside 50. Yes, we made stupid errors. eg. Harmes in second term kicking it on the full when he should have just taken it over the line. eg. ANB's brainfade on the half time break that cost us a goal. eg. Vince kicking it on the full in the third when he should have simply taken it over the line. Yes, we lost to a bunch of pretenders. But... Oliver is already a top 10 midfielder in the comp. He is insanely good and is statically top 10 in all the key categories. And 19 years old. And has played less than 20 games. Get excited if you're not already. Hibberd's return was superb. Tom McDonald played his best game since early 2016. Frost was terrific. Jetta was his usual solid self. Hunt was electrifying and could be anything. We had 25+ inside 50 tackles - that's what our coaching staff want. And as many have already said, they were always going to run over us with two down. We win it with 22 v 22. Almost no doubt. In the last, we were sitting near the interchange bench and Harmes wanted to come off, so did Jones, but only Oliver could come off due to rotation limits. So our mids, Jones and Viney in particular, were out on their feet in the last and we just couldn't run. Were it not for the injuries, this very young side would have easily accounted for a supposed top 4 team. As I said last week, at some stage this year, our team is going to click and it's going to be glorious. We may leave it too late for a finals tilt, but there's still a long way to go this season. I still think we'll get our 12+ wins and I'm looking for Lewis to pay us back for the last 3 weeks, by pulling us over the line in a few games this year. It's gonna happen. Our best can match it with just about anyone, but luck hasn't gone our way this year. But it always turns your way eventually and we're doing enough right now for it to swing our way in time. For this reason, I was glad to hear Goody praise our boy's efforts tonight, given it was 20 v 22 out there. THE FUTURE & OUR IMMEDIATE SHORT-TERM When Oliver, Petracca and Salem build their tanks, watch out. We are going to have a seriously good midfield trio there. But I still worry about Bernie, who goes to ground too easily like a veteran - he reminds me of Luke Hodge in that respect. I also worry about our midfield short term with Viney clearly still hampered by his hip. Hopefully Lewis' inclusion can provide us with a bit of depth there, as well as leadership in trying times. To me, it's obvious that we still lack one other game breaking midfielder. Tyson and Viney are good meat and potatoes footballers and may reach A grade status one day, but at this stage in their development, they both lack that little bit of class. I'm not going to write them off though, as I think both have a much higher ceiling that they're not reaching at the moment. Both played 74% TOG this week, which I find interesting, given how out on his feet Jones looked at 88% TOG. The other thing that needs to improve is our midfield's two-way-running. We let Richmond score goals way too easily out the back (particularly early on), which was reminiscent of how easily we let Geelong score too. If we can tidy this up (and maybe this only happens with experience and kms in the legs), I think we'll simply dominant contests. It'll be interesting to see whether our midfield organisation improves when Lewis comes back in next week too. THE RUCK CHALLENGE (RATHER THAN PROBLEM) With Spencer going down too, I'm now strangely excited by the challenge we have in front of us in a season we were never going to challenge for the flag. Without our two key rucks, our depth is thoroughly tested. Our game style must develop alternatives and we get to see what we look like when things aren't going our way the whole time on a Gawn-supplied silver platter. We won't then know ourselves when we finally have a fit and firing Max Gawn dominating the hit outs and it'll also give us a plan B for the day when either Max is out or he is being beaten in the ruck. It is the perfect baptism of fire for our mids and whoever has to step up in place of Gawn and Spencer, but all part of the journey that is our continuing development. As I side note, I didn't want to write it on here, but I knew Jake would go down with an injury sometime during the 12 Gawn-less games. Was thinking it'd be last week. OUR DEFENCE I think Frost may well be the answer to our second KPD post, alongside Tommy. They were both terrific in tandem tonight, although their awareness at times, particularly Frost's, is still left a bit wanting - that easy Riewoldt goal out the back in the second quarter, is a prime example. However, we now have real speed and offence off half back. Frost, Hunt, Hibberd, Melksham and even McDonald are all attacking, fleet-of-foot players. I think Lewis may well play that sweeper role to cover out the back when our zone plays a little too high. In time, we'll see Joel Smith back there and that will probably release Hunt into the midfield or he'll take Melksham's spot. It'll be interesting to see where Jetts sits with all of this, when we're full strength. Is it Melksham v Smith or is it Smith v Jetta? I also felt that we adjusted our zone this week. We played a high line at times, but we look so much better when we have Frost's pace to cover (playing the anchor), because it affords Tom more confidence to leave his man and take intercept marks. He was superb in this respect tonight. It's still a work in progress, but as a group, I was really happy with the majority of their work tonight, under extreme pressure. If Jetta was playing at Adelaide he'd be in AA contention. He is rarely beaten and manages to keep the ball in front of himself, outmuscle much larger opponents and be clean when the heat is on. He's a star. Not a perfect game, but only a few errors amongst all that brilliant 1v1 work. INSIDE 50s & OUR FORWARD LINE We had an insane amount of inside 50s in the first half. I didn't realise quite how many we had until I watched the replay. I certainly took issue with our poor entries at the time, which became worse as the game went on. None of this helped our forwards or our forward structure. As a side note, I thought by comparison, Richmond's entries for the first 3 quarters were both a credit to our defence and a sign of the insipidness and dumb play by our opposition. Despite the forward entries, or perhaps because of them, our entire forward set up tonight seemed dysfunctional. And aside from our own poor ball use, was it simply that Richmond zoned back well or was the problem that our forwards were not working hard enough to create space for each other? The inside 50 tackle count was certainly a positive though and I thought we swarmed them at half forward multiple times in the first three quarters. Great to see. On this basis, despite some ordinary errors and poor decisions, JKH will get a game next week. He laid 7. For this same reason, despite some ordinary errors and poor decisions, ANB will get a game next week. He laid a game high 9 tackles. Harmes laid outright second most tackles on the ground with 8. These guys are only young players and they need time to show their wares this year and improve their decision making with this experience. I think all these guys offer more than Tom Bugg and they'll keep him out of the team, I would think. OUR OPPOSITION Richmond'd have to be one of the worst 5-0 teams of all time. Similar to the Roos last year. They will fall hard in the second half of the season. Bookmark it. Everything is going right for them at the moment and it won't last. They're propped up by Martin (who is probably the best player in the competition right now), Riewoldt and occasionally Cochin when he turns up. It's certainly not sustainable in the finals and as they come up against better opposition this year, they'll really struggle. So if they even make the 8, they'll go out in straight sets IMO. Just also found out that Riewoldt had (before tonight) never kicked more than 3 goals against us, so the fact that he kicked them out of his arse, was probably quite unusual against us. But it was his accurate goalkicking that certainly kept them in it, particularly in the first half. CHANGES FOR NEXT WEEK Some Demonlanders may finally get their wish next week and see Pedo in the team, because I can't see them going with just Watts in the ruck. Can't see King playing either, after one VFL game back. Lewis will come back in, probably for Smith and Pedo in for Spencer. It'll be interesting to see.

Be pretty [censored] off. Shouldn't lose to Richmond. Fortunately, we won't.