Adam The God

Opinion.

White will be a Melbourne player.

Oxdee has to be Fritta himself... On ya Fritta.

lol sounds like the AFL. The amount of rule-making on the run is incredible.

Good call on Bowser. Managed to miss him. I know he's small in stature, but I wouldn't mind Bowser taking some wing minutes when McVee and Windsor are fit again. Basically rotating Bowey and Lindsay between wing and half back. Structure up something like this: McVee May Petty Windsor Lever Salem / Bowey / Lindsay Lindsay / Bowey Oliver Langdon I'd also try and play Langdon majority wing, because his ball use has improved out of sight and he's reliable being a link in the chain. I'd keep Rivers in the midfield and injuries permitting, I'd hope we wouldn't need him backward of centre. That would leave our midfield with Oliver, Viney, Petracca, Langford, Rivers, Kozzy and Sparrow. I'd play Viney 60% forward, 40% mid. Trac 65% mid, 35% forward. Kozzy 40% forward 60% mid. Running the rest of the guys through midfield too. Down the other end, as I wrote the other day, I'd be open to TMac playing alongside JVR. If we want to play three talls, then it's between Turner and Jefferson for that other spot. But I'd prefer to play two talls and a mid sized Fritta or Melksham. I think our best team is probably something like this: McVee May Petty Windsor Lever Salem Lindsay Oliver Langdon Sparrow JVR Trac Spargo TMac Viney Max Rivers Kozzy Bowey Langford Fritta Henderson/Kolt Sub. Melksham If there is an injury to a tall, Petty can swing if necessary, otherwise you structure up around Fritta/Melksham/Trac and push Kozzy permanent forward too. I have Spargo ahead of Chandler as well...

Agreed, but what I think we'll also see more of this year is more space in the forwardline rather than clumping together all our tall forwards to protect against the slingshot. I think we'll look to isolate our forwards more, it's a very different set up to the Stafford forwardline. To my eye, Sunday was evidence of this already. And surprisingly, despite his wirey frame, on a dry day, I think Jefferson would have plucked 3 or 4 good marks at the top of the square. I don't recall him being beaten in the air. We were also playing a team that is devastating on the counter, so I think we got the balance right between kicking to contests in our forwardline and trying to isolate forwards and have the ball ping back against us.

It's interesting, because to my eye our kicking efficiency was really pleasing against GWS, but the higher efficiency was also padded out by those short uncontested kicks across half back to control the game. The kicks that we miss were those 15-20m short angled kicks coming back through the corridor or along the wings. Make those kicks and as @binman often says, you have a chance to chain for a score. Rivers is super unreliable and turned it over in these sort of spots, and has for 2-3 years now. He gives great bounce and has great penetration with his kicking, but isn't who we want trying those shorter kicks IMO. As often as possible, we need to involve Windsor, Lindsay, Salem and McVee from the back. Despite Salem lacking pentration, and even the ability to hit those angled kicks, what Salo does do is nails those 15-20m passes, which maintains possession and continues the chain. IMV, another guy that could really help with our forward entries and ensuring the chain doesn't breakdown is Melksham. I just wonder whether Fritta is playing the Melksham role at the moment, and that when Melksham is fit, it'll be between those two for the leading high half forward that turns and enters A50 as that final link in the chain.

And as @Little Goffy says, and I've said many times, Chaplin was responsible for our 2018 forwardline, the highest scoring forwardline in the league, with a huge and varied spread of regular goalkickers. It'll be a work in progress this year, but if it clicks early enough, we'll be a premiership threat.

Schwarta was a great player. One of my favourites growing up. That 1994 finals series as a 7 year old was 👌

I'm pretty sure he's responsible for ball movement and how we enter A50.

That's Chaplin's role...

Content going through the roof. Awesome stuff. Kudos to the club for this. More please. From a doco camera perspective, the camera work in those last few shots is really bloody good, capturing all the debutants with their friends and families without a cut.

So the MFC presumably leaked this?

But we have 2 of the top 5 best contested players in the comp in the same midfield, just need the outside polish to finish off the good work.

My favourite pass of his was the beautiful kick to Max on the lead. Perfectly weighted. Not many of our players can hit that regularly.

He played on the wing and at half back...

Yep, that's where I'm at. @Slartibartfast, you'll be happy to know that I see a spot for your mate as a KPF alongside JVR. 😄 I just think if TMac takes the best defender, can still bring the ball to ground, his being run off is really no different to defenders running off JVR or Turner, and it frees up JVR to get the second best defender. I'd happily stick with just TMac and JVR with the latter taking second ruck duties, but if they insist on playing three talls forward of the ball, TMac, JVR and Turner could work.

The basic shots I refer to are Max's from 20m out, Tom Sparrow from 40m out directly in front with a near dry ball and seemingly little wind, and Fritta's snap from 20m at the top of second. The latter is a goal Fritta would have nailed at least 30 times in his career, and would surely be 9.5 from 10.

We had 9 to 8 tackles inside 50 yesterday. I really don't think we lost because we had "three lumbering forwards". We lost because we couldn't convert basic chances in front of goal.

And coming from behind against Brisbane that year at the G.

Lindsay has wheels too, like Windsor, which is super helpful for breaking lines, because I think as others have stated, we were really good with forward handball yesterday. This means we don't have to rely on those angled kicks to shift or break zones. And our chip game was very similar to the approach Geelong tried unsuccessfully a few years ago.

I'm sorry but Rivers is not a good kick. Love him, but a very hit and miss kick.

Yep, I'm fine with us losing clearance numbers, if we're winning scores from stoppages. It then means we're defending from our back half and enables us to slingshot back in behind the opposition to a less congested forwardline. Likewise, potent clearances (out the front ideally), lead to 1v1s as the ball gets in quicker to our forwards.

Yep, I feel the same way about Lindsay as I did about Clarry after his first game, against the Giants, where they both picked up the same amount of disposals on debut. Unfortunately, in Clarry's debut we won by 2 points. Lindsay is gonna be a gun.

He was better yesterday with 3 tackles, mind you he was playing higher up the ground.