Adam The God

Oy vey! It's the midfield. I'm just not sure you can get away with this style of play in the modern game. It's effectively hiding JKH in the forward 50. It's tough. Opposition players will run off him and he'll invariably get dragged out. But at the moment, unless there's someone else at Casey demanding a spot, he'll probably have to go around again. He needs a major lift though. His decision making this season has been frustrating to say the least. I'd play him as sub. Bring on his run and seeming toughness at the end of the third. Get him to lay a couple of tackles and run his opponent off their feet. Gut running for a quarter and a bit.

That's what the players have told him anyway.

Apologies. I did actually think you were legitimately trolling. :D Let's say I disagree and retract my troll comment with an apology attached. Disposal efficiency is one of the most misleading stats in the game. We chipped the ball around at half back all year in '14. That made our DE look a lot healthier. Now that we're taking a few more risks, our DE is dropping. Thanks for the clangers stats though. That is enlightening. I hope Jones, Tyson and Vince can turn it around. I suspect Tyson is carrying an injury though, which continues to hinder him. And Collingwood are going to say that they miss him? Far too arrogant to admit fault. Dawes should be playing out of the square, IMO.

So it's a Tuesday afternoon troll, is it?

Completely agree, mate. He's one you can build a dynasty around. With the way the salary cap is inflating each year, a mill a season for ten years probably wouldn't be a massive dint in the cap. You could also front load some of that now to ensure we can keep others down the track.

I can get on board with most of this, but I wonder whether this is too much of a comservative approach in modern footy. With the advent of free agency, you must be competitive most of the time and that means pushing for finals as well, otherwise it's too easy for players to jump ship.

Yeah, okay, but that doesn't mean Salem couldn't form part of our midfield rotation.

Agreed. Although since Ottens left Geelong, they have had ordinary ruckmen. Would love a good ruckman, but I'd be giving up less, than I would for a good mid.

I suspect it's because they look for Hogan almost every time. Sometimes it's warranted and other times it's one dimensional and lazy. I'd be kicking to Hogan though because you know 75% of the time he'll either halve the contest for you or pluck one.

If Dawes is your third tall, he kicks 1 to 2 goals a game. When he's your second tall, with limited, poor delivery, it's not surprising he's not getting a lot of it.

I can see why you want to sort our ruck stocks, mate, but midfield has to be the priority. It's still a C grade one at best. We need mids.

All day, every day.

You play someone out of form... it's a ridiculous idea. It sounds pretty trollish to me.

If Toumpas becomes a shut down player, it rare that those types are great users of the ball. I think with more confidence and exposure to AFL level he will only get better. I'm not as worried about Toumpas as I am about someone like Howe.

Didn't note Toumpas playing on McVeigh then either. If so, I'm impressed. Already felt Toumpas had a pass mark, perhaps his game was even better than that?

I don't think it's been our trading that has let us down in the past.

He also doesn't try to kick the cover off it, which is nice to see.

That sounds like Vanders to me. He just needs to improve his disposal.

He'd better get out on the training track and start practicing his set shot kicking again then, because his kicking was hopeless against Freo. Lent back on every one of them.

Because at least he is a half decent third up spoiler. In form, he's not a bad intercept marker either. Given we've got him for this season, I think he's best utilised down back. I'd prefer it if his half-arsed chasing efforts didn't have a chance to rub off on our forwards.

Yeah, I was particularly happy with our ability to compete in the centre clearances. This is no doubt due to Sydney's midfield slowness. They don't necessarily have a lot of guys that can burst out of the middle. However, it was our lack of spread from the contests around the ground that killed us. Yep, I recall his first involvement was one of those crunchers. It was a nice kick and loved how the boys got around him. The exciting thing about Jeffy is that he could have had bags in just about every game he's played so far. Therefore, there's lots of scope for improvement. But he's very dangerous around goal. I'm loving having a dangerous small forward again. It's been a couple of seasons.

We did not run and spread at all. A lot of our important tackles didn't stick either. That first half was abysmal. In fact, I'd argue the first three quarters.

Yeah. That's what rightfully frustrates our support base. Gives me the shits. We're a very tough club to follow. Those two clubs in particular have brilliant young midfields though. We're a year or two off seeing the result of our midfield drafting. Spencer made a few errors early on in the game, which I suspect were a result of being out of the game at AFL level for so long. But he adjusted well, I thought. If you were watching the game from where I was it became very obvious that our players weren't working hard enough and thus had no one to kick to when needed. This stifles your attacking play, obviously. Spencer made a few errors early on in the game, which I suspect were a result of being out of the game at AFL level for so long. But he adjusted well, I thought. If you were watching the game from where I was it became very obvious that our players weren't working hard enough and thus had no one to kick to when needed. This stifles your attacking play, obviously.

Thank you, BRFE. Someone else was watching the game I was. Agree with everything above. Loved Billy's first two tackles. Crunchers. Plays a lot tougher than his old man. We couldn't work out why the hell our mids didn't work out the boundary umpire was throwing in shallow throws all night. If we had, we might have won a few more clearances around the ground. I suspect the problem was multi-pronged: too opponent-focused, more concerned with minimisation than attack and a lack of leadership.

Agree with all of that but Spencer. Thought he competed really well. We may have been watching two different games. I'd also say (and you do touch on this, GOAG) our biggest problem last night was that we didn't work hard enough to present options for our team mates. This resulted in either turn overs or slow ball movement. If you don't move the ball quickly against a slow Swans side you'll get smashed. Thought it was probably his best game in MFC colours. People get so blindsided by their opinion of some players that their default position is to simply opine that the player delivered an ordinary performance. It's the reverse rose-coloured glasses.