Adam The God

Go you redlegs! Goody coached the pants off Brad Scott, who is no slouch himself. Smashed them in clearances - 12+. The ruck role is seriously the most overrated role in the game. Anyway, beautiful around the ground stoppage set ups, massive props to McQualter too. We consistently set everyone up on the back of the contest knowing we could either hit the contest hard from there or stop their chaining out in the opposite direction. Such good coaching. Windsor and McVee are going to be elite players. JT is a genius. Both are so clean at ground ball. And if you can do that in the driving rain, you can always do it. Serious talents. Kolt showed some really good signs. Kozzy so dangerous around stoppage and his forward pressure was sublime. Rivers' early disposal was pretty iffy, but he knows how to win the contest and knows where to go to win the ball. I think with more time in there, his disposal under heat will get better. That's 5 guys 22 or under who are starting to majorly impact games every week. Add JVR to that conversation too, and Bowser and AMW are playing their roles too. The decision to play Petty was vindicated and when Petty struggled in the centre bounces early, Disco hitting the scoreboard meant we could afford JVR in the ruck more. I was more confident about tonight than next week, but we've put ourselves back in with a chance of not only playing finals, but ridiculously, top 4. Let's see how we go.

Ace.

Great post mate. IMO, it's no coincidence that the week Melksham comes back in, JVR gets the 2nd and 3rd best defender and gets a look at 8 shots on goal. If Melksham can play his role, it frees up either JVR or Fritta and we become much more dangerous in the forward half.

That's fine. Let's just win.

I'd love to know, it's become incredible this stat to me. I keep expecting them to [censored] the bed, but they still haven't yet.

Yep, @Gator is an excellent poster.

Turner has rucked in at least 2 or 3 games now. He did some rucking last week for example. I agree I'd prefer JVR forward, but he does go through patches of the game where the ball doesn't go near him. In those circumstances, I'd prefer to get him involved around the footy. So a bit of a case by case basis.

I think it'll more likely be 50/50 Petty and Turner tbh. Goody signalled in his presser that we have to balance JVRs dominance as a forward vs rucking him.

His track record. Or ridiculous claims like this when recently out of the game - https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/former-richmond-assistant-coach-david-king-declares-the-tigers-a-certainty-for-afl-top-eight-in-2011/news-story/eda5d63e30819aa35bf90014d0650476 He's a click chaser. That's his job.

Was exactly my thinking. Great post mate. King hasn't played at the elite level for 20 years and hasn't coached for close to 15 years. He's knowledgeable based on his access to Champion Data stats, but his analysis is very iffy.

Jetts for me. Absolute star. Loved Wheels' toughness too, don't recall him having much more speed than Jetts (who had little).

Exactly how I would have gone and how I thought we'd go. Petty, JVR and Disco 10 minutes each per quarter. Happy with this and excited to see how we go with it.

I figured the Murray connection with Dazzle.

I wonder if someone like Shai Bolton could be prized out of Richmond, given his age (25) and their impending predicament. He'd compliment our midfield beautifully and partner our smalls and talls forward of centre. He's signed til 2028, but you never know. Richmond are going to be in for some pain and need to maximise the next 2 drafts before Tassie come in.

If we set up any deeper, we won't be on the field at all. Our defensive zone for most of the year has been deep because we've been trying to slingshot into the space created the other way. I'd actually like us to go the other way and play a more aggressive, in your face style against Essendon. I'd rather us play the more explosive, combative style that we played against Brisbane. The old Richmond style, take territory with the ball, and push up at the ball carrier when not in possession. The difficult thing to predict is what sort of effect does not having Max have on our contest game. Does it make it easier to play the combative game or harder? I'd say harder because we don't have the ascendancy in the ruck, so to play the percentages, we may well sit our zone deep and look to intercept and go the other way. The wet weather won't help those attempts though.

So Waterman over Allen for you mate?

He looks like he could have at least 2 more years in the tank after this. Incredible. Credit to Tom and the high performance team for getting him fit again.

So does our alleged offer to Waterman a strategic one to land Waterman or unlock Allen? Interesting timing that this comes out...

Burgess is listed as "High Performance Manager", so this role would be under Burgo, I'd say.

Think back to 2017. We went 5-4 in the games without Max, losing those 4 games by a combination of just 34 points. We can beat Essendon without Max. Freo will be tougher.

Yup.

We were deadset hopeless that day. As bad as we were against Freo this year.

IMV, Petty is equal to or as good as Max in the air. That's why I think he's a good replacement for Max this week. As for Max's tap work, let's just say I disagree. Sides read off him all the time and shark him. We're now more unpredictable at stoppage and the opposition becomes more predictable from stoppage.

If the ruck position was so important, we'd be unbeatable. I just disagree.

We just need a contest in the ruck, and he's more than proved he's a good contested mark forward and back.