Adam The God

TMac and May to tag team between Hawkins and Cameron. I'm not against Howes taking Cameron too.

In terms of elite kicks, we have Bowey, Salem and Fritsch, and you could argue Kozzy, Howes, McVee, JVR and maybe Windsor could qualify. Collingwood are similar. The Daicos boys, particularly Nick, Pendlebury and Sidebottom. I'm sure you could make the argue for a few more of their guys too. I'd suggest you have a different definition of elite kick to me.

Good post, @binman. I'd argue you don't even need 5 or 6 elite kicks to pull this off. 2-3 is fine, because it's really the exit kicks rather than the kicks inside 50 that are the score creating disposals. The reason being we're often kicking into space with forwards running back towards goal. Most of our mids can hit those kicks. Trac is an beautifully penetrating and attacking field kick for example.

I agree that Geelong were lucky to win and certainly had the potential to lose. My point was more that IMV, you are looking at the wrong stats. I don't think Scott would rate those indicators. Exactly. Rebound 50s is a stat Scott would rate highly.

I think your analysis on the podders, boss, and your potential fears for the Carlton game aren't unfounded. I expect and hope we'll be right to go against Carlton. The intangible at this stage is how heated and charged is the Carlton v Collingwood game on Friday night. Are there injuries? How emotionally taxing is that game in front of an expected 90,000+, versus what we face on Saturday night, knowing the result of that match too. If we lose to Geelong, it'll be interesting to see how we approach the Carlton game. From 2011-2015, they had no Ablett (they lost him at the end of 2010) and no Dangerfield (they gained him in 2016), so they had to rely less on clearance. IMV, they have played a slingshot game his entire tenure. The battering ram that has become Dangerfield, was Selwood in those years, and others who were nearing the end like Bartel (retired at the end of 2016). But they had an elite defensive mix that set up attacks. Think Scarlett, Taylor, Enright, Lonergan. They've replaced these guys with Stewart, Kolodjashnij, Henry, De Koning with Bews and Z Guthrie as the support hands. The game has changed to place even more emphasis on intercept, but I'd argue Scott has had the most influence on the modern game of any coach. This idea also explains why Geelong has been thereabouts for so many years. Now the modern game is all about intercept. Goodwin took it to an aggressive level, with how we hemmed teams in with our modern press and with our elite mids and frenetic forward half pressure forced teams to kick it to our intercepts in May, Lever and to a lesser extent Petty. But we've clearly eventually said the slingshot game is more effective over the journey than playing a forward half game for 22/23 rounds + finals. In one of my rare differences of opinion with you, I'm also not as convinced that the game will revert to forward half territory in finals. Collingwood played slingshot in that QF against us. Again, it'll be an interesting watch. You could well be right here. Meanwhile, hopefully by the back end of our fixture, we'll have perfected our slingshot game, and with Clarry, Trac and Viney at our disposal, I'd be backing us in against Collingwood. Carlton's midfield could compete and beat us, but as you and @george_on_the_outer said on the podders, they currently lack the defensive system we do, which should give us the edge. GWS are the team to beat I reckon, but let's see how Geelong go for the rest of the season. We've written them off many times before...

I think if we are really aggressive on slingshot, which we probably need to be, it'll mean more turnovers than had we had Bowey and Salem fit. But maybe it's a really positive thing to see how we go with our best half back kickers out of the side, because if it stands up, wowee, are we going to be dangerous when the aforementioned two come back into the fold. Conversely, if we struggle and turn the ball over more, we may need to temper the slingshot.

I don't think Scott would be concerned by those 4 stats... Again, against us in Round 2, 2019, they beat us by 80 points, but lost inside 50 by -24 and clearance by -15, -7 tackles inside 50. Metres gained is also not a particularly useful stat when you play on slingshot, the metres gained stat is constantly against you, and it's about being efficient when you get your slingshot chance. Rebound 50s however are a vital stat. This shows to me you don't really know what Geelong are trying to do or how they're winning.

We are emulating Geelong's slingshot game from the back half, where centre stoppages are less important and an open forward line is generated by slingshot off turnover in D50. I like to use Round 2 2019 as a good example of this approach. I was at the game and we mauled them from first possession clearance and they beat us by 80 points. In the game, they lost inside 50 by -24 and clearance by -15, scoring 62% of the time they went inside 50. I'd argue this back half game has been Chris Scott's template for well over a decade. Meanwhile, that night, we played the same game we played between 2017-2023, which was an aggressive, gruelling forward half game. This saw us lay +2 tackles and lay 18 to 11 tackles inside 50 for the game. This week, I expect that we'll back our new defensive slingshot system in against theirs and whilst we'll be happy to take territory when it's on offer, we'll look to follow the same blue print we've followed the rest of the season. * -1 at stoppage * send only 1 to the ground ball at stoppage (the rest defending or blocking) * emphasise post clearance pressure (from the defensively positioned mids and the inside slider off the back or front of the stoppage) * be happy to soak up pressure with a deep lying defensive zone * and tempt Geelong's methodical kicking game from the back half and try and turn the ball over across the wing area and slingshot back in. I think we'll play Fritta on Stewart like we did Moore last year. Fritta did some good jobs as a defensive forward last year. It meant he was often where the ball was (by way of his opponent going for the intercept) or us directly playing through him. Alternatively, it could be a really good way of getting Petty into the game. Have him sit on Stewart. Interestingly enough though, Stewart didn't do all the damage last year (another game I was at). Although he had the 2nd most for Geelong on the night and 8 intercept possessions, I felt Jack Henry who had 9 intercept possessions was more damaging. In a game where they lost Cameron in the first quarter to injury mindyou. I think Geelong will manage to score with their very talented forwardline (notwithstanding Hawkins struggling this year and Cameron being kept goalless earlier in the year), but the nature of their slingshot game means it's their defenders that set up their game, less so their mids. Dangerfield is a big out, but if we can prevent Stewart, Henry, Kolodjashnij and De Koning from controlling the air and our A50, I think we'll win.

Great podders, team. 👏

He certainly was like this in 2019. We haven't seen enough of him to judge this year IMO, but clearly he's second in line.

This King clip was played on the podders last night too.

Yeah, I also note that Carlton have scored big from clearance, where we are the best(?) if not second best at defending stoppage, and scoring more from stoppage than the opposition (minus against Brisbane). It means play the way we've been playing (minus Brisbane) and the Blues will have difficulty beating us. As for Geelong next week, minus Danger, means historically they'd go for a super slingshot slanted game, even with Danger in the team. It'll be interesting to see if we try and concede territory and play from our back half. With no Danger, our scores from stoppage and our ability to defend from stoppage will be greatly improved.

That's how highly they rate him and how important he is to the structure. Agree, he will turn it around.

Injury permitting, he'll come good before it gets to this IMO.

Neither have Geelong or Carlton. Geelong have beaten: St Kilda by 8 points in Geelong, Adelaide by 19 points, Hawthorn by 36 points, Bulldogs by 4 points, North down at Geelong by 75 points and Brisbane in Brisbane by 26 points. When we played Brisbane we were clearly cooked, that's the only win by Geelong you could potentially rate... Then over to Carlton, they've beaten: Brisbane by 1 point (after being down by 7 goals), Richmond by 5 points, North by 56 points, Fremantle by 10 points and GWS by 19 points. They also lost to Adelaide in Melbourne by 2 points. So the only potentially impressive win was against GWS last week and if you're being kind, Brisbane in Brisbane. So like both of those teams, the only win you could say was impressive by us was Port in Adelaide, but also backing that up off a 5 day break to beat Adelaide in Adelaide was solid too. Meanwhile, Collingwood played Port in Melbourne, and Port away from Adelaide are half the team they are at Adelaide Oval. Not comparing apples with apples... I love how some of our supporters think our results are somehow occurring in a vacuum.

Again, how were we smashed in stoppages? We won overall stoppages! We lost centre clearance by -2 and won around the ground by +9. I can't take you seriously if you're just going to write twaddle.

He's clearly a confidence player and always has been. Playing back next to May and Lever allowed him to do his thing without being one of the main men really. He had a difficult return in his first game of 2021 (against Hawthorn was it?), but after that settled in nicely to our defence and by the end of the year was clearly confident and felt at home. Now he's being asked to lead the forwardline with a younger JVR and Disco. I've said it before, but if he stays injury free this year, he will kick a bag at some stage and get his mojo back. At the moment, a player like Petty needs to find that mojo at AFL level, in so many ways the VFL competition is useless. So I'd be strongly against him going back there, but will back the FD if that's what they think, but I doubt they will. The strategy I think will be to have very basic KPIs, getting to as many contests as possible, bringing the ball to ground where he can't mark it, making sure his opponent doesn't intercept on him and eventually the wheel will turn and he'll get his 'bite of the cherry' as they say. He does all this and stays fit and healthy and he can play a huge role for us this year. A match winning one at times.

I completely agree.

It's bizarre the amount of fake news post this game.

It'll be a really interesting game, because in many ways we've taken Geelong's blueprint more than Collingwood's, so we'll both likely be playing a similar game style. Slingshot from D50 or clean scores from stoppage. The problem is we may want to take more territory next week because their forwards are so dangerous and their backs zone off so well. If you look at the draw though, Geelong have beaten no one of significance despite being unbeaten. I think Max and Fritta may hold the key. If Max can get his marking happening around the ground and Fritta plays a defensive role on someone like Stewart, but can snag a few, it'll go a long way towards the result. We'll also need more from our three bulls in the middle.

Change Bowser for Hunter and very likely Melk for McAdam and I agree completely.

This to me is now why it will be hard to get a read on the Geelong and Carlton games. If we've got Woey, Lever and TMac trying to hit those angled kicks into the corridor versus Bowser or Salo, it is pretty likely we'll turn the ball over far more often than we would without those two injured. Huge outs.

Again, look at @binman's post. They failed to score a single goal from stoppage. You're just inventing a different game inside your own head. It's very odd behaviour. You too, dazzle. You can like old Reemer's post all day, but your viewpoint is detached from reality.

Has Jenkins ever been right about anything in his entire life? I doubt it.

Each game is different. It depends what our pressure is like on the opposition. If they're turning it over as much, then you can't read into a specific stat too much.