Adam The God

Hopefully. But it'll be interesting to see if Richmond can pressure our mids better. Ball use under little pressure is always better.

I find it hard to track when I'm not at the ground, but going by CBAs, Steele was playing a disciplined defensive/extractors role and around him we had speed (Windsor and Kozzy) and spatial awareness (Langford). But the big improvement seemed to be just having better ball users at the coal face. Steele is very solid. Langford is a beautiful kick, but the really impressive guy in the midfield mix outside of Steele was Sparrow. I thought he was an important link up player as well as providing good pressure around the stoppages. Otherwise, not enough of a sample size for me. I also think we'll probably hold our tricks back for the real stuff.

No. It was based on overlap and getting it inside as quickly as possible. And again, it doesn't tell us how we were moving the ball from back with overlap, which remains similar to what we witnessed against North. As I said, what we saw more of was more thought from the middle of the ground with our entries. We also saw plenty of long and direct kicking straight to the 20m hotspot. Something we did a lot of last year too...

Did you see the Freo game at the MCG last year? Did you see the Bulldogs game later in the year? Perfect examples of fast, overlap play...

A certain Bailey from the Suns would be a nice Trac replacement... 😉

Too much emphasis on this idea that we're suddenly moving the ball quickly. We've been moving the ball quickly for the best part of 12 months. We had overlap last year, we tried to move the ball quickly, where we'd fall down is on entry. So in that respect the quick chipping and trying to get to the fat side before entry is main difference and will improve entries. But that said, it's a small sample size and many of our entries were fast and quick to the 20m danger zone at the top of goal square, very similar to last year...

North were poor but I thought we were fantastic. Kozzy is an A+er. We seemed to have a really good balance between aggressive zone defence, which we know we're good at, and continuing the fast ball movement and transition we started last year. I hope we play Howes either wing or high half back. He's dangerous out on the wing there and his foot skills are good, mixed with his height. Maybe Langford moves inside permanently and Howes takes the wing... Be interesting to see how we go against Richmond...

I disagree with this bit. We didn't get exposed by weaker midfields. We got exposed by our inability to convert clearance and territory to scores. When you're playing territory the way we played it, you're essentially trying to score when it's 18v18 in your attacking half of the ground. Makes it very difficult and even harder when you don't have great ball users - something we've tried to address with Langford and Lindsay. Conversely, weaker midfields like Collingwood's would have space in behind when they did win clearance. I do think it's important to have a diverse mix of attributes in the midfield though, particularly post 2023. You need pace and good ball use. As for keeping the opposition guessing, I think it depends on the type of game you want to play. Because if you're keeping the opposition guessing, you might also make your own team mates double guess.

They definitely do. EDF3093 - Advanced sport and exercise science - Monash University

Why are we talking about Deakin when the site is right next to Monash Uni? Surely their sports science people can use our buildings from time to time and whack a Monash logo on somewhere, it can be sold as an educational site and help MRC with their debt issues.

So the footage I've seen of Windsor today is difficult to gauge. There's no pressure on the outside, so you've got flat footed guys being bypassed from stoppage and no one tracking Windsor. If I'm coaching against Melbourne this year, I'm sitting someone on Windsor and seeing if that completely stifles our ball movement. I haven't seen any of pre season, but those who have, do we have more bounce than just Caleb up our sleeves? Don't get me wrong by the way, love Caleb, but he can only do so much. Also, what were the numbers today? 16 vs 16? That also impacts on the amount of space for Windsor to operate in. Thanks in advance.

Yep, I think we'll win 8-12 games. A wide margin perhaps, but we still have some very solid senior players who will hold up their end of the bargain, and then some emerging stars and some x factor unpredictability (game style and personnel). 8 is the floor, with x factor providing a possible ceiling of 12 wins.

Meetings are taking place with key governmental stakeholders. I think this will get done. Working with government agencies in my line of work, I know they have strict announcement clauses and announcing to members is made difficult for this reason. I've been a big critic of the administration over the last little while, but I'm prepared to give them a little longer. What I would advise is that the administration STFU about announcing any updates to members, because it sets a perfectly reasonable expectation from members for a promises to be kept. It's a difficult funding environment at the moment, but I think they potentially need to get more creative. It's in the Monash precinct, a partnership with their sports science faculty seems a no brainer that I've never heard any discussion around. If state and/or federal funding falls through, we need to strengthen our case for that funding by value adding. Education spending is always a pretty good angle. I'd have been exploring that route before going to governments. Maybe they did, but I doubt it.

It's a 38 game season in the EPL. But these fixtures are interspersed with Champions League competition (for the qualifiers from the previous season), the FA Cup and the EFL Cup, plus international duties for certain players. The key difference between football and footy is the contact nature of footy. I believe the aerobic requirements of modern footy also trump football (marginally), and there's more rest moments in a game of football. In other words, they're not entirely comparable. You just have to be physical and mentally fit for football, whereas footy has the physicality and contact that football doesn't.

Or he'll be compensating for another's shortcomings (Richardson), like Cook is doing for Guerra. Surely they wouldn't make this hire unless it had a specific focus we're not over as outsiders. It'll be interesting to read what the club says about the role.