Little Goffy

Bruce definitely has a problem with sending the ball to people who promptly get crunched. In the last few weeks we were spreading better, working into more space and his instinctive 'take the first option' was a winner more often, because the first option was the best more often than not. I like him better playing a hard tag role with occassional bursts of attacking running. On their own, his high possession game and handball chains aren't good enough. At present he'll be looking over his shoulder at Morton and Gysberts, wondering 'how long do I have?'.

Good call on $%HEAD Stadium being easier to bottle up and close down our game style. North did it well, and it cracked our nerve a bit. Mind you, even then we still managed to put in a six goal burst. BUT When 'The Time' comes, 'The Place' will be the MCG.

Rivers made his well-deserved name taking the third opposition tall and knowing when to zone off to help out the other defenders who were often struggling. In any given week, he was minding 'one and a half' opponents. Two things have changes - 'The third tall' position barely exists anymore! The other defenders aren't struggling. The effectiveness of Warnock and Frawley has basically allowed us the luxury of one less tall/one more runner, and the proven versatility of Garland means we have a even more options and structures to work with. I have no doubt Rivers is and will continue to be a gun - a player with that level of courage, leadership and football awareness doesn't just drop out. BUT it may take a while, including time with Casey, for him to develop the running attacking aspect and the ground level game that he will need. My biggest concern, paradoxically, is that at Casey his most valuable role is his traditional one, and he is killing them all back there. Hardly reinforces the lesson that he needs to build new habits.

Grimes did well. North managed to combine a full zone with continuous pressure once there was a tangle going. The defenders had little choice but to try to switch play back and forward in the hope of gaps opening up. North did very, very well and bringing our attacking, corridor game unstuck and highlighting the loose edges that, of course, the team is still showing. Credit to Brad Scott as coach, he had a great day / week. Shame about the draft pick sooking before and after the game!

I think the Demons tag is a good one so long as the story behind it is told - that we were getting beaten badly in a game back in the 'old days' and the coach gave a spray, telling the players to 'Lift their heads and play like Demons'. It's a deliberate statement of ferocity and energy. A bit of pre-game talk-up while explaining how the game works, a bit of colour and history. Chinese superstitions only go so far; they aren't crazy people. They'll get it.

This thread really confuses me, I think there's something wrong with the marker on the website. Every time I look at the forum board, this thread is marked as having new posts 'today', but when I come in, it's the same as last week!

Hmm.. possible merit in trying to cut out Fev completely by focusing on him, and rotating the freshest possible opponent on Brown. He may be hit for every attacking thrust and kick eight in three quarters, but he'll be buggered for the last. It'll be like Nathan Thompson's big day out which ended because Carroll kept running him onto the wing. Other than that, we'd have to be trying to lay a tackles record. No tactic in defence is going to work if those two are getting good delivery. In the meantime, we've also got to just keep on attacking like crazy people. There's going to be a bunch kicked against us, we just gotta get one more. There's my plan - cut out Fev so Brown has to do all the work/leads, tackle like mad, and keep pouring on the attack. Not impossible.

I thought it was interesting that, way back in 2008, the three players I remember seeing at the Demon Summit were McDonald, Rivers and Morton. There were a couple of others but they were mixed into other groups. Morton, who was all of 18, it would be fair to say he wasn't used to the idea that he could just walk up to anyone there and they'd be delighted to chat with him. Still had a little shyness to him. Very endearing.

Too old. $$$ too high. Wrong message to the kids. Pass.

Frankly I'm a bit sick and tired of Jack Viney not turning up to training...

Jones. Good player. Not a star. But won't let anyone down in finals.

Hi, yeah, sorry Gold Coast <insert brand name here>'s, My contract is being front ended to the edge of oblivion, the club is banking salary cap room like Switzerland, and I kinda like the idea of making history at the home of football, and making old men weep with joy, alongside a group of elite players who I can play out my whole career with and have already shared the bad times. No disrespect, but I'll stick with the 'beloved club' instead of the 'entertaining franchise'.

He's not a star but I've got no complaints about him being in the team, in his own right and as a development process. I like him more often than I don't, and sometimes he really lifts a notch.

Dropping Newton = getting ahead of ourselves? Lol. Newton did ok and only ok last week. We had to find an out for Sylvia, maybe Juice was a bit unlucky but thems the breaks. And I Troy-Taylor-puke-at-the-3km at people suggesting Bartram should be one of the first dropped - we're winning because of relentless effort and he is gold standard for that. Also showing incremental (not outstanding) improvement on his general play and skills. Bartram this week will love his match ups the way Warnock had a little party last week. With the limited game time that a few of the Richmond kids will play, Bartram could in effect be grinding two Richmond players to dust in one game. Connects with another reason for dropping Newton - maximise run, wear out the Tiger kids, watch it blow-out in the last quarter.

There's scope for a partnership promoting Melbourne and AFL as a reason to come to Melbourne, for international tourists. A little backpacker program, some junkety stuff using corporate boxes for entertainment. Not a big program at all, but it's something that could happen. One of the little ways being 'Melbourne' can be put to work in our favour.

Last week I thought Juice did alright, he worked away. My main thoughts were along the lines of 'no great impact but he was playing AFL, not VFL at an AFL fixture, and that is a step in the right direction for him'. He may not get a game this week, which I think would be unfortunate because I agree that the game against Richmond could be a good one for him. And let's not forget, we all have our expectations of the kids but if a few of the not-quite-right guys in the 22-24 range step up, that will be bonus strength that could make the difference between making a bunch of prelim finals or delivering a couple of premierships.

Hmm... Joel MacDonald is under pressure for his spot from Garland. And the reverse, of course. One may be dropped, given the very light, small and somewhat speedy kids Richmond are bringing in. Essentially, we'd be substituting an extra midfielder-forward for a defender. Running and bumping power will count for a lot in this game. On to one of the Richmond forwards to be considered; Troy Taylor... Great bag of tricks, but real fitness problems as simply not developed when young. I was there and watched as he stopped and puked on his way around the 3km track at draft camp - not from any lack of effort or will, he just blew up. Still finished it, though. If allowed by his off-field issues, I'd think he'll have an AFL career, but there was no way he was supposed to be playing AFL level by round 4, 2010. Poor bastard. The whole Richmond Football Club knows he's not really going to be ready. If he pings something, or gets crunched, the internal fury will be immense. Consider that Jurrah was a similar overall build plus a few important years older, and was still given half a season of extra time to condition and be ready. But returning to the game at hand, this will be another week where we should be looking to simply out-work and out-run our opponents. If we keeping taking our risks as well as hunting their mistakes, the balance will accumulate 60-40 in our favour and only improve as the juvenile tigers wear out phyiscally and mentally.

Good time to be a little Demon, I think. :D

I'm staring at the teams and the match ups and I honestly think we have them better covered. They've gone with a very tall-style forward line, which we have covered anyway. Warnock will be frankly thrilled to have opponents like Hentschel and Scott Stevens who can't outrun him, for instance. In contrast we have a highly mobile forward line of players who have often played midfield and running roles. You can be sure Rutten wont be playing 100% time this week! The extra phyiscal 'density' of Rutten and Bock wont be decisive because there wont be any great need to wrestle for marks - most marks in our 50 will be on a lead or just from running around like crazy people when the ball is in the area. In other words, we'll have more runners right across the ground, without conceding a decisive height difference. If the weather stays dry we might see Garland come in for Bartram, but still have a major overall advantage on the km we can put out there. Some Crows are likely to win their contest comfortably, such as our routine nemesis Goodwin and the memorably 'homesick' Thompson, but Adelaide will be leaving too much to too few and wont have an overall fitness advantage - both these things are debilitating problems for a game plan that relies on an even, team-drilled performance. The Demons will go into this game believing that they will win even if they trail most of the day, so long as they sustain a high level of effort and force the crows to keep up until they just can't. Two days ago I thought it was just a tip from the heart, my first of a new era after three years of just accepting that good sense says no. But the more I've looked at the game, the lists and the form, the more I can't find a reason why Adelaide would win. Demons by 15 points. (by fifteen points I mean 2 goals three behinds - not 15 points in the manner of the Magpies, whose confidence and concentration would appear to have been mysteriously shattered)

It is when someone is in trouble and you feel no sympathy that you really understand that you don't like them. Watching the Pies/Saints games and the cuts to Malthouse in the box, I just couldn't get past the feeling that there was a guy who was realising that he'd believed his own hype, taken a big arrogant risk, and blown it. Now he has the rest of this season and all of next season to just go through the motions of coaching, knowing that he is not going to be able to bring home the cup, and knowing that after that he has to spend three more years as football director at a club going through an 'intensive rebuild' because he chucked in the draft picks and gave games to good-average players in the delusion he could get elite-champion results. Or maybe he'll buy out his own contract and go coach the Western Sydney Blowflies once they realise Sheedy has gone completely bonkers.

I gotta admit I couldn't really be bothered having hard feelings. But it was really annoying the way the commentators noted 'Mclean has been having a great game' every time he touched the ball for the first two weeks. That's not Brock's fault, just a product of cheap commentating where they run with a them no matter what. Thing is, those first two weeks, nobody was on him. This week against the Bombers he was matched up on a few opponents, and did nothing against the lot of them. My honest hope is that from here on he plugs along accumulating games and making a reasonable, unexceptional contribution for a while. Just long enough for the commentators to have nothing to talk about. Once the dust has settled, and Gysberts is showing enough for everyone to accept it was a win-win, Mclean is welcome to help Carlton along on the path to another elimination final loss, if they can even manage that this year.

Sylvia in for Newton. Dunn to stay forward. In effect a little shuffle. Newton may be hard done by, only getting one game. But he isn't going to be given solid chances until he can shown some of his VFL at AFL level, and has to deal with that because it is simply fair enough. Rivers (if fit) in for... I guess Bennell, leaving Bail and Bartram to stay as the small defenders, since they are actually defenders and the message of preferring their ethic is important. (No hard feelings at Bennell, I just think he needs time spent at the lower level focusing on defining his role)

We're in danger of being 'hit on the rebound' just like we hit Collingwood. Adelaide have a LOT to lose this week. 0-3 means major problems for any top-4 chances which Adelaide might still pretend to have. Still, if we come in thinking 'we've got a chance to hunt this lot down', we might just do it.

It's hard to tell from 1000km away, but on screen Bate looked like he was struggling to accelerate and to get involved. I was surprised by his reasonable stats at the end of the game. Certainly one thing that the cameras don't pick up is the negating role where a player simply sticks with someone so they aren't a good option for the releasing kick. I did think Bate gradually worked his way into it, and I'm reasonably confident he'll offer a bit more potency as he gets back some touch after missing the last 'leg' (ha ha, me pun bad yuck) of pre-season.

Unfortunately, he wont be available for the father-son selection as he has already been selected under the expansion rules, to join the Palembang Orang-utans Football Club. Let's take a moment to wish him all the best in his career with the men in orange. But seriously, happy birthday kiddo. Not a bad time to start growing up as a Demon. Edit: Matthew Jack Green? Seriously? Another Jack? Might as well just put him on the list now.