Akum

Gys or The Clamp?

Hurley or Watts now?

Gawn could be either.

Nicholson > Bennell at this stage? Harder at it & seems to find it more. Tho' Bennell was good against Essendon too.

Not to mention Trengove - it's "TrenGRove", as in GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

His bad kicks are usually rushed clearances from congestion. On the run he's usually pretty good.

No, they seem to be very selective about who they suspend and who they let off. Corey is very lucky, though it seems to depend on the consequences rather than the care taken by the tackler. And it confirms my suspicion that the main reason JT got 3 weeks was the overcooked report from Adelaide's doctor. Though Kosi's suspension did clear up one thing. Some journos were of the opinion that one reason Trengrove's penalty was so harsh was because Dangermouse didn't have the ball when he hit the ground. Well, Duncan certainly had the ball.

Two words - "Lucas" & "Cook". A much better long-term investment IMO.

The thing about our game plan (or "the way we play", if you prefer) is that we're not (yet) able to sustain it under pressure. It relies on winning contested ball, and then on precise ball movement. We do it as well as any side against "moderate" pressure, and we have got it to the stage where we can really hurt ordinary sides. But under sustained "intense" pressure, especially if we're losing in clearances and contested ball, it's much more difficult to hold it together, and our game completely falls apart, and we look horrible. A lot of tweaking is needed to get to the next stage, where it holds together under pressure. For example, one very important "tweak" was Stef at CHF which gave us a very effective "get-out-of-jail" target; this was done deliberately by DB. An equally important "tweak" has come about by accident - the importance of the sheer foot-speed of Nicholson & Evans. A tweak that really needs to happen is that when we're getting outmuscled in the clearances, we need to have one or two "left-field" options that we can throw in there to give us extra hardness & physical presence. In the past few weeks, Brad Gotch has given us a bit of help here, with both Petterd & Joel Mac having had very effective games for Casey as mids (even Tom McNamara has been played as a bullocking type of mid). The sides that put us under "intense pressure" are those who can put more mature bodies around the ball and put physical pressure on us in both the attacking & defensive 50, and this is what we need to counter. If we're playing one of these teams - and it's no co-incidence that they're the top teams - we need to pick the side appropriately; for example, no Bennell or Morton, and nobody who doesn't chase. We had great opportunities for experimentation in 2009 & 2010, and some of the wild experiments during "tank-time" actually worked to a degree (e.g. Frawley & Warnock to the forward line) & could be tried again if we're getting pumped by a top side. From now on, the best opportunities to experiment is when we aren't going so well. Which is why it bothers me that DB seems to go into his shell when one of the top teams is getting on top of us. Like the example he gave when he actually thought about putting Watts on Goddard (which could have been a great move) but didn't follow it through. This is missing a golden opportunity to find out something that may be an important "tweak" to our game plan for the future.

Totally agree. Jamar forward is a bigger threat to them than Vickery (who is 200cm, by the way) is to us, but coaches will need to be ready to shift Martin back on to Vickery if he's getting the better of Riv or whoever. In fact, if Jamar is forward, the Toigs' best match-up for him is probably Vickery, and they may be forced to play him back on Jamar anyway. Which would be a big win for us.

Yep, that's my reading too. As soon as Green marked it, Scully turned to Sylvia & raised his hand in thanks & Sylvia acknowledged. It's not in Scully's DNA to pull out of situations like that without a good reason. Where Green is good is that he usually takes the No1 defender (usually a tall) and is good at keeping him away from being "third man up" against Watts & Jurrah & Howe et al.

Desperate need for an emoticon for "why the hell did I open this thread"!!

Played really well for Casey when Gotch played him as a midfielder, which could be another dimension to his usefulness to the team. Not as a starting mid of course, but if our young midfield is getting physically outmuscled (which can happen against a mature-bodied midfield), he could add toughness & hardness if that's what was needed. It's because he's so good one-on-one against a physically-matched opponent that he's sometimes asked to go against someone much bigger.

Yeah, then we could have traded Martin.

6. Watts 5. Scully 4. Martin 3. McKenzie 2. Nicholson 1. Howe

... or Scully (couldn't resist RR)

Don't like the fact that we missed two sitter goals from 20m at the end of the quarter. Could have put it right out of reach.

We're getting smashed in clearances; Scully & McKenzie are two-out against the whole Freo midfield.

Roost It, I don't expect you to say whether your friends' "contacts at Melbourne" are contacts in the "inner circle" (for want of a better expression) or on the "fringes' of the club, or in-between. But my problem with this "contact with the club" sort of thing is that if anybody significant in the "inner circle" had reliable information of this importance that we were losing Scully, I'd expect some sort of action to be taken on it, at least internally. Not a press release, we mightn't see anything obvious, but if it was clear to the "inner circle" that Scully's interests and the club's interests had clearly diverged, then the club (and for that matter the team) could not just carry on as before. There would have to be a shift of some sort in the club's attitude & behaviour towards Scully. If your friends' contacts are not "inner circle", then I'd expect that once you get a certain distance into the fringes of the club there's probably just as much gossip and rumour as there is on Demonland. It's human nature. So if the club continues to put out the same consistent message about Scully as it has all season and before, then he's not gone yet.

This is my understanding too. Jurrah (maybe with another forward) wouldn't need to be as deep as the goal square if the ball was in our defence. They should try to stay as close to the 50 as possible, but in position to receive a clearing kick (NB NOT a high bomb!) out of defence. It would only need to happen once or twice early in a game for the opposition coach to play one or two of his defenders further back. And once they start to "man up", the press starts to break down and it gets easier to get through it. And you'd back, say, Jurrah and Petterd against their direct opponents at least 50% of the time, especially with 2 or 3 of our best runners (Blease & Bennell?) streaming towards them to help out. As it is, having all our forwards in the defensive half of the ground only strengthens the effect of the opposition's press. Especially when someone manages to get clear but finds no team-mate in front of them and turns it over.

To me, the issue about "consistent" is that our game doesn't (yet) hold up under pressure. Other teams know that our game relies on precise and decisive disposal to succeed, and at this stage it falls apart under pressure. If we were to become more "consistent", it would be because we're capable of holding our game together when we're put under pressure. That may have been what transformed Geelong in 2006 or 2007 - they learned how to sustain their very powerful game when it was put under pressure. Once we can do that, we'll improve rapidly. However, a large share of the responsibility for bringing this about falls to Bailey himself.

Getting a bit concerned that "TrenGOVE" seems to be spreading like a plague. I'm not the pedantic type, but where it's a person's name, it's important to get it right.

He smashed Bellchambers & Ryder, beat Hille easily, thumped Hampson, and will decimate Wood. The question is how can we get the most out of Jamar & Martin. How about this: * Ruckman "A" (70% on ball, 10% forward): MARTIN * Ruckman "B" (30% on ball, 50% forward, including all stoppages in forward line): JAMAR Jamar doesn't actually pick up as many possessions around the ground as Martin does, he's not as fast or agile, but he's a great contested mark. He'd give defences a lot to think about in the goalsquare, especially with Jurrah & Wonna et al under his feet. And if Martin was getting beaten, or we were against someone like Sandi or Cox (or Zac Snith in 2013!), or for a last-quarter surge, we have a perfect "Plan B"!

Wasn't it Davis who got up Beamer's nose at one stage during pre-season? If so, the "package" has a bit of mongrel in it.

Agree that Footy Classified went for the junk about Scully instead of, for example, highlighting the fact that it was in effect the first full game our "4 horsemen" of the midfield played together - though Caro did say that "the biggest on-field story of the weekend was Melbourne, it was amazing what they did". Agree about that passage of play - they even sped up some of the ball movement to exaggerate the effect. On the other hand, in that passage, Scully was the only player on the field to follow the ball from one end of the ground to the other and back again, trying all the way to make position. And they could have shown another few passages of Scully's brilliant burst speed away from stoppages, and talk about how he combines gut running with burst speed with great disposal.