Akum

Not only that, but because we're happy to leave it 7 vs 6, their spare can run it out of defence at will.

Yeah, if it wasn't for "Laugh-In" we would never have got Goldie Hawn.

That's Jack Watts' fault! The pack needs new prey.

I guess I thought that if they're taking Gawn & Spencer in against NicNat & Sinclair, they'd either match them up or that we'd have one of them & Dawes on the bench the whole match (giving them all 66% game time, not unreasonable for Darwin. Or that Spencer would match up on Sinclair. I thought that surely there would be some thinking behind going tall. I should know better by now - there's NEVER any thinking, let alone any adjustments for the other team's strengths & weaknesses. But when they had the spare defender & we didn't match them, it was pretty much game over. And will be every single game we let a team do this. Sure, Cross made a number of important interceptions, but we're never going to match any top side while we allow each of us to play an extra defender. Ironically, matching up their spare would have crowded our forward line & maybe not have allowed them to bring it out so easily, while creating more contests (& thus playing into our hands). But going in so tall in the forward line, plus allowing a spare defender ... guess what's going to happen? Surprise surprise, they run it out of defence all game virtually unopposed.

The worst part is we have to keep playing him in the firsts. If he's played where he deserves to play, we wouldn't get a third round for him.

Absolutely right. A lot of ordinary players who look great because they are so well-drilled as a team. Their whole game plan is designed to avoid one-on-one. They use space brilliantly, their transition play (from congestion into space) is brilliant. And it's all because they have predetermined patterns so they know where each other is going to run. So they don't have to look for one another, they just kick it to the predetermined place knowing that someone will be in the clear & running onto it. Makes it easier to nail passes to your forwards when you're in the clear perfectly balanced & under no pressure. Their predictability should make them easy to counter. But we played right into their hands. We played exactly how they wanted us to play. Their spare defender (usually Masten - ordinary player one-on-one) could just overlap all game, completely unopposed. We stifled Geelong's game by keeping it contested as much as possible. We needed to do that to stop WCE. We made them look much better than they are.

And they will keep doing it as long as we allow them a spare defender. We MUST match up.

When they have a loose man in defence, they can intercept mark & overlap & run it out all game.

We're letting them get a loose man in defence again.

The early crow! Love it!

Let's see ... No staging for frees or trying to con the umpires. No ducking to force a high tackle. No appealing for deliberate OOB every time the other team puts it across the boundary, or for holding the ball every time an opponent is at bottom of the pack. No cheating with the third-man-up rule ...

To err is human ... but to really f*** things up you need a computer!

You'd expect they'd have consulted with both clubs & given them reasonable time to work out what they wanted to do.

Great post GD. Really brings it home.

It's hard to imagine anything worse happening to any family. Our hearts & thoughts & prayers go out to them. Hope they get all the support they need.

It's also more effective against teams that attack wide, and not direct & quick up the middle, which needs hard running & a certain amount of precision disposal. The press may be more effective in the energy-sapping humidity of Darwin though.

Neither Gawn nor NicNat have the tank to ruck the whole game in Melbourne in winter. In Darwin, the second ruck will come into play much more. It's hard to know about NicNat. He's done well this year, and smashed opponents who aren't physically equipped to match him or to combat his leap. His leap gets him into a position for a free hit at the ball, especially at centre bounces, and when this happens he's very good at directing his hitouts to advantage. And the WCE mids have gorged off this supply against teams with a weaker ruck. But if NicNat's leap is nullified and he's NOT allowed to get a free hit at the ball, how will their mids handle it, especially if a lot of effective hit-outs are going the other way? They're spectacularly good front-runners, but what if it gets tough? Of course, this all depends on Gawn & Spencer being able to break even, and us winning the clearances to back it up. The clearances are so important in this game, we will have to go in with Spencer as well as Gawn. We lose the clearances, we get smashed.

Yeah, I guess you're right. If we take Vince, Cross, Vandenburg, Toumpas, Watts, Petracca, Trengove, ANB, & Stretch out of our midfield, we ARE "thin". You missed out JKH & Garlett. That's even before we get down into the role-players and the fringe. Not disagreeing that we need more mids, by the way. But what we need is more quality (1, maybe 2) at the top end, not more depth (3 or 4) at the bottom end.

Didn't he do that with Longmire in his last year at the Swans?

Exactly. Not only that, but because they depend too heavily on Gazza to win them games, it's stifled the development of their other mids (as has Judd did at Carlton). When Gazza's playing, he does all the heavy lifting, and they have less responsibility. So that when Gazza's (or Judd's) not there, they can't win without him because their developing mids struggle to step up. I'm arguing against the superstar trade. On the other side of the coin, we've done well in recruiting the #4 or #5 mid from sides that are chock-full of mids, and who have been able to step up when given the extra responsibility to be #2 mid with us - Tyson & Vince. And, for that matter, JPK. It's why I'd prefer Coniglio, for example, to Dangerfield.

rjay. you've made your point really well, and I totally agree with you. There's a big difference between trading in good or very good players to build a star team, and punting it all on an elite player. Judd to Carlton & GAJ to GCS are other examples of a superstar trade that was supposed to bring the ultimate reward much closer, but ended up taking both teams much further away.

"About as subtle as a hand grenade in a barrel of oatmeal"

From someone whose opinion is likely to carry considerably more weight: "Colin Garland: Col’s been super consistent and arguably our most consistent player. He’s done a role every single week, but unfortunately he broke his hand and missed a couple of games before the bye. He’s a high-quality AFL defender. Sounds like he's talking about someone he'd like to keep. Not at all costs, of course, but he knows Col's value to the team. Roos isn't Neeld. Or to put it another way: Col's had his share of niggly injuries over the past 2 or 3 seasons. But when he comes back, he's always straight back in. (how long since he's played a game for Casey?) That's another indicator of how he's valued currently.

Hey dieter, if you keep posting he'll be getting fed thru tubes in no time!

Roos has actually built a really good team for man-on-man contested ball, like Sydney. When we can keep the game at this level is when we do best. It's just when other teams use their systems and their team plays & structures to overcome our man-on-man strength (the best examples being Port & Pies) that we struggle to overcome these structures. Against Geelong, we just stuck to man-on-man all game, and totally nullified their loose man in defence and their run off half-back.