Dr. Gonzo

It's round 1. Contested footy will win out through the winter months over a long season. Contested footy stands up in finals. Of course you need a bit of pace and skill too but it doesn't call for a dramatic change in style.

In what way do you think it's impacting? We stopped playing the +2 off half back late last season. Our issue today was more around workrate and intelligent play. I don't know if this was due to being underdone or just an off day. Our decision making and ball use was horrid. Long kicks down the line to contests where the opposition easily out played us to regain possession. 3 or 4 players all fighting each other for the footy while the Port guys sat off the pack and took away easy clean disposals. I hope it was just an off day because if it was due to a poor preseason it doesn't bode well for the year. I kind of thought we may have a bit of a down year before challenging next year due to the number of players having interrupted preseasons and the fact we've had steady linear improvement since 2013. Not many teams keep improving year on year on year. We've also got a tougher draw this year. I'm not throwing the season away it's only round 1 after all. We've seen a number of interesting results already and plenty of teams having poor touch. I'll give them a chance to redeem themselves over the next month and see where we are at then. I still think we're on the right track I have faith in Goodwin and the list. We just don't seem finely tuned at the moment.

We pretty much abandoned the 2 off the back of the square tactic for the last 6-8 weeks of last year anyway. It's a rubbish excuse.

Who cares

There's a reason we've been targeting key defenders the last couple of offseasons. The FD isn't blind.

Pretty sure tackles don't count in the stats sheet if the player gets a disposal away so he may have laid a couple of tackles that went unrecognised.

The responses have been completely reasonable for the most part. It's not that we lost, we played like rubbish. Hardly looked like kicking a goal in the 2nd half and seemed to have no system in place. It could just be an off day but the it didn't look good.

You look faster when you switch play and hit targets. You look slow when you bomb/hack it down the line and can't take a mark.

Who does he come in for? Port killed us with run and spread, having another lumbering big man wouldn't have helped that.

Not everyone who takes drugs becomes an addict just as not everyone who drinks beer becomes an alcoholic.

Paywall. Anyone want to PM screenshots or do I have to wait read at the coffee shop tomorrow

That club is in disarray.

He seems like a decent guy with plenty of baggage and a bad support network. I'm glad Melbourne traded him out from a footy perspective but I hope he can sort himself out. He's still quite young, I'd hate to think what I'd do in his position at that age. In fact I did do similar at his age it's just I didnt have celebrity status or networked cameras in everyone's pockets.

Niall completely sidesteps the drug issue with both Watts and Hogan

And one who let go Watts and Hogan

Yeah doesn't seem like "alcohol" consumption was the problem.

My recollection is we were trying to push him out the door to get the picks we used on Oliver and Weideman

Because he wanted to leave? And we saw an opportunity to land another asset by moving him on now.

I wouldn't have Smith starting even if he were fit. Our forward line would be too tall with tmac, weideman, petracca already down there. We need to be able to retain the ball in our forward line rather than see it rebound straight out.

50k needs to be our base minimum moving forward. 60k should be a longer term goal. 70k in the next 5-10 years would be an outstanding result.

It's a ridiculous suspension but all those saying May was stationary are blind. He clear moved towards Berry to initiate contact with him. Shouldn't get suspended due to the minimal impact but he definitely initiated contact

Sounds like we can write Hannan off for most of the year. It's unfortunate because I thought he started to play more consistently towards the end of last season.

What's up with Hannan?

They've got a good writeup on him in the AFL Prospectus this year as the player of the year for 2018.

Sheffield plays in div 5 or something like that