DeeSpencer

We’re a lot more than one draft away. We’ve got 8 over 30 veterans in the side and maybe one replacement in Bowey for Salem on the list. Perhaps Taylor for Lever in time too. And hopefully one of the young key forwards come in to cover Melk or Mihocek. And we’ve got a bunch of young guys who clearly have something to offer but they aren’t Tracc, Oliver and Viney either. We can’t rely on Steele dominating every week or on Sparrow and Windsor to be prime movers. A pure mid would be very handy. If we don’t want to go too far backwards in years to come we’re going to need to find some quality bargain finds from somewhere. We can’t have Bailey Laurie as the only remotely viable midfielder at Casey.

Agree. Windsor’s been doing his role well but had a complete non factor day today. Moved out to the wing which didn’t help. Culley on ball didn’t help Culley either. Hard to say Langford is the answer given he looks half asleep on the wing. Kolt and Windsor swap but we saw Windsor half back last year and it wasn’t pretty. Kolt’s also doing some really good things down there (mixed in with some very bad) I like Chandler on ball but he’s vital at half forward. Not sure what the answer is.

Out: T Mc, Melksham, Salem (inj) In: Jeffo, Henderson/Laurie, Rivers/X Taylor Petty back, he doesn’t really solve our lack of skill or mobility from our key backs but hopefully we can get him in some form. JVR in to the back up ruck to get some hands on the footy. The mobile Jeffo to restore our forward line to some more run and skill. Jeffo leads up, which in turn helps JVR, Mihocek and Fritsch find space Hendo or Laurie across half forward. Just to run kms and hopefully have Sharp and Trell make more impact in lesser minutes/in a deeper flanker role. Hopefully Riv is in down back because otherwise we’re in trouble.

He can’t win a contested ball at half back, what’s he meant to do on ball?

Short break and 5 weeks in and our young players and veterans hit the wall isn’t a huge surprise. First time all year King got selection wrong and it wasn’t really his fault. Laurie had to go out. Fritsch had to come in. Nothing else was ready to go. But it shows why we can’t overload on talls and non defensive mediums and need to pick as many pressure and running types as we can (which isn’t many).

Multiple players refusing to pick up the footy. Similar to the Freo game. King needs to read the riot act on the difference between playing free and fundamentals

Most of them are trying. Melk finally gets the ball and plays in when there’s no one forward.

Get Melksham off, he’s a huge liability. Freshen him up for one last quarter burst

Van Rooted

Culley can’t get beat in behind whoever that guy was. That’s just lack of defensive attention

Dreadful last 10 minutes with Gawn in hero ball mode and plenty of others following his lead.

I’m 1000% out, can’t believe you guys tried to get me back in.

Something a tad more modern and also works with our current strategy of taking some risks and getting some publicity. Ghosty can do the banner - he can teach you, but he’ll have to charge!

It’s a big if but if Sparrow can routinely produce 20 touches (with decent efficiency) and 10 tackles he might offer more than Viney in this new game plan due to his outside running. Viney and Steele in the same midfield gets us right back to a lack of speed and spread. If by some miracle Viney was back this week fully fit I’d be rationing him and Steele plenty of half forward time so we don’t disrupt the balance. If Viney could basically play a chunk of Laurie’s half forward minutes plus a few midfield rotations when fresh we’d be maximising his skillset.

Culley played wing for most of the first half against St Kilda then went deep forward to counter Wilkie as a defensive forward. Freo he played a bit everywhere, starting forward and then ruck and then on ball in the last quarter. The last two weeks have seen him playing almost exclusively on the wing. He’s had moments of quality with the ball and been useful as a marking target both out of the backline and sprinting hard forward to create a mismatch. But he’s also given up some footy to his opponents and occasionally been beaten for pace/awareness defensively. We’ll know more about him after another month or two but I think for now they’ll trying to solidify him as a solid wingman then they might try some more utility stuff with him.