DeeSpencer

He sure isn’t the fastest. But he seems to be enjoying the ruck contests and took some nice defensive grabs the other day. Whether he’s in line to play round 1 probably depends on Gawn’s fitness and the glut of key forwards. I just haven’t seen enough of Heath forward and don’t expect King to want to glut up the forward line we a ruck if we have 3 key forwards ready to go and at least 1 of them has pinch hit ruck ability.

Since the pre finals bye I think 7th and 8th became very small live chances, although they needed a freak run like the Dogs had with some other advantages on the way. Dogs played Thursday vs Eagles in the first week, then home against the Hawks in Melbourne, then away to GWS who they outnumbered in the crowd. That said, I care little about 7 and 8 losing premiership equity, they didn’t qualify high enough to really deserve any. What I am concerned about is 5/6 suddenly having an easier path than 3/4. 3/4 usually plays a war in the Qualifying final, as the away team and often on the road. 5/6 will now play a beat up 7-10 who have already played a final without any rest. Even if 5/6 has to travel the next 2 or 3 weeks they might start the first week beating up a 10th team that’s travelling for the second week straight, didn’t have a pre finals bye and is generally just happy to have made finals and won a game.

To be a dashing half back, possibly, but as long as CJ is ready to go and the likes of Rivers, Lindsay and Windsor can play back I doubt we do that.

He was seemingly absent today but it will likely be Howes or a chance to blood X Taylor in to a role. If we get beat by small forwards so be it. We've got a lot more to worry about than that. AMW looks good, they just aren't rushing him. I think he's done as much training this year as any other! CJ is a concern, just how much they have to leave him in the rehab group. I think the price we paid for him shows we knew it was a possibility but they're treating him like he's a big injury risk. Chandler's always going to be too small to be a long term back pocket. If we're really desperate I'd use Kolt.

Pythagorean wins works well for the NFL because so many games are one score results decided by just a very small (often 1) number of defined plays. A hit or miss field goal or touchdown catch. That can be true for close games of footy as well. A set shot hits or misses and that’s the ball game. My concerns with using it for Melbourne 2026 is we lost a lot of close games last year because of lack of on field leadership, lack of fitness and lack of scoring power and I doubt any of those issues will be fully resolved. We’re also going to be a drastically different side so it’s hard to predict we’ll be a tough opponent involved in a number of tight finishes. Our new game is designed to have a lot less gritty tight games too, it’s a lot more variable, it will hopefully work some days but there will be plenty it doesn’t work too.

Long pause for some extra hydration including some icy poles so that’s enough for me. Tommy Campbell coming back across the river, must’ve gone for a walk around the tan which woukd be far more pleasant than laps of the oval

Really nice ruckman in the hole mark from Heath. 2 now actually. Gawn sitting out around the arc as the attacking team ruck. Windsor run and ping from 50 - touched Gawn and Langford dropping in at 40 for marks and set shots the other attempts so far Onley drift down from the wing to the pocket for a mark and goal just now

ANZ121 Boeing 777 from Auckland just dwarfed our little drone in the battle for airspace supremacy

Heath, Culley, Windsor, Kolt Gawn, Steele, Langdon, Trell Next rotation in if you didn’t like the first 6!

Centre bounce practice under the eye of Russian and Jones. Heath, Pickett, Sparrow, Onley Gawn, Langford, Lindsay, Chandler 2021 it is not

Nice warm blustery Northerly blowing which is testing the players control on their kicking. Impressed by how quickly Oscar Berry has improved his kicking and trimmed up. Watching Disco mark a footy even in a fairly simple kick to kick drill is a pleasure to see. Such easy hands.

FB: CJ xxxxxx xxxxxx HB: Salem Disco Lindsay C: Langdon Steele Langford HF: Chandler JVR xxxxx FF: Fritsch Mihocek L. Pickett Foll: Gawn Rivers K. Pickett Int: Culley, Windsor, 3 x ???? Backs: 2 of May, McDonald, Petty, Lever or Adams. One of Howes vs X Taylor. Smokie -AMW Mids: need one more mid, likely Sparrow, perhaps Laurie. Viney if healthy. Forwards: 1 of Jeffo, AJ or Luker. Perhaps Melk when fit. 1 more half forward, Possibly Kolt. Perhaps Laurie or Sharp. Smokie - Mentha. We might change up the roles but there’s probably 17 that are a lock if Trelly Pickett can back up the training form. Practice games probably sort out the talls which could go a lot of ways. Then sorting out the last guy picked back, mid and forward.

There’s a lot more speed on the ball with players joining in the attack and forwards presenting. I still think we’ll have issues with the handball decision making from congestion especially given how many new faces are in our midfield. But hopefully we can get clear and hit up targets. Shepherding isn’t too common, most of the time if a player is free they want them being an option for the next disposal.

I had no idea what Drivers Depot even was. Kind of expected a crypto platform. Seems it's a fuel card/booking service aimed at truckies. Anyway, good luck to them. Penrite - Australian owned business in their 100th year - maybe they clean up those logos, sometimes they just stick them on for the photos then redesign for the real stuff. But we've sure had a lot worse sponsors over the years.

FB: Taylor McDonald Jiath HB: Salem Turner Lindsay C; Langford Rivers Langdon HF: Chandler JVR Laurie FF: L. Pickett Jeffo Fritsch Foll: Gawn Steele K. Pickett Int: Lever, Windsor, Culley, Sparrow, AJ Emer: Adams, Howes, Kentfield, Kolt, Mentha Unavailable: May, Petty, Bowie, Viney, Mihocek, Melk

Seems optimistic, we will still largely be reliant on young talls who will fluctuate in form. But even more than that scores largely come from how good the midfield are and we at least had 1 clear advantage with contested ball dominance over other sides. Now we might have to play both Viney and Steel at times to even break even at the contest. We don’t have any idea whether Culley, Langford, Rivers, Windsor etc. can consistency impact at the contest.

But also 0.5 clearance and one less contested possession. Easier to rack up more tackles when Oliver and Tracc aren't winning the clearances from the other side too. Steele's a good tackler though, but he's going to need a big revitalization and change of health luck to make any impact for us. He was completely shot last year.

Different style but he reminded me of Fritsch at Casey last year but doesn’t impact games quite enough and isn’t big enough to be a medium goal kicker type. I’m sure they’ll be watching him closely to see if he can put it all together.

Nope they had 2 different drills today designed for 1 forward to beat 2 backs. The lead to the pocket one as mentioned. And the 2 on 1 that Earl referenced, which was probably designed more for the backs but also conditions the forward to compete against 2. It’s smart coaching reacting to the reality now that most coaches will position their defenders fairly deep and create an extra number.

4th clip from the Dees instagram story today shows the drill they were working on with kicking to an AJ lead to a pocket to beat the intercepting defender.

I noticed a number of turnovers from him today, but also that he got pressure on Koz and laid tackles where just about no one else from our team would. And I want to see him taking the game on as much as possible at training. Even at Casey he’d have 25 touches but not a single one of them is aggressive. All short sideways or long and wide. I suspect if he makes it long term he’ll be a defensive stopper first but he has to grow his offensive side, if for nothing else just to get out of trouble when it’s hot. He coughed the ball up in embarrassing ways at times last year

White’s midfield I believe with Culley, Koz, Onley and Chin. They weren’t winning but should’ve been competitive given it was a fairly uncontested type of sim. Aside from leaving Kalani out the back for 3 or 4 walk in goals my concern was the ball movement. Lever especially refuses to take what’s open.

If Lever, Adams and Taylor are our backline based on this match sim we’re in trouble. Yellow just all over white. Salo and Langdon controlling things Nice intercept and run through the middle by X Taylor now tho, gets it to Kossie for the finish

Red team: Steele busy, Jeffo making an impact with some defensive hands in and getting out the back, Harvey having a bit of a mare Yellow team: JVR just looks a different player this year, just more comfortable attacking the footy White v Yellow coming up now

Kossie is on a different level to everyone else even if it doesn’t always end perfectly. Trelly getting involved too, he loves a cut back in to the corridor kick that sets up scores. A big contest by Luker draws some praise from Richo