DeeSpencer

Depends on your definition of elite, but for mine elite kicks are guys who lace the ball a variety of distances and routinely hit corridor kicks. Salem’s always been undervalued for his contested work, marking, positioning, tackling and slightly over valued as a kicker. If he was unquestionably elite he’d take more kick outs.

Shaun Grigg was a proper solid footballer. Jacob Townsend is the short term aim for Joel. Come in later in the season, compete in the air and provide immense defensive effort and run to be an outlet.

Salem is a borderline elite kick, good vision but limited penetration. Bowey and McVee aren’t elite either but the hope is they keep growing. The 30m up and under king Hunter sure isn’t. Spargo is an elite kick for his role but he needs to get more than 3 of them. Fritsch can be. But it’s incredible how well we play given how limited the foot skills are particularly across the midfield.

6. Viney 5. Salem 4. Tracc 3. May 2. Gawn 1. Gus Fritsch, McVee, Rivers, Sparrow unlucky

Salem, Hibberd, May, Rivers, McVee were amazing and Tomlinson played as well as he could. Lever was incredibly ordinary and the Pies caught him in no man’s land and danced all around him pretty much every time they went forward quickly. Had he put an intercepting clinic like he did v Collingwood I’d play him in this role each week but Salem, Rivers and May had as many intercepts and McVee just the one less. Hibberd played full back on Ash Johnson as the third tall. We didn’t need a 4th tall and we certainly didn’t need Brayshaw’s turnover ability in the middle, though he did get his hands on some clearances. He could’ve done Lever’s role, Lever could’ve played Tomlinson’s role and assuming he was not terrible in the few big aerial contests Tomlinson had the game would’ve been the same. We dragged an undermined Collingwood in to a dour defensive battle. If the aim is the lose in a prelim at best we’ll keep this set up. Barring Tomlinson making big strides in his defensive reliability whilst somehow still lacing targets on his left, Lever improving his mobility to levels that allow him to chase smaller forwards and not look completely inept and Hibberd keeping the fountain of youth we’ll be too slow, too defensive and lack the kicking skills to bounce the ball out effectively. If we want to go further we need a backline with more run, skill and speed for when we play the real Collingwood.

Phillips was very much an outside mid, Brown looks much more of an on baller with tackles and contested footy a big part of his game. Smaller, quicker inside mid with a lean frame but good contested work. Maybe a bit Darcy Parish like?

If we win by dragging them in to a defensive battle my opinion won’t have changed. If there’s flare, risk and the forward line functions I’ll re-asses. Carlton game was a step in the right direction in terms of our use from half back but our forwards were still a mess and the midfield didn’t exactly link up like a well oiled machine either.

The pies will win comfortably and the reason is simple: We still haven’t developed a corridor game and we simply won’t be able to score enough without one. Meanwhile the Pies will get to 80 points no matter how good we are defensively because they’re a constant attacking threat. They consistently open the corridor which creates space and wrecks defensive structures. Salem played his best game since the grand final, Rivers is trying to do the right things and McVee is showing promise but there’s still not enough bounce at half back. If Gus goes back to replace Bowey that isn’t helped either. Langdon creates overlap run in his own way but it takes a lot to go right to goal from Eddie overlaps against elite defences. Our forwards haven’t timed their leads to his kicks at all this year. Hunter plays slow and gets the ball almost exclusively in the Wayne Harmes zone millimetres from the boundary and doesn’t have the confidence or penetration to kick the ball back to the corridor. I’d play him on the right wing so he is forced to roll corridor side but that will probably mess with his defensive and outlet positioning. We don’t have a CHF to do what Geelong do to Collingwood which is hit up Jeremy Cameron often at the point of the centre square. It was nice to see Fritsch up the ground in the second half v Carlton rather than always attempting to break Josh Jenkins’ record for out the back goals but at best he’s Kmart Jezza and undersized at centre half forward. We won’t be able to use Petracca as a de facto CHF without Oliver or braving significant midfield minutes to small forwards. And none of Chandler, Spargo, ANB or Pickett have shown the ability to rack up big touches through half forward - which isn’t their fault, they’d have to be super human to win a stack of ball from long down the line footy. Hopefully we put up a great effort and who knows, maybe we get lucky, but there’s a clear gap in the capabilities of the sides and pretending we can flick a switch to form and tactics from 2021 isn’t reasonable.

Not sure how ‘pointed’ this barb was. We value Grundy’s follow up work and he’s had some excellent moments in that aspect of the game. Goody’s giving praise for the strongest part of Grundy’s game. Tap work, marking, defensive concentration lapses and whatever we’ve done with his decisions to handball at shoddy times rather than kick, less so. Did the Pies purely hate his style or did they just think Darcy Cameron was a better bet at his age and contract? There’s also a significant chance we salary dump someone over the next few years, we’ve already tried it with Tommy Mc post 2020. The explosion of long term deals on big money has meant all clubs are likely to face difficult cap decisions.

Hibberd can’t replace Bowey. Too slow. He’ll be in for Tomlinson. Gus back, who’s no good as a midfielder anyway, and a fresh mid in.

If they do go JJ I’d have him tag Pendles fairly aggressively too. The focus on Nick Daicos has never been right to me. Don’t fire the rest of Collingwood up by attempting to get in to him. Try to corral him from the corridor and get him the other way. Pendles is the one to attempt to unsettle his composure with the ball

JJ or Taj? Head says JJ is the safe choice, but we need zip and energy around the ball.

It wouldn’t shock me at all, given the club have access to hospital care a short course of IV antibiotics could speed up recovery. Would obviously mean more doubt about his availability for Monday.

https://twitter.com/edbourke6/status/1666284703241105409?s=46 not sure why this isn’t embedding WHE and McStay available, Lipinski and Elliott likely

McVee maybe with some handover to Rivers will be on Elliott regardless. Hibbo isn’t up for chasing the smalls these days. If McStay comes in then I’m tipping Ash Johnson comes out. 4 tall forwards is unlikely. I’d still rather play Hibberd on McStay or Mihocek than give that job to Tomlinson. Better to give away height than to give away mobility.

I’ve been contemplating the talls and Moore conundrum. I think we stick with Smith, play him low minutes with high energy to hopefully sit on some heads and provide some pressure. Ask for a big effort from JVR, Gawn and Grundy to up their minutes. But if we were to go a different route there’s 2 options: 1. Schache, and, controversially have him match ruck minutes with Cox. Allow Gawn to play almost full time forward and get in a rhythm in that role. He’s our only hope of countering Moore directly. 2. Go small, use Sparrow and Petracca at times as extra medium forwards. Bring in our next best mid/forward with some pace and commit to running/switching footy that avoids the long bomb as much as possible. The player best suited to come in for that role to me is Woewodin.

If it's purely the blister that's infected he'll probably be right to train later in the week and likely to play, if things are improving over the next couple of days. If there's cellulitis they'd be wise to get that fully under control which would put him in more doubt.

Scroll a little, tap the AA next to the demonland address. Tap the bigger A on the right

Harmes was the sub, doesn’t count It will be Bowey and Tomlinson for Oliver and Hibberd. Gus goes back, plays as an interceptor. Hibberd is the best possible match up for Ash Johnson. Lever has to play on a tall, be it Cox or Mihocek but he would’ve had to do that anyway. Spare me the Lever has to be the third tall. He still is. Hibberd > Tomlinson unless the opposition has 2 gun big talls like Carlton.

I believe he was a midfielder in under 16’s who was sent to half back in colts footy. Whilst I don’t know for sure I suspect he struggled with the increased physicality against bigger kids which isn’t surprising for a skinny kid at that age. I don’t think anyone in the club last year was really thinking he’d be a lock down defender. He just seemed to progress with his defensive efforts as the VFL season went on leading to a strong grand final.

The big issue is ages. Most players start in their teens or early 20’s and by 25 have either made a career or a great financial start and can then continue on strong wages or turn their attention to other careers. Umpiring is always going to demand more maturity by the nature of the job. 30-40 will be the prime years for umps which is also the prime career advancement years for most people. I think it would be smart to identify a number of 25 year olds with elite potential and create a pathway for a number of full time umpires. 1 per game would be a wise aim. But making the entire system full time certainly isn’t a short term option if at all. Umpires are already very well paid for part time work and a lot of careers are now flexible with jobs. They can’t give up their jobs but I’d imagine many are doing 3 or 4 day weeks. The thing that’s been overlooked with umps this year is that the shift from 3 to 4 has lowered the standard across the comp. It’s also messed with positioning and with overruling. These are short term negatives that we are suffering through for the greater good. The overwhelming positive is that for the first time in decades the running work load on umps has been significantly eased. We will see that benefit with less injuries, longer careers, less rigorous fitness demands over the next few years. And the teething problems with getting more umps per round, different angles, poor or reluctant overruling from off ball umps will start to resolve.

He had kicked the previous Melbourne goal to that one! ‘I need a goal’ is a terrible justification for selfish play. No matter your own personal form or confidence you should do the team thing and it will come back around to you. I just don’t think it was selfish given when and where he received the ball. Having waited under a lofty handball he couldnt have been certain Chandler wasn’t covered and he had to make a split second decision turn in board and handball or roll to his preferred side and kick. If he was a right footer I’d expect a handball but once he went left it became harder to see and pass it off. As a team our forwards need to learn how to share the ball with handballs and create space for each other to get better shots. Really in this situation JVR should’ve gone to Sparrow who then would’ve had 2 on 1 to walk it in. But it’s not always that perfect and JVR and Fritsch both went direct to goal, nothing wrong with that. Our forwards also need to learn how to block for each other and how to lead up to create space too. A lot of to work on more than Fritter dribbling in an open goal.

Already nominated. JVR didn’t completely dominate but it was a very good 4 quarter game and the highest SuperCoach score of the round from the eligible players so far. Short of a great performance by someone in the Ess/North game he’s in the box seat. Personally I’d love to see McVee get it for another very good game and consistent performances but he might have to wait a little longer.

I like George, and he has weeks where I’m stunned he’s not on an AFL list because he has a touch of class to go with what appears to be a good work rate and attack on the ball. But at the same time I don’t think he’s got enough speed to use it as a weapon, is on the smaller side for a mid or flanker without a leap or sticky hands, hasn’t established himself as a consistent midfielder and isn’t an absolutely standout ball user. There’s probably a number of lesser players getting games at AFL level this week but with list spots so hard to come by I’m not entirely sure Grey will get one

I’m as harsh on Fritsch as anyone but he got the ball completely blind to Chandler’s location swinging on to his left with pressure closing. Absolutely no issue with him kicking that one. Fritsch has been far less selfish the last 2 weeks too. Every situation is different and that was one to kick the goal.