DeeSpencer

Harmes out and doubts over Viney, Langdon. Hopefully they’re back. None of Melk, Bedford or Dunstan impressed in any way. Doubt Salem will be ready. Left field options would be Turner, Deak Smith, Rosman at half back with Gus to the wing. Baker on the wing. Or Andy Moniz-Wakefield. Personally I’d really consider a look at Deakyn Smith down back and move Gus back to the wing.

Some classic Melk marking contests that resulted in easy marks to North too.

Whilst day to day life might become easier they’d be a lot of scrutiny on his move. It might just be easier to play out his last two years at Richmond then see where he’s at after that. I’m also not convinced the Swans would sign right up for his salary. That might require a bit of give and take from all 3 parties to make it work.

The only complicating factor is the Harmes role. We saw exactly what Goody did with the 5 covid absences being covered as like for like as possible. Harmes is the 3rd wingman, an on baller, a pressure forward and a marking forward. No one can cover all of those roles Harmes plays. I think it will be Bedford primarily forward and we’ll see Sparrow or even Fritsch play some wing, and ANB and even Bedford on ball for stints. But there is a case for Dunstan in to fill the midfield minutes and to fill the wing and forward minutes with the resting mids

Tom’s not great but better than horrific defensively. Mitch did nothing for 3/4’s then kicked a couple as the Hawks ran out of legs, it wasn’t anything worth getting excited about.

Mitch Brown doesn’t get games because he’s inconsistent at the contest and poor defensively. He’s a backup in case of emergency or if needed for a specific role. Even though Weid isn’t quite consistent at VFL level his contested work is stronger, hence why he’s preferred. Young players will be considered and picked when they demonstrate consistent AFL like efforts not just 1 flashy game. Bedford is now a consistent performer. As is Chandler. They chase, tackle and win the ball. Hence they are next in line. JVR played close to a complete game vs North, if he starts to do that regularly against decent opponents he’ll put his name up. Laurie was barely a factor in the game until the last quarter, it wasn’t the kind of performance coaches would be impressed by.

I’m not saying he won’t be a good player but he doesn’t rack up the ball at VFL level yet and his defensive work for a small forward is miles off the pace. That’s not a combination that is anywhere near an AFL debut if there’s ready to go alternatives like Bedford and Dunstan

Bowey was best on ground in his first VFL practice match and performed well for most of the VFL season. They gave him things to work on and he ticked them off. The current crop of youngsters have played 1 good game against absolutely hopeless opposition. It’s unlikely they’ve suddenly ticked off all the things they need to do to play well at VFL week in week out, yet alone prepared for AFL. They all need to show consistently good VFL form, otherwise a debut is a waste of time.

The issue with the tackle is Chandler being a lefty he wants to take him down on his natural left side, he jumps and puts a lot forward momentum in to the tackle. It takes a long time for Chandler to come down and that makes it really driving. Chase down tackles really need to pull a player back and down rather than drive them forward. Combine that with the rotation back towards front on as Foley attempts to brace himself and it’s a bad result. The big contributing factors are the rock hard turf that they slide along and the fresh player coming on full of running due to the sub rule.

It’s slippery largely in part because it’s so hard, there’s no traction when players change direction. It looks like wearing footy boots on green painted floorboards

When we lost Frawley we were bad and needed draft picks. The only reason not to be absolutely delighted with pick 3 was our history of draft bungles and even that was a stretch. When we lost Hogan we immediately put pick 6 on the table and got May in because we were in our window and needed a ready made replacement. There’s an argument to letting Brayshaw go and using the pick and money to trade or draft a competent wing/flanker and coming out ahead in youth and dollars. That’s easy to see. I don’t think it’s easy to replace Jackson and with his age it’s hard to sell it as a win for the future and it certainly costs the present. We’d owe it to the current team to find a ready made ruck/forward replacement and that isn’t always easy or cheap either. At the end of the day though I don’t think we’ll be aggressively choosing to keep them or move them based on what we’ll get back. They’re good team mates and people as well as good players, you don’t push guys like that based on theoretical returns in 5-10 years time. We’ll offer the right contracts based on their value to us, if the players go then we’ll decide how to maximise the returns.

A lot of his value comes from being as mobile as a smaller player, allowing us to play 2 rucks, a couple of clunky tall forwards and the up and down Fritsch and keep decent forward pressure. If he left there'd probably have to be a domino effect on our forward structure as well as the hole to fill in the ruck.

Laurie has lovely skills and some tricks, but otherwise I’ve seen nothing from him that looks like an AFL ball winner or pressure player. Not to say he won’t get there, but right now he’s still adapting to winning the ball at VFL level and still a few steps off the pace defensively. He cashed in against North in the second half but that’s light years from proper afl level. He has cleaner skills, but he’d average 6 touches a game on a flank right now. Bedford might only be 10 touches a game but he’d contribute defensively. Melk, maybe 12 touches and a little overhead ability, iffy defending - still a better package than Laurie.

Assume so. Both he and Mitch Brown didn’t play for Casey.

He’s a certainty to be suspended. Unlucky, did little wrong, but a certainty

Will probably be Dunstan or Melksham but I’d go Bedford, one of the others as sub

Nice tackle from Chandler, unfortunately if you tackle with the intensity needed to take down someone like Viney or Petracca and get some random Eagles bloke and he lands on concrete you’ll get suspended

Lot of talk of culture. I think the culture they established as a start up club under Ward and Davis as captains and in the early years of Leon Cameron's time was incredibly good. They were fit, reasonably hard at it, aggressive, in your face and tricky to beat. They also put together some good finals runs. The issues seem to have come up post Grand Final IMO. - Davis played the grand final when he wasn't right. - Coniglio signed a 7 year deal at the exact moment his body started to break down and hasn't been able to get back in to the midfield to earn it. There's rumours he wanted the captaincy more than a player should want it too. - Kelly signed a silly contract which was really designed for him to leave, then battled injuries and hasn't been a A grader, so ended up locking in the 8 year extension - Whitfield had a stinker in the granny and hasn't really come back to his best, still got a 7 year deal They all took long term deals which means they probably sacrificed the most money up front. But they certainly put the club in a tricky spot especially when that's 2 of your 3 captains and the other one is Toby. Personally I think Coniglio's body might just be no good and some ok role playing on a half forward flank might be it for him, but the other 2 could be rejuvenated under a new coach. The list needs pressure forwards more than anything though. Forward pressure sets the tone for a defensive system and creates turnovers that leads to scores. Without the right players and the right attitude it's hard to win.

He's a talent and there's no reason we couldn't coach him up to play in our system, he does chase, he just doesn't do it consistently in a team oriented way. But I just can't see us giving up picks and cash for a fringe talent who has a market. In our circumstances we are short on picks and short on cash. So anyone coming in has to either be a combination of a clear need, a premium player or a bargain. It's unlikely Hill satisfies any of those criteria.

Going to be a lot easier to convince Gus and Jackson to stay for unders than it is matching market rate on a guy who’s likely to move. If Jacko goes home or Gus wants a different role and a big pay day then that’s another question. Amon would be a good back up.

Have you seen Langdon’s heat maps? That’s where wingers get the ball. Teams aren’t going to let wing men just rack it up in the forward half

Looked like a lot of Bowey on Hill early to me, but they certainly mixed and matched. Without any drive from half back and with no space to work with across half forward Hill was never going to find the space he needs. I thought the Saints did a good job sending a half forward high in the second half, combining with Hill's run from behind and caught Brayshaw in no mans land. Even overlapped Langdon as well with precise kicking too. I'm not sure King getting up outside 50 really is the answer. He isn't great on the lead and that relies on space to lead in to anyway. With no bounce from half back there's nothing to lead in to. He came up the ground only to face more defenders and/or pressure on the Saints creating awful kicks that May read earlier and marked. King is a great high mark and otherwise an ordinary forward. He still plays like the kid in juniors who was a foot taller than everyone. I'm not sure a coach is going to fix that through role. He needs strength in the gym, hours of body work and then to watch a lot of CHF film to work on leading patterns. They aren't risking him in the ruck either. The Saints weren't great in the first half but it wasn't anything close to Neeld like. The first quarter we ground out 4 goals that we worked pretty hard for with broken pieces of play. Meanwhile they butchered their few chances. We certainly didn't have a lot of flow and it could've been a 3 goals to 2 kind of quarter. Kossie took 2 of his chances, Membrey kicked in to the man on the mark. Second quarter we had that patch where everything clicked. They'd be pretty annoyed about the big guys snapping goals but every side has a patch in a game where things go for or against. They rallied late in the second. I thought their adjustments after half time were excellent. Hill went back. Half forwards pressed super high and they ran the ball and used it short, took what they could get and they created chances. Teams are going to flood the midfield, run off Lever and Brayshaw, stretch us with width and it's certainly the best plan. Maybe they could've done it more earlier but it's hard to engineer extra numbers in the middle of the ground and use the ball well when the game is hot early. They got the game on their terms for most of the second half. It's just the terms were they were going to switch it, share it around a lot and rely on either precision kicks or little dumps going to 40 out to get scoring chances. And it wasn't going to be direct or fast. But they still did what they had to do to at least get back in it. We did what we had to do to keep our margin which was to retain possession and not be worried about their numbers switching and flooding around the middle and do what we needed to do to stop them getting out the back or up the middle.

6. May. King kicked 2 goals on Petty, 1 from a created free. Almost didn’t touch it on May. 5. Oliver 4. Langdon 3. Hunt. Shutout Higgins 2. Gus. A little inconsistent with some defending and ball use but his intercepting and getting in to the contest was excellent 1. Pickett. A couple early and a late goal, plenty of pressure, won the ball and used it solidly

Any tune in who can provide an opinion on AMW’s game? From the stats and from watching the Richmond game it looks like the Niz is starting to find his feet at the level.

I think Ward is very good. Not Oliver, Petracca great obviously but A grade potential, Jack Macrae level. They were desperate to trade up for Finn Callaghan but couldn’t get it done. How low do you have to finish to get a superstar? Tracc 2, Bont, Oliver 4, Buddy 5, Selwood 7, Danger 10. We traded up for Clarry too, it can be done. I’d say that’s right but he’s giving the kids a lot more responsibility than Clarko did. Plus the attacking game style is perfect for a young team as well as long as the defending doesn’t get away from them which I haven’t seen yet.