DeeSpencer

The biggest changes I think will come at selection where teams last year really pushed towards 7 defenders, 8 mids, 7 forwards. I think most teams and especially a side like us without a lot of versatile players will keep the 7 defenders rotating through the backline in order to find a cohesive defensive unit. But the forwards/mids combination might shift even all the way to 10 mids and 5 forwards. For example in round 1 we might go with Jackson, Tommy Mc, Pickett, Spargo and Fritsch as the primary forwards, and then Gawn, Tracc, Oliver, Harmes, Langdon, Baker, Brayshaw, Jordon, ANB, Jones all rotating through the midfield. I'd imagine Tracc and Oliver will rest at full forward, possibly Harmes too. Whilst Jordon, ANB and Jones will get called in to the midfield to save bench rotations. It's why Melksham is such an important player for us really because at least in theory he can play forward, on ball and wing. And hopefully in time guys like Laurie (all 3 spots) and Rosman (forward/wing) might be too.

I don't think the goal kicker coming off has ever been a policy, there's just always been times where the guy who kicks the goal is due for his rotation and that will continue. Key forwards have taken less rotations as the years go on, but they are also kicking less goals. A spent half forward should come off, there's really no benefit leaving them on just because they kicked a goal. I'm also not sure how much more monitoring the clubs can get, they track each players individual gps data and are pretty hot on who has to come off. It's well overdue that some of that data gets published for fans but that's true of a lot of AFL data and so far we haven't seen the AFL show any initiative with that.

Why would we communicate that to Fremantle for no good reason. He's an important player that teams put time in to. I'd have him in the line up until a minute before the bounce

Geelong had years of a 10 deep injury list of the same blokes, they shipped them out to start looking better. They also recruit a bunch of senior players each year it seems which helps the injury stats. Richmond have gone through periods of lots of injuries too, what they do well is the rehab which is possibly more on the physios than the fitness guy anyway. They time their run. Viney could be bad management, but it could also be that we've finally caught an issue in time, put him in for the surgery and he might only miss a week or two. He certainly was far fitter last year than he has been in years. The Weid is the first time I've heard of a player having his issue. Big guys are susceptible to stress injuries but how do you balance getting them fit enough to play? If it's a freak issue rather than a run of stress injuries to one part of the body as we've seen in previous years with the naviculars then I'm less inclined to put that down to bad management. I wouldn't put Brown down to Burgo either. He hasn't been at Melbourne long enough to say if Burgo's program will keep his knee in the kind of condition to not keep having issues. IMO the draft pick we gave up for Brown was reflective of the fact his body isn't 100%. I remember reading comments that Burgo was optimistic of helping Brown and time will tell, but I think it needs more time to see what he can do. Salem and Melksham pinging hammies is more of a worry to me. Obviously you wont go all season without a few soft tissue injuries but the aim has to be to get in to the games without those problems.

Vanders offers little in attack but gives his utmost to keep pressure on around the contest and to fold back and support the defense. It happened in 2018 and happened again in 2020 that as soon as he was switched on to a wing we started looking like a side with competent structures more often than not. The other options have barely managed to do role playing tasks coaches ask of wingers these days and apart from a couple of nice goals from Baker have done little in attack to make up for it. Who are the young players Goodwin has been holding back? Pickett played almost every game, Jackson got early footy, Rivers he kept out of a few games probably at the behest of the defensive coach and when someone like May says he's working on Rivers' positioning it's worth noting. Spargo's played, Fritsch's played. Petty's been injured. Jordon got injured before he could debut, Sparrow played before injury. Baker hadn't had a full preseason and clearly had a lot of work to do on his fitness. The idea that he should've been gifted games until now just isn't right. You can argue that if he's much fitter now that we should just stick with him but through 2 preseason games it's not looking promising. I'm certainly not suggesting Vanders be picked next week. If he is it's bad sign. But whoever does get picked has to do some of things he actually managed to do that helped the structure of the side. The coach hasn't stuck with him out of blind loyalty, he's just been the best of a lot of bad options.

I didn’t say he’s been good but compared with Tyson, Jones, Baker, half the 2019 list and so on he’s the only one who’s done the job.

I don't think they can go longer than 12 days, not so close to the season and with the evidence still up for debate. There's 2 steps I think they should make: 1. Independent doctors 2. A specific umpire stoppage for head injury assessments similar to the blood rule.

Nice theory if you constantly kick the ball down one side or there’s a consistent breeze. We overuse the members wing but it’s not something we want to do more of. I’d imagine a lot of those wingers have been because they’re the only fit runners we’ve had. The high half back role sets up in a similar role at stoppages, does less unrewarded running and gets more easy kicks and more value for them. It’s more important. We saw what happened to the teams ball use from stoppages and the backline without Salem against the Dogs.

Should we have traded him when he was an important player in the best 22 of a prelim team? I was happy to go the 3rd year rather than flicking him to the Swans for a nothing draft pick. That’s the alternative which we did for Kent and Hannan.

Spargo came in and played very well in year 1, he immediately showed he could get to the right spots and had clean hands. Then last year when he broke back in to the side his pressure, goal kicking and skills were all sharp. He plays the toughest spot on the ground in a team that's allergic to clean ball use. Sparrow had clean disposal when he played last year. There's a lot of work needed to turn his athletic traits in to consistent play but if he's clean when he gets it they can work out a role for him.

Hannan was at least a break even, if not a tick. You get 50 decent games out of a pick 46 and get a future 3rd back that's fine. Otherwise we didn't have top picks from 2016-2018, trading them away. And for some odd reason we just stopped having dips at the rookie list and with late picks since then too. That's an unforced error as far as I'm concerned. Those picks are lottery tickets that mostly lose but you have to be in it to win it. Fritsch is a tick. Then the actual strength of the drafting and development of the 16-18 group will be graded by the impact of Petty, Spargo, Sparrow and Jordon. That's 5 second round picks. Get 3 out of 5 consistent best 22 and you're doing well. The late picks don't inspire a lot but Chandler and Hore (barring injury) should contribute a bit here and there. I've seen enough to suggest all of the second rounders aren't too far off AFL level, there's no complete busts here. Spargo and Sparrow both played well last year in periods. Petty has shown skills at both ends. The training reviews and the game against Richmond from Jordon were solid. My guess is by the end of the year Spargo is established as a solid role player and at least one of the other 3 is in the side and looking promising with the other 2 doing well at VFL level. It's disappointing a couple of them aren't locked and loaded in the best side already, but there's still plenty of time. We've had a lot of high picks come in and play well early, and we haven't had a great VFL side that made life easier for young guys to look good at a lower level. Plus no VFL last year. I think we've forgotten that for a whole lot of good AFL players their early years were a steady grind.

No comment is still a comment. I wouldn’t have called his 2 years with us great but otherwise I think he was on the right path.

Gawn talks so much BS I miss the Viney days. If they think our backline is top 4 they are deadset kidding themselves. Not to mention how delusional they must’ve been in the lead up to the Cairns games. There’s little hope that they’ve found the discipline required to nail down skills, team work and intensity at the contest. Choc might’ve helped a little with the skills but Yze will have to be a genius to sort out the team work

Good teams train and play systems so you don’t struggle nearly as much when integrating individuals. The majority of the back 7 have trained together over the summer, and played together last year. Same goes for Gawn and experienced mids even if they are mixing up their systems with a new assistant coach. The injuries shouldn’t be an excuse for the backline set up or clearance problems. I agree with you on the key forwards. The silver lining is they’ve been out for long enough that Tom and rucks have taken their places and had time and match practice in that role. It will certainly be a challenge trying to bring them back from injury.

Salem isn't really a fit for the wing. His best attribute is composure and ball use under pressure in congestion and he's really strong at ground ball contests too. You want him getting the ball in traffic and feeding it out to runners or through congestion. Half a game for Bowey and Rivers in his second year isn't exactly conclusive that we don't need Salem from half back too. Butler was a miss, but he was also injury prone and flighty. He's added some size and steel since moving to the Saints. It's clear with their decisions on other players that the Pies prioritised salary cap savings over draft picks when trading out players. Our interest really dried up as soon as it became evident we couldn't move off Tom McDonald. Phillips wasn't worth sacrificing our salary cap and the need to save cash to sign up Oliver and Petracca. Our method seems to be to aim for a Port model of hoping the young kids can provide fairly instant impact and rejuvenate the older guys. I'm also not sure we had much choice but to go back to the draft given there's a fair gap in our recruiting success between the Oliver pick and the 2019 crop. There's an initial window with May/Gawn/B Brown that might be 3-4 years but still a longer window with Tracc/Oliver/Lever/Langdon/Salem etc that could last for a long time if we get things right. The lack of turnover in list spots especially after 2019 is certainly frustrating. We kept a lot of players we didn't have confidence in and haven't added a lot of state league or delisted players and looked for diamonds in the rough. The worst example of this to me is the Wagner's. The coach had no intention of ever playing them. There's zero point having depth players who aren't trusted to be used as depth. We made a similar mistake with this years SSP. We had 2 list spots and we only invited a couple of raw kids with links to the club who were both long shots. I'd like to know why Majak or another ruck, a state league or overlooked draftee winger and a state league key defender all weren't invited to train all summer.

I’d be tempted to give James Jordon a really sustained spell on the wing, possibly starting in the VFL or just rolling the dice and going with it. Yeah he lacks a yard of pace but he has the tank, the tackling, good size to compete in the air and neat enough skills. Importantly he seems coachable. His midfield ball winning is a fair way off getting regular minutes and I don’t want the kid condemned to the half forward black hole. Langdon provides the zippy winger, we only need a solid role player on the other wing.

I agree but I would’ve said the same about Josh Caddy and Mitch Robinson but they’ve been coached up to do it. Same with Vanders who doesn’t get much of the ball but fulfils the important structural role of the wing and hence has been our best winger (excluding Langdon) since 2018

Overall I agree. But we couldn’t exit the back 50 and hold possession to the forwards that way though, which would’ve take pressure off the midfield. And Tom McDonald spent a fair chunk of the game getting beat up by Ryan Gardiner and a skinny kid who hasn’t played a senior game.

Are you familiar with how fitness works? Its very rare for such an explosive speed athlete like Koz to have elite fitness. Even rarer for him to have it at 19 in his second year. He is almost certainly less fit than all those players you’ve mentioned. Brayshaw the only query because he’s on the way back from injury. It would be nice to have Kozzie’s burst speed on the wing but what we need is someone who can do repeat 100m sprints up and back at a high level. Apart from the occasional freakish draft pick that usually means someone with a lot of preseasons.

Majak 100-1 for round 1. He was a local footy player 3 weeks ago and not far removed from serious injuries. If we are to roll the dice on a different forward set up for round 1 I think we should move Harry Petty to CHF for the Casey game this week and see how he goes. Otherwise we'll go in with what we had with the addition of some midfield reinforcements.

It takes everyone to set a culture. Board, CEO, head of footy, coach, captain, senior players. But it also takes everyone doing their job to be successful. North have had years of shinboner culture and decent sides under Laidley and Scott and never won anything. We were competitive in almost every game last year and had players busting their backsides. We didn’t lose many games purely from lack of effort. Probably only the Port game. Certainly we weren’t at our best in Cairns but it was the lack of skills and game plan that were the real issues. We kept pushing throughout those games but couldn’t over come our tactical and skill deficiencies. The wind alone ruined half our game plan and kicking ability. We tried Mark Neeld, it gets you no where. We had Roosy build the culture and effort up but the list and skills didn’t get any better because we made short term deals for players and coaches. The list is what it is for this season now and it’s good enough to play finals. And the players and the coach have to set and meet high standards. But if it was as simple as just trying harder and dropping good players for less talented players we’d have stumbled in to success by now. Melksham is a guy who should’ve been dropped. Don’t get me started on Lewis too. But they are also guys who from all reports are big talkers and communicators on field. Without on field leadership and organisation the coach has no chance of getting his message through. Without a coaching game plan the team stands no chance. The best coaches since the game has gone professional are educators not rah rah disciplinarians. I don’t think Chris Fagan has ever dropped a high profile player. He does his work during the week and let’s his players play. Hodge had his impact for sure but Zorko is far from the perfect captain. Miles from it really.

I saw clean enough skills and a good work rate against Richmond. Obviously struggled with the step up in intensity and role against the Dogs but 2 games is a very small sample size. He had 12 uncontested possessions, our third most so he was working to find the ball even if he couldn't win it at the contest and he laid one big tackle late inside 50 to create a goal that was commendable. Only small stuff but not every player has to be have all the tricks.

The problem isn’t just the lack of second winger. I think we could get by with Baker or Vanders playing 60% if need be. The problem is exacerbated by none of our forwards or inside mids being able to rotate out there. Nath Jones offers very little forward but he’ll probably get the round 1 nod over others because they trust him to fill some time on the wing without it being a disaster. Brayshaw likely the same. Anyway, we’ll see what happens. Harmes/Melksham combination seems the most likely solution so far.

Sparrow’s a very strong kid with some explosive attributes. He ripped the ball free to set up one goal, and shrugged off a tackler at another stage. He’s also taken a number of very decent marks in his career. He was a half back at state level, that’s the next step to try him if he doesn’t start winning more ball. But he did his job when he played last year so I wouldn’t give up on him just yet. Jordon’s just 20 and barely played last year. Bernie Vince wasn’t even drafted until he was 20 and couldn’t get a regular game until 22. He won’t be the first player to come unstuck on the Marvel car park either. I do think he’s a bit vanilla but if he’s the best runner of our mids and can lay solid tackles there’s a base to work with. If all the buzz about his summer is just from time trials I’d be a little surprised and disappointed.

Trimming down may help but it's mostly a mental issue with Tom made worse by a bit of technique and not helped by the coaching. The first thing I'd do is get him taking a lot more marks at training to sharpen the way he jumps to protect himself with a knee up and keep his hands open and clean. He swallows the ball up in the same way May does rather than crisply grabbing it from the air. Then the next thing I'd do is tell him he's not to jump at the same contest as Gawn. Just stay out of it and save the effort. On kick outs he should lead to the opposite side of Max and give us a different target, and otherwise he should just be out of the way if the big fella is flying. He can run his opponents in to the ground leading out to the flanks and that's how he gets value from his game. He'll get his leads back inside 50 and get some goals from that, he just has contribute enough positives the rest of the time. The game against Carlton in 2019 when he had 6 to 3/4 time was amazing when he just recaptured confidence to lead up and went from liability to tremendous asset.