DeeSpencer

I'm led to believe the club went in with 5 options they thought were going to be an upgrade on Vanders and superior to bloating the cap with Tom Phillips - a short term gain but possibly not enough of a long term answer. 1. Harmes. He has the tank, he can win aerial contests and his decision making/kicking errors are less concerning on the wing. We just haven't seen a lot of him in preseason because they've used him on ball. The issue is with Fyfe in round 1 are we really going to go head to head against Fyfe? Or trust Jordon. Either way, Harmes has some solid pros if we can settle him in the role. 2. Melksham. Concerns over his defensive aptitude are certainly fair but he puts up good kms and clearly the best of his disposal is super damaging. 3. Baker. A fitter version of Baker - and he does seem to be covering the ground well is a more suitable athlete. Sadly he just doesn't seem to read the play well or make good decisions. Throw in some poor contesting and it's not a good combination. Not 100% ready to rule him out after a string of VFL games because I think he improves as he goes on in a season but it's been a rough start. 4. Jackson. He lacks forward craft and struggles to pick the ball up in the air but he can really cover the ground and his size, unpredictable movement and clean hands makes things happen. If we had 2 tall forwards ahead of him there'd be a strong case for trying him as a ruck/wing hybrid for a strong point of difference. 5. Tom McDonald. He can run all day and he loves running to receive the ball when he has his head up. Disposal obviously a worry as is stoppage play but he could find confidence to use it better when he's rolling. Obviously he's been used forward so we haven't seen this option.

No they're highlighting the dearth of ready made big men in a year when state leagues shut down, list sizes shrunk and the style of play has been consistently shifting towards less big men who have to be better athletically and do more (usually ruck and provide forward pressure) just to get games.

Alcoholics Anonymous? The only disappointment I have is if Carlton knew they were going to lose almost all their tall forwards (Curnow, Casboult, McGovern, De Koning, McKay) to injury they might've taken on Tom. We could've kept Oscar as he's no better or worse and saved a few hundred thousand.

We play an opposition not just circle work. You can’t simply ‘open the forward line’. Move the ball slowly and the forward line will congest. In fact a big problem is we spread a lot and try to get forwards deep and then turn the ball over between the lines. And we don’t play the aggressive defensive press any more where every defender starts equal or forward of their men. We start behind and drop May and Lever in to gaps. Our ball movement was dreadful yesterday. Slow to react. Very little risk and creativity yet somehow also reluctant to go into a switching model which is the way to get around the dogs assertive press. But against the Tigers we moved the ball fairly well. Clearly we missed Salem and the confidence the experienced mids give to run and draw the footy. We have to hope it was more of a bad day than a sign of things to come.

No return date for Smith or Hibberd, Lockhart out probably for a month, Nietschke and Hore done for the season. We needed a small defender for a needs basis, so even if the kid could barely lace up his boots he had a path to a list spot. If he’s showing promise at training and VFL level and is aggressive and athletic with scope for development then it’s a no brainer.

Rivers mixed a few up in the last, at least turned the long bomb in to a long fake and bomb and resulted in a goal. I'm hoping they've got a few more tricks to show but it was really poor, I don't know what May was thinking. In general I thought May was off a bit in a lot of ways. He has a bad habit of hanging back and hedging his bets when his man is leading inside 50. I'm all for it when it's contests on the flank. Let his man go and hope the other talls can cover, he did that well. But when it's inside 50 he has to take care of his man first and trust his fellow defenders. Lever and especially Tomlinson one on one make that hard but he can't always cover them, and being 3m behind his man isn't doing that either.

Wasn't listed as an emergency and reports had him in the rehab group. He's better on the lead than Tom and can kick (particularly field kicking) but he's just as bad if not worse at forcing contests. He's very poor with any physical pressure. When Tom attacks the contest and gets out and running he still offers more than M Brown who really only plays well on days the opposition give him huge breaks and let him play uncontested lead up chest mark footy. Unfortunately Tom's worst is even worse than Brown's when he stops leading and starts moping around. Even in the last quarter today Tom started running a little bit, he got back involved in the game and the team scored.

A look at his highlights and he clearly doesn't have elite speed for a small mid/forward. What he does have is great agility and classy decision making, but I think he'll have to burst around a contest and run all day rather than be a break away speed guy. Crash, bash and out sprint is never the best way to play footy though, clean skills and burst is the way to get it done.

Nic Nat is the only ruck in the comp who can do damage at the ball ups. As good as Max is he doesn't trust his knees to run and jump at the ball and hit in multiple directions. More often than not he's just doing a dance with the opponent and out reaching or out timing them. Jackson has the leap to win some dominant hit outs but not the Nic Nat level leap and hang time. So whilst it's good to fire him up every now and then to try to land one of a moving mids chest it's not a sustainable plan. Unless they axe the center circle and go back to bouncing it properly on hard cricket wicket style surfaces the tap ruck component of the game is gawn for anyone bar Nic Nat.

He has moments where he can stick a tackle and his work rate is good, he clearly keeps the engine running. Struggles to win the ball, his use isn't terrible but not good and he's one paced. All up it's an odd package. I know he's one paced which isn't what we really need but I'm surprised he hasn't been used on the wing. He's got to be better than Baker. His big motor would clearly be of more use if we ever moved the ball and could reward his tank. The complete lack of that today hurt him.

He has a sore chest

I thought both May and Lever were very good at the contests they got to but slack at times when they didn't get where they needed to be. They are also both the main culprits for our horrendous ball movement from the backline. If both of them had 5 turnovers missing simple kicks it would've been preferrable to what they served up. There were times where May grabbed the ball from Rivers for the kick out and did nothing with it. And times where Lever was sitting 30m out for a short kick and wasn't used and just copped it. Troy Chaplin was the one assistant we kept after last year and he and his leaders need to work out why they played without any ambition at all. They even bought Bowey on and never kicked to the guy. From what we've seen he's a beautiful kick, look him and give him the ball.

FB: Rivers May Tomlinson HB: Hunt Lever Salem C: Harmes? Petracca Langdon HF: ANB McDonald Spargo FF: Pickett Jackson Fritsch Foll: Gawn Oliver Jordon? Int: Bowey, Brayshaw?, Sparrow?, Chandler? Jones and Jetta are shot, we need to stop picking them. Jetta's lost his defensive ability, he can't close out a lead and he's never done much of anything with the ball. Jones looks ok at times but he's just too slow and can only bang the ball forward. Baker is rubbish right now, just gets caught in all the wrong spots. Vanders no better. The wing is a mess. I'd imagine Melksham is the next to be given that thankless task. Is it too late to throw Petty straight in at CHF for Tom McDonald?

With the new man on the mark rule it's just inexcusable not to move the ball around more. Steve May set the tone by just blasting kick out after kick out 80m from goal. But really all the defenders had plenty of chances to move it around. It made the game super contested and dangerous too. Beware a Melbourne game, both sides will get injuries due to how often we just hack the ball around to all parts.

I don’t agree. Our backline was mostly in place. Our forwards were what we have. The young midfielders are all 3rd year guys, physically they should be ready to compete. If Oliver needed a rest then he needed a rest. And there’s no evidence that Brayshaw first up for a half would’ve done anything more than Jordon or Sparrow.

Came up against a premiership midfield without half of ours and struggled. The most frustrating part though was we had most of our backline and refused to counter attack. And it wasn’t just that we didn’t go fast but that we didn’t go move it around ball movement either. Just do nothing then bomb. At times when Rivers took it on and mixed it up we scored. Our forward line out the back plan requires counter attack. Otherwise our forwards just run out of position. Our midfield would’ve had to dominate for this plan to work and it never was going to. The dogs are not a good forward pressure team. And sure they had the exits sealed but we had to move the ball around to be any chance of playing well.

Gawn was a target for every long kick down the line apart from inside 50. Not many rucks are given permission to run in to the forwards space and for good reason. Brayshaw worked back hard, often too hard, his issue is pressure at the contest and being so flat footed, he over corrected by just sprinting back at times. Langdon, Vanders and even on ball Melksham did the kms. I disagree that the running is the issue. Or even ‘defending’. The issue is not adapting to a style of play that puts team above possession stats. Cotchin is performing defensive acts but not with a defensive mindset, he knows if he keeps in position then lays a bump or tackle it forces a turnover and results in a clean clearance. Cotchin is super aggressive, he’s just focussed on team not stats.

Absolutely. The first thing Goody did when he took control for the last round of 2015 was switch to a zone defence and press system. I thought we got the balance pretty close to right last year with our mids providing more support to the backline whilst still trying to push forward. We went too fast and had too many turnovers that meant teams rebounded too easily but on the days our skills were sharp it all looked very good. The mids needed to sharp their skills and team work. And the forwards had to halve more contests and get more consistent pressure. But that doesn’t mean reverting to 2018 style of chucking everyone forward.

So Lockhart for Salem? I reckon Bowey gets that chance. He’s a better like for like fit. McDonald was set to play wing in the preseason but he’ll play CHF tomorrow. It’s a giveaway that Baker has the magnet swap with him. My feeling is they have a template they send in to the AFL and they had Tommy lined up for wing earlier in the summer on a test run and they haven’t bothered moving him.

The same forward line that just kicked 14 goals against Richmond?

So do we go with Vanders and Lockhart from the get go as that team line up may suggest or do we throw Laurie and Bowey in to the fire and see if they are ready for round 1? Petty and Tomlinson get a half each? Or May/Lever plays a half and then has a rest so the other 2 can compete for more time? There's plenty of guys playing for their spots.

Which one of those people means the Vice President would speak? Pres, CEO, head of footy, 2 new coaches, club legend/prominent media member. Vice President doesn't fit with any of that. It's a private function, no one can just attend without an invite. She can join the coterie - assuming she isn't already a member - or she can request or be offered an invite. I'm sure the coterie would be more than happy for her to attend. Whether the function was held at the Australia club, the Avalon Bowls Club, kittens carwash or Clementine Ford's house it's a private function.

You've posted that about 1000 times but the reality is there's never been a good alternative anywhere remotely near the G. So it's either Goschs' or the suburban fringes and neither St Kilda nor Essendon have made the fringe experience work.

Lauren Pearce is an interesting one. At her best she is dominant. But she also has games where her ruck work is inconsistent, she can spill marks and her kicking gets too cute. I trust her effort and she is rarely beaten, but contest to contest there's inconsistency from her that frustrates me.

The club has continued to be positive about getting a training base at Gosch's established. If it didn't work out and we were at Casey more consistently then instead of worrying about it as a negative we should look to turn it to a positive. Casey is half an hour from Mt Eliza and Mornington and not too much further from a lot of the rest of the Mornington Peninsula. The Dandy Stingrays talent to come out of the Peninsula - Jones, Hibberd, Tom Lynch, Hunter Clark, Whitfield, Weitering, Hammill, Sam Sturt, Hayden Young etc rivals that of the Geelong area. AFL players like to party for a few years then like to settle down somewhere cruisy, surf and chill out. That's what gives Geelong such a recruiting advantage. Gawny has pioneered the way to live down on the Peninsula. The best option is Gosch's, but if it came to it Casey could be a selling point for the club if we did it correctly.