DeeSpencer

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.

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.