DeeSpencer

It seems they've used 7 defenders across the last few weeks. FB: Colvin Birch HB: Heath Goldy Lampard Int:Tarrant/ Magee The thing that makes Goldy such a force is that she can play tall or small and rebound. Being so strong allows one of the other defenders - generally Birch but sometimes Lampard or Tarrant to drop back a kick behind play and take easy intercepts. I don't know if they'll go tall with Downie or if they'll trust Tarrant and Magee to play greater roles and bring in Emonson who was struggling defensively but is a beautiful kick and good attacking player.

Turns out the Dangerfield decision isn't the most contentious of the night. Bowers from Freo just got off a horrendous tackle on Eden Zanker. Open season on the Demons??

Well I'm with Danger's lawyer, the Oxford and Macquarie dictionaries and Siri on agreeing this wasn't the definition of severe. I would've graded it as high. But the AFL are scared stiff on concussions right now so severe it is. Actually credit to Danger and his lawyer that they gave up the silly self defence angle.

Hopefully he’s fitter and stronger so can always find a little more of the ball and stay engaged but overall his good outweighed his bad when he played last year. This year he’s probably at least break even with opponents for fitness, should be competitive for strength (relative to size) and whilst not full experienced he shouldn’t be overawed. He’s playing a tough team role and he relies on team mates doing their job to get him the ball. That’s true of every half forward but especially one without a lot of height or elite pace. If he has a quiet day in terms of stats it’s just as likely the rest of the sides fault as it is his.

2 players who enjoy aggression and rightly so. May’s crossed the line before, Kozzie’s game is built on getting to that line, hunting down opponents and crunching them. Danger’s overwhelmingly a ball player. It’s silly to compare a bump that wasn’t even deliberately high to a king hit off the ball. If he wanted to hammer him he would’ve used his shoulder not his own head. Yeah it was aggressive and fast, it’s AFL footy, it’s always aggressive and fast.

Worse unless we got an A grade outside player. Oliver’s not a match winner yet but he is an A grader. His last season was B+. His 2018 was close to A+. He doesn’t have to be Petracca but he can be more Lachie Neale and find more kicks, goals and forward handballs.

In fairness to BW it’s fine to be critical of certain stats. That doesn’t mean it’s being critical of his game. There’s more people complaining about Oliver getting criticised in this thread than there is actual criticism.

He had 15 contested possessions though. So 80% efficiency on 43% of touches contested is great. Similar 301 MG on 10 kicks 25 handballs is completely fine. Should he have kicked more? Maybe once or twice, I’d like to see him get towards a 1:1 ratio and also see him get more handball receives from team mates rather than the other way around. But it was a treat to watch him live, he does some special things.

That’s bad news about Harmes if true. I’d have moved him to the wing for the Brad Hill job and then Viney in. Do we take a risk and give James Jordon a run with job on Hill? Lacks the speed but will run all day. Or do we trust our system to hold up and just rotate the wingers - including Langdon who knows his game well? The Saints counter attack really quickly from half back and hit the goal square. That’s there 2 main ingredients to success that we have to be planning for.

You must really hate Pickett and May if you think this about Danger.

In terms of action: the same bump but with a shoulder or elbow straight through the head. In terms of outcome: neck or facial fractures Concussions and broken noses are pretty standard footy injuries. Obviously all attempts should be made to prevent them but alone they aren’t severe.

If they say severe impact it's 3. Personally I'd call it high impact and leave severe for more forceful collisions and worse injuries, but whatever. I don't think he charged Kelly. He's running slower than the Adelaide player who receives the handball. He really is surveying his options until the last couple of steps. Every coach in the league would want their players to do exactly what Danger did until the last 2 steps. Which is where he should've slowed up, followed the ball and if possibly checked Kelly's run rather than barreling in to him. Making it sound like it's the 1980's and he's running off the square doesn't help anyone. It's irrelevant to the suspension because bumps are never graded as intentional. But the idea that Dangerfield is some kind of sniper is crazy.

He should've passed the one previous to Petracca, it was nice to see him make up for it and dish it off. We need to keep encouraging that selfless culture.

He had no option to tackle - the ball was gone. And no option to smother - the video shrinks distance down, he wasn't realistically going to smother a handball. Nor did he have 10 steps to decide what to do. He's corralling and protecting the corridor, likely thinking a tackle is the option until Kelly goes to handball, in which case at the last minute he bumps to stop Kelly's run. It's a late bump that's unfortunate and shouldn't have been so forceful. If you're going to check a guys run you can do that just by blocking the space in front of them. He bumped and it went wrong, that's about all that the video shows. There doesn't need to be extra sinister motivations added to it.

The inability to find some more bargain talls (defenders/rucks) and some outside players will shape Taylor's legacy more than the Weid pick IMO. Not every top 10 pick is a gun and if Weid gets back on the track he was on last year as serviceable player in a tough role that's still an ok pick. Looking at the current list the most important talent to bring in is some outside runners and the next guys developing behind Gawn and May to keep the list strong. That's assuming we keep hold of Petracca and Oliver and have a capable team to keep adding to I guess.

It looks like the MRO can't apply self-defence but the tribunal can. In other words Chrisso grades the acts without any context and then the tribunal assess things such as compelling circumstances. I don't think that's what Danger is going for though. They are saying it isn't a bump similar to the Jack Viney incident. There's a fine line between brace and bump. It's more lineball than Danger's one because the ball is in dispute but if this happened again next week would you call it a bump or brace? I'm genuinely on the fence.

They reduced Houli's penalty after a hearing, took in all the character witness stuff with a letter from the PM. Then the AFL appealed and got the penalty reinstated I believe. So I think the tribunal got the message then not to go messing around with penalties. Dangerfield will argue for nothing and most likely fail. Or he'll argue it was high impact not severe and could get 2 not 3 if he goes that route. If the tribunal finds him guilty on severe impact I'm confident it will be 3 or more.

Which I doubt anyone was giving us in 2018 yet alone now. Patty Ryder wasn't as good as Gawn but he was in his prime when he went to Port and that only cost a later first rounder. McEvoy the same when he went to the Hawks. In terms of resource allocation we've got 3 reasonably expensive key forwards in McDonald, Brown and Weid. And a bunch of inside mids on decent money too I'm sure (Oliver, Petracca, Viney, Harmes, Gus). That's where your wing and skilled half forward comes from.

Nankervis won them a prelim last year. You don't need a superstar but good rucks standing up in finals are a pre-requisite for finals success. Just ask Geelong! Max has always been too important to trade even if he's overqualified for the role. I hope what they've done by extending his contract (for far longer than I would've liked) is manage to decrease his salary and spread it out over many years. If he's on a million a year like Grundy that's a waste. If he's soon to be on something like 600k next year like maybe Lycette or Nankervis could be on that's fine by me. The expectations probably need to change for Gawn. I'd like him to sort out the connection with his mids but after that if he beats his opponent and does all the team things with some tackles, blocks, defensive marks etc he doesn't have to dominate games.

We've never really been a stoppage based side under Goodwin anyway. The first thing he did taking over Roos was to shift to a zone defensive system and to encourage ball movement. We probably could've won more games over Goodwins time if we stuck to just banging it down the line and resetting. We did that a couple of times last year and I think it was Montagna or Dal Santo who questioned why we don't make that a bigger part of our plan. Goody's always encouraged run and spread and there were patches in 16-18 and again last year where we've done it well. The Richmond model is right. Always make sure the 22 you pick are strong at the contest and don't draft players who can't develop that side of the game, but then make sure they can seriously run and get enough of the right skills in the right positions. We seem to be a bit short on skill and run but we have to keep trying to play in an aggressive manner and taking the game on.

Did we finally draft Nic Nat?

He’ll get 3. But I think it should be 2 weeks. Concussion and a broken nose isn’t a severe injury. It happens in AFL and will always happen. We’ve had concussions for decades and we’re finally monitoring them and treating them properly, that doesn’t mean the game has to jump at shadows. You can’t ask players to chase as hard as possible and then throw the book at them when a collision occurs. Danger’s adapted at the last minute not to tackle and not to bump high. The next step is to not bump at all and just pull up or make minor contact, that’s what’s required, but it’s all split second. If you give Danger 4 then what do you give the guy who genuinely bumps high and goes straight through someone?

Others will know more than me but I believe Slug Jordon as an Under 19's coach also had responsibilities for finding talent. Craig Cameron had a decent run through the late 90's and early 00's. I've said in other recruiting threads, Jason Taylor's record is pretty much like this: 1st rounders - very good 3rd rounders and rookies - time will tell, we haven't nailed many in a long time and haven't had enough picks 2nd rounders - this will be where he goes from either solid or very good. It was a nice day for Fritsch, Spargo, Sparrow and Jordon and hopefully Petty is back healthy and developing. More nice days from that crop and he'll be looking good.

I'd say we failed poorly to take advantage of Max, that's for sure. Although as I've said a lot when the plan is for both sides to rove to Max there's little to be done unless he starts jumping at the ball which he just isn't going to do. Otherwise after hit outs I thought we did about as well restraining them from the stoppages as they did restraining us. One horrible moment with the Brayshaw goal in the 3rd quarter but I bet Freo fans were thinking about all the times Oliver and Petracca went streaming free.

The main thing I'm unsure of with Jackson is what's the best way to develop him. I reckon if he played CHB he'd pick up the drop of the ball easier by following a forward and would start to hold marks more consistently. I don't think he's a natural enough reader of the flight to become Harris Andrews or Aliir Aliir overnight but he'd be a menace to opposition forwards in that role. If he played key forward at Casey he'd start kicking goals pretty quickly too I think. He'd get chances on the lead and he'd only have to jump anywhere near the ball to be clear of his opponents to mark or draw free kicks. Same goes if he rucked against VFL level opponents. He'd jump all over those guys and get a lot of the ball at ground level. He looks physically and mentally up for the fight at AFL level so I'm not suggesting he does drop down a level but if he gets tired or really doesn't get his hands on the ball it's worth considering. Development isn't linear and the chance to go down a level, get the ball in your hands to work on using it and build some confidence isn't a bad thing.