DeeSpencer

Almost certainly too soon, one of the youngest kids in the draft barely draft eligible and doesn't have a strength, fitness or a speed advantage over his opponents. Hore hasn't been good but he's an excellent VFL player, he should be able to adapt more to the pace of the game and play better. He's the type of player who will benefit a lot from better up the ground pressure (like most of our defenders), then he can intercept and use his kicking in more space. They'll have to make a difficult decision on who to back in out of Hore, Hunt and J Wagner maybe until KK and Lever are back and assuming/hoping for no further injuries. Still expect it will be Hore in round 1.

Excellent post, some of his defensive gut running is brilliant, but some of it is him running passed a team mate who should be manning their own man and creating 2 on 1 that leaves a free guy. The beauty of Richmond's defensive work is every forward chases and pressures and creates turnover chances by covering all the opponents. ANB also doesn't nail enough tackles, he has to stick them to be at his best defensively. I think his work rate to get the ball is a little underappreciated but yeah he's not strong at the contest and doesn't use it well. Maybe a silver lining is that back with a more familiar team around him his decision making becomes easier. The way he spins round in circles to evade isn't a good thing but it is predictable for team mates. His more experienced team mates probably read what he'll do faster than some of the guys he played with this preseason

FB: Jetta Oscar Hibberd HB: Salem May Lewis C; Fritsch Oliver Vanders HF: ANB T Mc Petracca HF: Melksham Weid Spargo Foll: Gawn Brayshaw Harmes Int: Hore (back), Viney (mid), Jones (wing), J Smith (fwd) Emerg: Frost, C. Wagner, Hunt, Stretch Smokies: Petty, Chandler There's big doubts on Viney, May and Harmes but the hope is they all get over the line. Frost is the May replacement. Vanders and Jones move inside and/or Salem mid and Hunt/Stretch come in for Viney and Harmes if needed you'd think. I have concerns with Oscar, ANB, Hore and J Smith as well but when it comes to the final side I think they'll go closest to what worked for us last year. You could go with Frost, C Wagner and Stretch instead but is that any better? Roll the dice on kids? From the Eagles game last year it's out Tyson (Fritsch), Hannan (J Smith forward), Smith as a defender (Hore) and Frost (May).

Nothing but chest your honour.

Last year Fritsch moving to a wing (then half back), Spargo to half forward, Frost in to the side and Vanders back took us from flat track bullies to a side capable of playing footy good enough to win a couple of finals, smash the Giants and beat a depleted Eagles in Perth. I'm very concerned with a few spots in the side right now. The good news is there's a few obvious guys that might go a long way to fixing some of them. Inside 50 kicking and forward line spreading out - Melksham Intercept marking defender - Lever/Petty Clearance pace and bite - Viney Half back/wing skill - Kade Kolodjashnij There's others that have me wondering if we've got what it takes as well: Half back speed - KK, Hunt? J Smith? Frost? Midfield pace - Baker Forward line crumb and chase - Chandler, Bedford, Garlett? Can't rely of kids to do what Fritsch and Spargo did last year and not all season - both were feeling it by the end of a long year, but there's options if we need to look at something different to change the make up of the team.

I'm a Joel Smith fan, have been a long time, he's too good an athlete and hard/skilled/clean enough to make a good player in the right role and with the right coaching. But I'm not sure about the so called great form. He snapped a goal from a crumb that looked more good luck than good management. He got a soft free kick. He snuck on the end of one late after initial leading back towards goal. His best goal was the beautiful give and get run from the wing and finish on the run. It was a long way from 4 outstanding goals and as good as his best stuff was he got in the road a lot as well. I like him as a player but absolutely not as a goal square option even if he kicked 4 today. Has to be up the ground using his tank and speed. I expect he'll play round 1 because we don't have a lot of better options right now. He could settle in to a more permanent spot or he could be back at Casey and be training with the defenders again in a matter of weeks. Against the right team he should be thrown in the ruck for a bit as well if we need to get a bit more ground pressure and try something.

Looked more like Liam the Whale Buxton. Not a small boy

He's absolutely entitled to bump in that situation, he's within 5m of the ball, in play and Berry has had plenty of time to dispose of the ball. It all comes down to whether his shoulder made contact with jaw and no camera angle is likely to be conclusive. That camera angle sure isn't. The young man Jarrod Berry from the Lions is a good country kid who should do the right thing and tell the tribunal (if it comes to that) that all contact was to the body and the contact with the ground caused the groggy feeling.

2nd quarter was good footy, the hope is that's more of what we can do. Unfortunately the same errors over and over again are not helping my confidence. How many times can we spoil each others marks, over run contests and bomb the ball in forward? Brisbane replaced their injured ruck and played 3 fresh players to use a full 26, we lost 2 and had 2 more hobbling from our 23, so the scoreboard result which flattered us is somewhat ok. But it's going to take some serious coaching to fix some big errors in the game and we'll be going in to round 1 with some personnel that don't fill me with confidence. Backline: May - ok start considering, hopefully not suspended Salem - just ok Hibberd - up and down Jetta - very solid Lewis - some good but he still [censored] himself and offers little defensively, another slow player ------------------------------------------------- Oscar - awful, slow to defend, slow to attack, chest marks the ball from the ground which makes him easy to tackle, loses his feet Hore - not up with the pace of the game Mids: Gawn - very good Oliver - not his best but whatever Gus - has to find his kicking range Petracca - excellent first half, where's the second? Vanders - scrappy Fritsch - some good then injured -------------------------------- Harmes - injured Stretch - slow to make decisions and his wobbly ball drop really hurts his kicking and rhythm with the ball, isn't a fluent player. Nope Forwards: Weid: Did ok Tommy - scrappy but give him time Spargo - some nice things but not his best ---------------------------------------------------- ANB - a long way from his best with fumbles, not holding tackles and even been slow to chase at times Hunt - I can see why they tried it but a hot start obscured some ordinary play J Smith: 4 goals flattered him, some ok efforts up the ground but too many errors leaping for the ball JKH - injured Keilty - better in the ruck but nothing stood out forward Viney, Jones and Melksham should help but we'll still be going in to round 1 with a number of players we can't be sure of and with doubts about the outside run and quality in the forward line.

Might be ok up the ground but Marty Hore stinks deep

Might not be a compound fracture, reporting on this stuff is notoriously bad. Could just cracked in a few places clearly in need of surgery. If it’s easy to pin it could be pretty quick, if it’s really a messy job it might be more like 6

Hopefully it’s a case of saving it for the real stuff

Off for an X-ray is my guess. Fingers can be really nasty. Got to hope it can be a quick fix

At this stage I’ll take my chances with C wagner over ANB

Started ok with their first 2 goals coming from Oscar McDonald being a total turnip. After that it’s been lazy tackling, poor skills, inability to get balance at a clearance or a crumb and the backline going to [censored]. Why we are playing a spare behind the ball in a practice game is beyond me. Are we really that slow???? Not surprised Brisbane are good. More disappointed we can’t string any midfield skill together

Maybe if they play 3 key forwards in the same side today but they haven’t done that at any stage in the 2 games so far. With Melksham back and rotating 187cm+ mids through the forward line they can spare 7 minutes a quarter of Weid in to the ruck, just as they did for the first half last week.

No it didn’t

From his highlights and watching him at training he loves leaping for his marks. Plenty of smalls like Eddie Betts and Cyril have done it over the years and don’t forget the great former demon Gary Moorcroft!

If the population was really booming in a way that led to footy club memberships booming why have the Dogs not capitalised on their flag with the growth of the Western Suburbs? They target those areas constantly for growth. The big clubs in particular have seen their membership numbers boom and I'm sure that's because they've created far more cheaper membership categories and sold them to casual fans and people who don't renew every year. Smaller clubs like ours have been supported by loyal members who buy a full membership year in year out. The MCC memberships should've helped our bottom line and should continue to grow, there might be close to 10k+ available if they got everyone there signed up. But for most others they are already committed. I know a lot of casual fans of big clubs who don't go the footy, clearly there's some form of bias by association involved but nearly everyone I know who's a Melbourne supporter is a member and turns up.

Happy to target premierships and growth, I'm just not sure where the numbers will come from. There was a huge base of latent Tiger supporters, the children of the people who were there in the 60's, 70's and 1980. As well as a boost from Tasmania the Hawks dominated the outer east to grow with success for decades. The MFC was powerful but was it ever big? I'd love to be wrong and get 60k and be well on the way to 70+ but in the mean time let's get over 50k this year which will be a huge step then go for a flag!

Both us and the Dogs had 35k members is 2015. The Dogs won the flag in 16 and had 47k in 2017 that dropped back to 43k last year. That tells me they didn't really have a big latent fan base available to scale up. The Tigers won a flag and went from 70k to 100k. I'd hope we turn 44k in to 50k, but unless they are doing wonderful work or finding some other way to fudge the numbers I think 60k might require and premiership and 70k is a pipe dream.

He doesn’t have the same tackle pressure and contest to contest work rate as Spargo and ANB as a forward though. He had 10 pressure acts, Spargo had 22 and ANB 27. Some of that is because he played more wing but either way he’s rarely had that high pressure game. He’s an undersized wing/mid/high half forward who runs to the right places both ways and has some nice hands and movement around the contest. That’s how he got 40 in the VFL often. That’s how he played well last year. I liked his game against the Pies. Didn’t like the way his ball winning or ball use folded against the Tigers under pressure and he didn’t do anything special defensively. Can he or Stretch state a case that they are better than Jones for round 1? Maybe, but I’d be picking the skipper because at least you know he’ll win the ball and attack contests.

Baker only came in to full training about the same time as Melk. Not sure he was ready. Would’ve liked to see him play. No point playing the twin towers after last week. Preuss isn’t a dominant back up, there’s no reason to see him forward more. Keilty might be worth another look or used to spell the talls, otherwise Weideman will do the job backing up Gawn. Not sure how McDonald being poor last week changes that. The forward spread and pressure was bad last week, that’s a more pressing issue.

Because football was more enjoyable when the quarters went for 24 minutes than 30+. Everyone is busy, if the games go for closer to 2 hours than 3 it makes it easier to get to and from a game without taking the whole afternoon or evening. I like the anticipating moments before a bounce, as a player lines up for goal etc but they should be kept as pauses and not delays.

Measures need to be taken to shorten the amount of time a match goes for without cutting down the 20 minutes per quarter of actual game time. 80 minutes of game time is perfect, allowing it to take 160+ minutes is not. Cutting down the breaks between goals, the time it takes to ball it up/throw it in as well as encouraging less stoppages to begin with, the quarter time breaks, the number of times the clock stops for minor indiscretions and so on.