DeeSpencer

So you're assuming Sparrow doesn't come in and just star and make us better which is probably fair, if that's not the case then it's a matter of where he can play and how he gets a game. Depending on his tank and ability he could play a role in 3 positions. 4 inside mids: Oliver, Viney, Gus, Harmes 3 outside mids: Fritsch, KK, Vanders 3 half forward flankers: Melksham/Petracca, ANB, Spargo Depth: Jones, Maynard, JKH, C. Wagner, Stretch, Baker There's some other forward options in J. Smith, Hannan and Garlett, plus the option of going tall, but by and large I think the 6 I've named are the primary depth options to cover 10 spots in the team. If Sparrow is the 7th best depth option then we might be in trouble turning to him, but if we have a couple of injuries to similar guys and they want a bit of pace and crash and bash then he can come in without the side being massively weaker. From what I've seen of him his best chance of playing is probably in a forward/on ball rotation where he can be a bit of depth and energy. If maybe Harmes and Vanders were out and they wanted to rotate Petracca on ball a bit without taking him from the forward line too much then Sparrow could be handy in a similar forward/mid role. It's a long season, if he plays well in the VFL he'll get his chance at some stage. Yeah it means the team isn't full strength but no team is for the full year.

I think a lot of the issues last year were on repeat entries where you really struggle to score. We pushed up high to keep the ball forward as well when dropping deeper and then switching the point of attack would've been better. Either way, teams are just too good defensively once they've packed the backline. Getting it in quickly is still the best way to score. I had a Hawthorn mate tell me how much the Hawks hated their bombing in to the forward line last year. Even the best side in the comp in Richmond could carve teams up on the counter usually in second halves but struggle on straight forward entries. Personally I think they'll hope May, Hibberd, Salem and maybe Hore or some Hunt run will provide the defensive rebounds. KK and Fritsch should be the class kickers who start on the wings and whether they are folding back and hitting up the corridor (as both did today) or pushing forward and kicking inside 50 (as Fritsch did today) will depend on where they get the ball. There was a bit more space than a full game today but all of the defenders I mentioned had some nice kicks from half back. As did Oscar.

I've only seen him train with the midfield and get the ball across half back in open space as wingers often do. I don't think he's part of the back 6 plans.

Turned up at 10:20 so might've missed a bit but they were in to some decent match practice between two teams. Maybe 12 or so per side. (Keilty the latest in rehab doing a fair bit with Baker, Lever and Viney laps). Ball use across the backline and creating angles to work the ball in to the middle of the ground was slick. From there it was really going quick and aggressively in to the forward line which meant some errors but also some nice pieces of play. Standouts: T Mc - got on the end of a couple and marked well May - a couple of nice intercept marks Fritsch - finding a stack of ball on a wing with some sharp ball use Vanders - not always the best with the ball but high work rate, was constantly in play The draftees all showed a bit as well. Hore was composed across half back. Bedford stuck a tackle on Gawn and bought him down. Jordon linked up nicely received a handball and kicked perfectly to a fat side lead. Chandler was busy and has sure hands overhead. Corey Wagner another who gets involved quite a bit. Part of the forward group and working hard up and back. Lewis did a few nice things, took a strong mark and looked very sharp but then got the ball under pressure and did this thing twice where he holds the ball low over his boot and quickly squirts out a shanked kick that just puts team mates under more pressure. Concerning. They moved in to small 2/3rd ground match practice with 4 different teams rotating. Again, ball use, overlap, quick movement. After that they split talls and smalls, with the smalls working on quick hands and pressure. A bit of 3 on 3 kind of stuff. In two different groups they did some running, not flat out but up and back over about 40m at a good pace for a period of time. Jordon/Neita/Chandler/Bedford did some one on one tackle/evade drills, the two smalls look strong tacklers as you'd expect. Some of the main guys did an exercise that involved fast steps then receiving a ball whilst rolling to ground on either side of the cones, bouncing up for an attempted hanger, then a bump/tackle, out to get a high ball then on to a lead. It looked pretty brutal stuff but also like a really good drill to simulate in game movements and 2nd/3rd/4th efforts. It's the kind of stuff I like seeing because it's smart training rather than just flogging them laps. By that time it was well in to the 30's and I'd seen enough.

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The Pats almost always defer to the other team in order to start the 2nd half. So I think they were doing what the Pats didn't want. Clearly they hadn't factored in letting the Pats run all over them for an easy score. Poor Big Red, today I'm thinking he's the best bad coach in the league for his handling of the last 3 minutes. You just can't give Brady the ball back with 2 minutes and 3 time outs. It's suicide. They had to find a way to kill clock and score with under a minute left. And no time out in overtime to at least give your D a brief rest and try to come up with a goal line stand? Masterful play caller and great culture guy but in an ideal world he's the offensive coordinator to a great head coach. That ideal world is New England I guess.

It's a valid concern but the break down is: Gus - was healthy to start and is back in the main group Oliver - has been running pretty much all summer Harmes - as above plus back in the main group Viney - doing more than last year Vanders - doing more than last year Petracca - apparently fitter than ever Fritsch and KK both doing well as wing options Jones - not missing sessions just backed off Stretch/Baker - both progressing Maynard - a depth option Sparrow - potentially an option To start last season we had Tyson out of the side, Brayshaw out of the side, Viney and Vanders injured and Harmes playing wing/forward. The midfield had huge changes between round 1 and finals. Oliver is the only who's really behind where they entered last year and there's time for him to catch up. Otherwise we just have to make sure we use the long year to our advantage by resting and rotating guys and building them up through the season.

The face mask call was easy to miss and really it's the kind of call that the game is better to miss. QB's don't deserve extra protection when out running and copping incidental contact that is no risk of injury and doesn't impede them. If you can't even see it from the behind angle and he isn't hampered at all then it's probably not a big deal. The later non call is far worse because it was at least 2 penalties! Helmet to helmet as well as the interference. Plus it would've ended the game and that means the ref was probably afraid to make the call. Anyway, should be review-able as it would be an easy call.

Pats 35 Chiefs 30 Rams 20 Saints 30

Not sure about a lot of that. The Pies don't have 2 key forwards and a resting ruck. De Goey is a very undersized full forward, a throw back to when full forwards were a thing. Mihocek is a hard working competitor who's just key position sized. Cox is really a forward in a ruckmans body. He leaps at the ball and can lead like a forward. The 3 options work well together - a super tall, a medium and a small marking option. Plus Stephenson as a zippy leading player. The Eagles forward line works for a lot of reasons, a large part of which is that they left Vardy and Lycett on the bench for a lot of the grand final! That puts a toll on their mids and flankers to cover rotations but they can do that because they have a lot of experienced players. We're slowly getting older but we'd be mad to waste rotations when our midfield was mainly kids. The other big reason it works is because Josh Kennedy is a tackling/pressure machine as is Darling who is very mobile and short for a 2nd key forward. They also have great pressure medium/small players. The gains of covering Max with a proper ruck for 20-25% of the game (or 5-7 minutes in the middle of each quarter) have to weighed against the losses in our forward line. I don't think a forward line with 2 genuine tall marking options in T Mc and Weid as well as a number of medium sized players - Melksham, Petracca and Hannan/Vanders/Harmes/Oliver/Fritsch is going to work with a 200cm+ lump in the way. The final thing to consider is that Weid in the ruck seemed to rejuvenate him as a player. He might not win a lot of taps but he follows up and tackles well, links up in general play somewhat like a midfielder and gets involved in the game.

To play round 1 I think he has to play in the 2nd preseason game at Casey on Sat 9 March. I wouldn't be picking a guy on a long lay off without a proper practice match. In order to play in that game he probably has to in the main training group for at least 3 weeks if not a month. At this stage he just doing laps with the occasional bit of ball work. When guys are getting closer to going back to the main group they start doing more sprints, skills and dynamic movements. If Lever isn't doing that in the next 2-3 weeks he's starting to look unlikely for round 1.

It was already warming up when i got there at 10. Lever and Jones doing runs. Melk and Baker together. Gus doing rehab as well I think Unsighted: Oliver, Viney, Stretch, Spargo, Walker, Vanders, Hannan, Maynard A variety of craft drills followed. Forwards with some goal kicking. Rucks working with Stafford. Some zoning drills. Then it was running time. Harmes, Trac, Jetta, Bull, Hunt, Oscar formed a rehab group and sat out As did Lewis, KK, JKH The rucks did some bullocking and then a sprint for a high ball. Preuss testing Gawn out. The lesser running group had: Keilty, Weid, Hore, May, Frost, Jeff. There wasn’t much drop off but Keilty looked strong. The bigger group was led by ANB with C Wagner pushing him. T Mc, J Smith up towards the front. Petty was in this group as was Hibberd who was blowing but keeping pace, that’s a good sign for him. The 5 young draftees keeping up in this group as well.

Colts 30 Chiefs 31 Cowboys 20 Rams 17 Chargers 21 Patriots 23 Eagles 13 Saints 34

Solid body and attacks his training, I expect he’ll play well at VFL level and get a go at some stage of the season. Likes to take guys on at training which has come with some mistakes. I think he’ll be similar to Harmes and have some ups and downs over the early years with decision making errors. If he really can be dangerous as a forward that will increase his chances of playing often early in his career

Colts 30 Houston 34 Seattle 24 Dallas 20 Chargers 25 Baltimore 23 Philadelphia 24 Chicago 20

Defender - nope. Skills not up to it and not strong in the contest tagger - sure, but we had Harmes wing - yes, he made us better as a wing when he came to the club. I think he could’ve had a go there instead of Tyson last year, but he’s still only a stop gap. Bugg’s fitness and vesatility are valuable for young sides but at the end of the day we’ve got 44 players on the list and aren’t a young side anymore. We should have better players in every spot Bugg could play.

Cheers @Macca I wouldn't have won without your generous weekly notifications. And to be honest working some Sunday evenings had me checking demonland late before bed and doing my tips as Shefty was announcing the injuries that worked in my favour. Loving the wild card match ups this year, seems a really strong group of teams. An early play off prediction - the AFC is underrated and the NFC is a bit overrated. An early hope - Colts win so they go play the Chiefs, and the Ravens win and get the Pats match up.

Eagles, Chargers, Colts

So 2 of the 3 clubs with Indigenous coaches have won the last 2 premierships. With Dan Rioli and Shane Edwards being vital for the Tigers, and a rejuvenated Lewis Jetta as well as Liam Ryan and Willie Rioli great for the Eagles. Too small a sample size to say it's more than just a coincidence for now but I've been told too many times by smart people that the best way to get Indigenous people involved in any thing - health, public safety, land management, business - is to have it community run with other Indigenous leaders. They see and fix the challenges that people like me don't see or don't understand. Richmond and the Eagles might be ahead of the curve hiring coaches who understand players differently to the rest, not to mention coaches who understand the game in different ways. If Davey could teach a few of our small forwards to stalk and run down defenders that would be great, if he could teach our mids how to create angles and laser in kicks that would be even better!

8 Christmas Wishes. Feel free to critique or add your own. 1. Teach Clayton Oliver forward craft: Clarry was 3rd in the league with 166 total tackles last year and first in the league with 405 contested possessions. When you add those together plus preseason games and training you start to work out why he had both shoulders operated on in the offseason. He's only 21, we have to protect him if he's going to play well in the 30's. So that means improving his leading patterns, his marking and his crumbing as a forward so he can impact games from there. We should have plenty of options to role through the midfield especially if we are lucky to be leading games with big margins. So it's time to take the load from Clarry's shoulders (and back, hips, knees etc). 2. Make Gus Brayshaw's kicking up to scratch Gus got his head and body right and turned in to the elite ball winner we all hoped he could be last year but now it's time to get him hitting targets at a much higher rate. In a lot of ways the pressure is on to show he is a dangerous midfielder worthy of a 3rd place Brownlow finish. I hope he continues to embrace his kicking on both sides and works hard to really be decisive with his decision making and flatten out his kicks. 3. The club needs to get Jayden Hunt to play tennis I was up to the boring bit of my occasional West Wing rewatch when the great Leo McGarry had this to say It made me think about players who aren't performing as they could and what might be done about it. One thing that stuck out with me with Hunt at his best compared with Hunt this year is the quick little steps he'd take to get down to a ground ball then break free to space went missing. Obviously, he had some ankle issues that wouldn't have helped but I wonder if the best way to bring that movement back is to get him playing the sport he grew up playing. One that relies on quick feet. We have a couple of tennis coaches available to the club - Todd Viney and Nicole Bradtke, one of them should get Jayden playing some tennis! The AFL is full of junior basketball players lauded for their vision and movement but in the case of Hunt tennis might well have taught him how to move. 4. Fix Tracc's goalkicking I don't know what the plan should be but after excellent accuracy in 2017 Petracca's goal kicking went down the drain last season. Fix it. Fix the other 10 things wrong with his game as well but fix the goal kicking and he’ll play with confidence to do the rest. 5. Get Melksham and Tommy Mc tackling Both guys move like they have fused ankles when it comes to laying a tackle. Melksham 1.9 per game is not good enough for a half forward. T Mc 2.3 is better but for such a mobile key forward he should do more. I don't know if it's training drills or an unusual training method to get them more agile and reactive but something needs to change. Maybe they can play squash and get used to quick in tight movements and getting down low. Hopefully offseason surgery helps Melk out but even with healthy ankles he’s got improvement in him. 6. Oscar has to wrestle a bear Oscar has the skills, size and discipline to make it as a good key defender and we saw that at times in 2018, but as his confidence waned as the year went on he became indecisive. He was attempting to watch his man instead of backing himself to go to the ball and he was tentative in crashing packs. To keep his spot in the side with May coming in and to thrive as a player he has to get more physical. You can't be a good key defender unless you're tough and aggressive. As a child UFC fighter Khabib wrestled a bear. Sadly I doubt the club wants to risk the complaints of the RSPCA by bringing in an actual Russian baby bear. That said, we've got something simialr available. At North Braydon Preuss nearly snapped Andrew Swallow in half one day and he put recent GWS draftee Jye Caldwell out of the game in a North VFL v AFL academy match. He's a big angry man who doesn't take a backward step. There's no one better on our list for Oscar to make a statement against to show he's ready to take on big forwards. The coaches need to design a drill that has them go one on one, word both players up and then let the magic happen. 7. The Nibble needs to add some bite to his nibbling ANB is clearly our best forward pressure player and a great runner. His ability to go contest to contest and not give up a chase makes him a certain starter every week even when he’s doing very little good (or a lot of bad) with the ball. That said, chasing is good, laying the tackles really ups the turnovers and is what makes you great as a pressure player. ANB probably isn’t going to suddenly develop Rioli like instincts and movement or get any quicker, he’s just not that type of athlete, but he still catches plenty of defenders and can increase the damage he does once he catches them by mastering some sneaky tackling tips. The Cyril Rioli special was grabbing an arm and then turning a guy to spill the ball loose. Ain't no thing but a chicken wing. 8. Run Bayley Run When Fritsch was moved on to the wing for the 2nd half against the Bombers I thought the team took a huge leap forward. We finally had a guy with lovely skills, the ability to get out in to space and overhead ability to bail out a bad kick. A lot of our best ball movement came through Fritsch. Clearly he tired as the year went on and he wasn’t as natural when forced to play half back. So to take his game (and the team) to the next level he needs to run like a gun wingman. Every indication from training so far is he’s running really well so I hope it continues.

ANB and JKH according to 7. Looked like the knee that ANB had a few issues with dislocations with, but apparently he completed the session. JKH got a cheeky little push from Salem and looked like maybe an ankle in the footage but not reports of damage.

I very much liked Pedersen but his mobility wasn't going to improve as he got older, time was up. Keilty now looks set to take that tall utility role. Someone went off with Bull Smith as the season went on last year, like he lost his confidence in his game. Previously good goal kicking became a horrible stretch of the yips. Otherwise, he was useful in the games he played at AFL level. His tackle pressure for a tall was excellent and he did the job in the ruck. He averaged 6 tackles a game and his games against the Blues and Crows - both big blow out wins - were excellent all round games. Even his Port game rated well. These ratings aren't always worth a lot but they can show players doing important things like applying pressure and tackles or halving contests.

Maybe they wanted someone with more qualifications. There's very little on his website about his qualifications or actual details around his program. I think he has an important story to tell and that there's little harm in telling that story or doing some peer group mentoring with young players or community sports teams. But AFL teams have doctors, sports psychologists and mentoring staff already. A team might've had professional advice that for a number of their players right now the last thing they needed was a talk on suicide. Anyway, the AFL and teams have made progress with a number of players - Franklin, Fasolo etc publicly coming out to express their struggles. The community needs the most change, some of the tweets I've seen today are horrendous and I don't really mean the jokes, I mean those who just don't get it. The AFL should've suspended Mark Robinson's credentials after he made a comment about Fasolo, that's the kind of steps I'd be taking.

Yarra Park hosted a music festival on Saturday called Petting Zoo. Typical drugged up singlet wearing idiots dancing in a big heap of mud to EDM. The idea that it's always a public park full of peaceful trees and people walking dogs is pretty false. It's a public space best used for public activities. A sporting oval available for the public would help a lot of those activities.

It's actually Chihuahua