DeeSpencer

The wings have to be on the wings. The forwards and backs have to be forward or back. So a clean centre clearance can give a midfielder more time to steady up and deliver inside 50 to an even number of forwards and backs. With a designated full forward out of the goal square who - if a team plays man to man - could have a decent amount of space in front of them and therefore a one on one contest in space. The reality is more times than not teams will defend the centre clearance well enough to pressure the kick and there will still be a pack situation inside 50 or on the flank where the ball is bombed to. That said, there's a chance for someone with some class like Brayshaw to get the ball on the run and deliver long (helps if you can do it on both feet) to a forward in space. Or an explosive player like Viney, Petracca or Vanders to burst through the square in to some clear room. 2 rucks may be important because you don't want to allow a team to get a clean break from the middle now you can't stack a spare back. I still think a good athletic key forward is a worthwhile option but using someone like Grigg wouldn't be because you can't be non competitive and let the opposition just feed the hit out straight to their best mids.

FB: Jetta May Hibberd HB: Hunt Oscar Lewis C; Vanders Oliver Fritsch HF: Petracca T Mc ANB FF: Spargo Weid Melksham Foll: Gawn Brayshaw Viney Int: Salem, Harmes, wing/back, forward/wing Of those 20 you can mount a small case against Oscar (for Frost on a speedy tall), Lewis (for Hore), and Weid (if Preuss is preferred) although I think they are all pretty established in the side. Hunt is probably the only one who's a little iffy and I'd back him in. Yet to prove fitness: May, Oliver, Viney, Melksham, McDonald, Jones In contention: Hore, Frost, JKH, Jones, J. Smith, T. Smith, C. Wagner, Stretch, Preuss Smokie: Baker - a small chance he follows the pathway that Hannan and Brayshaw have done in recent years in blitzing a Casey practice game and coming in to the side for round 1. If they play Salem on a wing then Hore is the standout choice to come in to the back 7. If Salem plays half back then the other wing options come in to play - JKH, Stretch or a healthy Jones. KK an option but seems very unlikely he'll be fit. The 7th forward is the discussion for Preuss v J/T Smith v C Wagner v going the extra midfielder and using Fritsch and Vanders forward. If I were betting right now it would be Hore and J Smith for the last 2 spots with Jones declared not ready

A lovely crumb and some nice defensive work but otherwise he butchered the ball. Still think he looked scared of contact so wanted the ball out of his hands.

It might come down to this: If Preuss plays round 1 then the Weid doesn’t. As much as I liked the impact big Preuss gave hitting contests hard as a forward and spelling Maxy I still don’t think a Weid/T Mc/Preuss forward line is defensively sound.

Joel Smith's positives where his work rate to space up the ground and his defensive work. Inside 50 he did nothing.

Seemingly little. Although the small ground and congested play made fast breaks tricky, watch and see with the kick outs. Push in the backs and grabs out of the ruck might be iffy. Hard for umps. 6-6-6 does nothing good or bad. If they want to trial last touch and 16 a side I'd be all for it. They are some real rules.

Wouldn't hate if he didn't keep making the same mistakes. He wasn't alone, Harmes didn't start well and Vanders was pretty fumbly at times, but I thought Corey Wagner and JKH probably used it better than ANB today.

Hore took a couple of nice grabs intercepting and used the ball pretty well, a couple of shanks under pressure but a lovely kick to get us started. Didn't look all that great when playing from behind or side to side though, not sure he's got a lot of power and the step up in pace might catch him out at times so it will be interesting to see where he fits. Looked more like a guy who can do a job than a threat to really break out.

Pressure really good from both sides. Apart from the first 10 minutes our pressure was good and structures seemed sound. Pies were missing their 3 most dangerous forwards in De Goey, Stephenson and WHE, although Elliott makes up for one of those. So the low score from them isn't a huge surprise. That was pretty much 2017 Collingwood we played when they couldn't score. I was a little disappointed we didn't switch the ball more around half back, we seemed comfortable to bomb it out. Backline: Frost and Oscar both started very poorly missing chances to kill contests with intercepts or strong punches. Frosty clean missed a few chances to mark and Oscar looked slow. But they got going as the game spread out a bit more and our pressure came up. Jetta excellent. Hibberd solid. Lewis did enough defensively and apart from his trade mark dumb free kicks he played well. Hunt good. Mids: Gus had it on a string early and his clean hands and tackle pressure was excellent. Tracc then took over. Vanders cracked in. Young Sparrow tagged Treloar in the second half, nice goal and won some ball, probably wasn't as clean with his tackles as I expected. Max dominated, hardly a surprise there. Salem showed his class at times. Forwards: Pressure was really good. Joel Smith a nice addition in that regard and C Wagner worked hard. Tim Smith did ok. Preussy hit some contests very hard but I wasn't impressed by his positioning, did get on the end of it a few times though. One nice grab and a solid but not spectacular game from Weids. Nice goal from Garlett and good pressure but he made some dreadful errors kicking the ball along the ground and making bad decisions, didn't do enough to convince me he was in any way back. Stock up: JKH - really got us going in the first term and was dangerous all game, strong enough at the contest, high work rate Hunt - no huge runs but opened the game up and used it nicely at times Petracca - midfield oomph Stock down: ANB - very scratchy ball use and decision making Stretch - didn't take the game on enough or deliver well

Gee God Boy Wow

Maybe the most AFL part of this is instead of letting teams come up with their own symbols they are going to have a choice of 40 AFL approved emojis (but don't call them emojis). A shame because there has been some great ones in college football.

Bench rotation numbers make a lot of sense. I'm surprised it's not already a thing. Runners are still allowed on to the field after a goal and the 3 or 4 oncoming players can deliver messages to their line groups. Seems crazy to me to flash up signs. If it's going to happen I hope we have someone smart enough to work out the best possible messages to send and how to disguise them.

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/afl/demons-battle-of-the-giants/news-story/e0b5bae12803940174eb6fb87b7443b9

I'd go with the body! But I want him to have both!

Maybe, maybe not. The photos are consecutive in the album and have the same background so they are likely doing the same drill. Doesn't really matter, I've seen enough of Petracca's kicking to know his action is always imperfect.

I find it funny that there was a heated debate over Petracca's body a few weeks ago when I think these pictures (well done Eleanor) show a far greater problem for him. This can't be a good kicking technique. Plant foot isn't planted. Balancing arm is swirling around in the breeze. Hips and torso aren't aligned. Compare with Spargo who's very aligned and balanced and you can see why Spargo is a nice accurate quick kick where as Petracca is capable of blasting a superb kick but just as likely to spray it.

Imagine the outrage if Tommy Mc played AFLX then had an operation after it. What the hell were they thinking? Why was he even training today and not in for surgery right now? This is a weird one.

Mostly split in to 3 diffferent groups and doing light craft work. I tried to watch a bit of Corey Wagner but nothing stood out. Sparrow’s size and acceleration stand out, no idea what it means in game terms yet but he’s an athlete. In a drill where Rawlings kicked a high ball then Chaplin whacked defenders with pads it was clear Hore picks up the flight and marks well overhead. I like Chandlers energy. Salem was in with the mids when they did a little bit of center clearance work near the end. Hunt has a few random barrels that made it to half way from the goal square.

I got there at about 10:15 and stayed for 50 minutes or so. Tommy Mc walking off with a staff member. Lever was finishing up, Jones doing ball work, Hannan boxing. Didn’t see Viney or KK. Nor Walker or Neitscke. None of the 5 Indigenous players were there, assume they’re still on their camp. As far as I could tell everyone else was in full training.

Bummer, he looked ready made enough to make an impact at Casey. The silver lining for him is he’s got a long time until next season and maybe the extra rehab and sidelines time can be used to work on his strength and some extra coaching time. For the team: we’re now have 2 list spots open, do we add a player before the March deadline?

Conspiracy theory: Because they want to trial conferences in AFLW before bringing in to AFL to guarantee more rivalry games. Likely theory: Because there's no perfect way to have 10 teams play 7 rounds (just as there's no perfect way for 18 to play 22 in mens) they came up with some creative in the pursuit of fairness. Which is crazy because it's sport. Players will get suspended and miss a game against your side. The wind will swing. The umpires will botch things. Injuries. Illness. Etc. Fair isn't really ever going to happen so just get the best 4 teams in the finals would be my advice. The crazy thing is they split the conferences on ladder position from the previous year as 1, 3, 5 and 7 v 2, 4, 6 and 8. Why on earth would you do odds and evens! Don't have to be a genius to work out something like 1, 4, 5, 8 and 2, 3, 5 and 7 is at least smarter. Then they chucked North - who signed a heap of gun players - in to the group with 1, 3, 5 and 7 and the Cats in to the lesser group. That's bush league.

Anyway, fantastic performance by the girls today. Loved the way they played the wind again with smart defensive footy against it and then attacking footy with it. Pearce led the mids really well and they were great around the contest against a strong Brisbane side. Used the ball by hand and foot in the right balance. Forwards did the job. Newman a weapon in space and crumbing. Hanks an absolute beauty, sets up so much with her clean hands, a natural. Hore was quite. Zanker stuffed up 1 goal terribly and another where she should've snapped but went a drop punt but he she keeps competing. Backs were dominant. Guest has made a difference after missing round 1. Downie is probably still building in to her game. So is Lampard. Edmonson a few iffy decisions but a lot of good. Cordner was probably best on ground. She monstered big Sabrina. Never let her get in to the game at all. Fantastic performance. BOG for mine.

The conference system wasn't a terrible way of deciding who plays who. They needed a way to do 7 rounds in to 10 teams. What they should do now is simply realise the error of their ways and just announce the top 4 will make the finals regardless of conference. Every team will have played 7 games, the who plays who stuff is always overvalued, you either win games and make finals or you don't.

7 round season. A team in Con A will play the other 4 teams in Con A and 3 of the 5 teams in Conference B A team in Con B will play the other 4 teams in Con B and 3 of the 5 teams in Con A Then winner of Con A plays runner up Con B in the semi finals, and vice versa with winner Con B and runner up Con A.

Doubt it's diet, I'm not sure there's anything new happening there after the wave of paleo that's become more common lately. Same goes for supplements, teams are surely pretty restricted there since the Essendon business. They've had a heap of hammies, my complete guess is they're doing more weights and training for power with sprints instead of longer running. But they aren't getting bulky, it's very lean and powerful.That's what they look like to me.