DeeSpencer

Far out the incompetency of not keeping a hold over emergency 24th man for a preseason game. One of the Wagners or Tommy Sparrow had to play VFL and couldn't have been kept around for the 2nd half? Both of these guys should've been on ice immediately. Smith sounds like very little chance of playing round 1 now.

There's continuum between bracing for contact when you're about to get run over by a guy with momentum and lining up a guy and dropping him and May is certainly somewhere between the 2. I'd argue Berry draws him before handballing and May realises contact is his best option and instead of absorbing Berry hitting him he does make an active movement to get low and put his momentum through Berry. He's pretty much delivered a strong moving basketball screen. It's saying if you want contact I'm going to put some force in to it to protect himself as much as to clean the guy up. If his intentions were to clean him up he would've turned side on and ran in to him not stayed mostly front on and held his ground. I think the club will take his side that his intentions were genuine and not malicious. Coach him up to do even better in staying low and avoiding force. If I were a coach I'd want May making contact and stopping the guy getting to the next contest and I'd want May on the winning side of that contact. I'd be annoyed he was reported but it would be more a focus on technique than a dressing down. That said it's irrelevant how valid his actions were to him getting off. That comes down to was it high and how heavy was the impact? We need to win 1 or both of those arguments.

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).

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.

What are you disagreeing with? I’m not denying plenty of players take drugs, particularly on long breaks and the offseason. My guess is it could almost be as much as 50% of a list who on end of season trips, New Years, at the spring races etc. 5-10 if not more of the 45 on a list probably have never touched drugs, a lot of people and athletes are like that. Some AFL players weigh their food and count every calorie. They aren’t touching drugs 5-10 are probably taking drugs more regularly than once every while and are at risk of harming themselves and almost certainly not performing to their best. A good club either sorts them out or kicks them out.

That Kolo injury sounds nasty. Playing in round 1 at any level seems ambitious. Hannan - not good, but I’m of the belief he’s been inconsistent since he’s joined up and played a lot of games bandaged up. It’s preseason so I’ll take the optimistic view that getting him fully healthy will be good for him.

Plough's usually got a bit more depth and quality in his analysis. I don't mind him as a pundit. Lever: Yeah he'll be really good to have back to his best. Of course a good player doing well is important. But as good as Lever is we should be able to cover and injury to a 3rd tall intercepting defender and/or him playing below his best. Hore might be good enough to do it. Hibberd can intercept. Jetta has high intercept numbers for his role. Hunt hopefully bounces back. Salem, Lewis, KK playing back or even Fritsch. I don't see Lever's injury as a particularly huge obstacle, he's a good player coming back, every team has them. Inconsistencies: No thanks, not really buying that. How many games was our effort and skill awful really bad in last year - v Hawks in the wet, v Magpies and some terrible moments in the Swans game towards the end of the year. Then of course the prelim. Otherwise almost every week we turned up and had a go. We struggled for most of the season with some defensive frailties and poor forward line conversion against top 8 sides. Every side has it's weaknesses though. We consistently beat up on bad sides and struggled against the top sides until later in the year when we improved a bit, that's consistency! Inexperienced tall players: Not particularly buying this one either. Up forward, yes Weideman is young and hasn't played much but the Dogs won the flag with Zaine Cordy and Tom Boyd, the Tigers didn't have a second tall forward, the Cats had Tom Hawkins come alive one year. Big Chrisso Dawes was 22 when the Pies won the flag. Down back - Sam Frost is 25 and played 69 AFL games, that's not young nor inexperienced. Oscar is about to turn 23 and has played 62 games. Oscar probably hasn't reached peak physical condition just yet but is far form slight. Isn't a common school of thought that 70 games is a good apprenticeship for most players? Tom Barrass had played 32 games heading in to last years season, played his 51st in the grand final and was aged 22. I can think of 3 better concerns: 1. Managing the work loads and potential exits from the side of Lewis and Jones 2. Run and skill from half back - especially if Salem goes in to the midfield and KK and Hunt don't come on we're in trouble 3. Lack of genuine pressure and crumbing small forward - as effective as ANB and Spargo can be they aren't Rioli's.

So what is it? Abstinence or not having to be choir boys. You have to pick one or the other. I'd suggest more players have had their performance impacted by mental health - mostly depression and anxiety - in recent years than drugs and that comes from bottling up the stress of their jobs. Give me a player at 95% body capacity and 100% mental capacity any day over a player who treats their body like a temple but is fighting mental challenges. I'd love for players to go out after a game and have somewhere between 0 and 5 vodka lime sodas, dance, make friends and laugh for a while and call it a night for 40 weeks a year and then live like monks for the other 10 in the lead in to finals but that's not going to happen. Firstly for most people it's not realistic to go 25 weeks straight without at least having some nights when you let your hair down, secondly the alcohol might be worse than the drugs for their bodies anyway! That's not a reason to do drugs but zero tolerance and name and shame could see a lot of guys throwing careers away over something that didn't hurt them or anyone else. They almost had no choice but to do something after the Eagles drama. I think that's what a lot of people are forgetting. Cousins - life ruined. Kerr -jailed, Fletcher - had to be resuscitated. Chick - off the rails. They made a big error publicising so much about the 3 strikes, loop holes and more than anything disclosing data about the number of players testing positive and on 2 strikes. They went out and publicised it like it was something to be proud of when it should be all in the background.

Are multiple players taking drugs in the offseason and long weekends - absolutely. Are some players taking drugs more regularly than that - maybe every weekend in the preseason and the night after the game in season - sure. But you're struggling to play elite AFL footy if you're launching in to big weekends every week and I reckon we've seen that with some of our players if you know where to look. I reckon you can count in one hand the number of truly elite players who could keep that lifestyle going. The majority of AFL players get in long term relationships early, settle down and live a pretty boring life. They are good citizens who do community work, are super professional about their trade and the last few offseasons has shown are really low level of crime and disorderly behaviour. Certainly compared with their NRL colleagues in Northern states. What good comes from punishing AFL players with really harsh illicit drug policies? Do we all feel a little better about ourselves because our heroes are all clean skins? Do we feel morally superior? The current policy has stopped a repeat Ben Cousins. That was its aim and it has been successful. Club culture can take care of the rest. How hard is it for a coach to get with his leadership group and set standards about behaviour and work out which players are going too hard and sort it out? Trade, delist, play in the 2nds. You'll sort it out in no time.

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?

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.

Yeah a heap of injuries but if you look at their players they are (to use a non technical term) jacked! Experinced players like Sidebottom suddenly look like this, which is also how Hawks and Tigers look recently.

Not sure that's entirely true but I don't have any inside mail. Wasn't Todd Viney moved in to a role that included overseeing the medical department at the start of last year when he moved away from list management? The AFL hired Misso's 2IC in Rob Jackson to oversee the umpires when they had an umpire fitness crises, the AFL are usually pretty clever at who they pick from club land. The foot injuries have been a struggle but not massively out of line from where the rest of the comp has been, hopefully we're improving that regard. If our players are healthy, strong, fit, running out games and not suffering from the more preventable injuries like soft tissues then I don't think you'd move a guy on for a slightly higher than average foot injury list. And if you did why not do it last year? Carlton poached Andrew Russell from the Hawks, if you wanted to make a change that would've been the one to make.

As for Jake his inside 50 kicks and aerial contests as a forward have been a revelation. Not bad for a midfielder we recruited as a defender. Not the ideal preseason but I wonder how much his ankle injury restricted him last year, still think he has a level more to go to with defensive work, crumbing and getting even more of the ball around the ground.

A sweet finish from Jake but the thing I love about that goal is Tommy flies and Melk and Hannan both put themselves in a great position to crumb, as does Spargo who outworks his opponent from the middle of the ground to get there as well. Smart team footy and a lovely piece of skill.

Wasn’t a fan when he started. Players did lap after lap and had no power. Also the experienced doctors left in less than ideal circumstances and the current doctor was under qualified/inexperienced for the role. We had the flirtation with Dank as well, was that when Misson had arrived? Plenty has changed since though and you only have to look at the GC boys comments about Melbourne’s preseason to see standards have risen. So a credit to Misso and the club for getting things going in the right direction. Now we have an opportunity to improve things yet again. I’d be looking at Hawthorn, Coll and Richmond where players are very well defined and explosive athletes. Tigers have had a great run with injury and the Hawks are the masters of rejuvenating players.

1 co-principal partner out - iSelect. 1 co-principal partner in - Jaguar. They are the jumper sponsors and the big ones to get signed and hopefully on multi year deals. I think the AFL brand protection rules would only be for that level of sponsor. Toyota can't be cheaply undercut by Mazda buying Gold Coast's jumper sponsorship for $200,000 is surely the idea there. For the lower level of sponsors I doubt the rule would apply. There's almost no way Infiniti would've paid us 1M+ to not even be a jumper sponsor last year. In terms of Major Sponsors - which infinity was last year, they are the ones that get worn on the shorts and club polos and have match day activities. The website currently lists 8. Johnnie Walker, IG, China Southern, Haynes Paint, Chisholm, NT, New Balance, CSG. Plenty of time to add more at that level. We've had multi year deals with those companies.

I can see the appeal. We have a down year this year and you get the 'why did he get a 3 year extension', and then when the next deadline is closing in you get more speculation. Or we are very successful over this next contract and then we're looking at paying him megabucks. Locking him in to a regular staff contract might achieve more certainty for both parties. The concern is every year becomes a contract year if you get to the stage where there's no pay outs (assuming there's some protections over the early years for Goody). I've seen enough from Goodwin to think he's a very good coach who can adapt and grow with the job. Things will only go badly wrong if he's surrounded by the wrong people or the wrong players. That's not to say Goody alone can bring sustained success but if you abandon the idea of the messiah coach you can treat Goodwin as a vital foundation to build upon.

My guess: They had a look at what we could provide with the sponsorship last year and then fed that data to their boss company in Nissan who took a deal with the Hawks. It wouldn't have made sense for Nissan and Infiniti to sponsor competing clubs, and they don't see enough cars here to justify a large sponsorship either.

Wilson Asset Management?

Smart call. He might even need some local Footy in between the tac and VFL as well. Not an easy pathway for a raw 18 year old

To be honest the game was so boring I was barely watching and couldn't work out exactly what the Rams were or weren't doing, but they did well enough on defense to win it. Did the Pats stack Edelman in a bunch so he couldn't be pressured? They did that against KC. It was clear to me what the Pats were doing. Lining 6 defenders on the D Line and saying to the Rams you can't run outside zone runs and good luck running play action because we'll just bring the 6 defenders no matter what. So you better have it blocked perfectly and be super fast to get it out or we'll pressure Goff. As Warren Sharp documents in that thread the logical change was to bring in a second tight end so you've got 7 blockers if need be. I know the Rams don't have great tight ends, which is a lesson for teams around the league - invest in valuable players in the positions that have versatility like tight end = a more versatile offense. But either way the Rams had to get that 7th blocker in and force the Pats to change from just lining up 6 defenders on the line and getting pressure on Goff. Goff certainly choked, the delayed throw to Cooks cost a touchdown and the lead. And yeah I think McVay wasn't as confident in Goff from the Chicago game on. He had to find some plays that gave him and Goff confidence. A series of short completions or a designed run or something. Maybe it was the play to Cooks that would've been the one that got them going.