DeeSpencer

Nah Daniher is a very good player with a terrible weakness. If the Weid can mark and move like Daniher then he'll be a star. Unfortunately Daniher's kicking takes him from nearly the best young key forward to often a waste of space.

Yeah because of all those other quick defenders we have to face the Hawthorn forward line? Or other defenders at all! Harmes can butcher the ball, but at least he's got the speed and no how to go get it. If we replaced him it would be with a player of similar skills without the speed or ball winning.

Not as athletic, or as wayward a kick. He moves in a similar way to Pav but without the mobility at this stage (or with the mobility of 35 year old Pav). He's smart on the lead and can take a good mark. Won't have the defensive game just yet but I think of any of the top forwards right now he probably compares most to Josh Kennedy.

This isn't meant to negative but let's be realistic: He's not going to be great at ground level. He's not going to be able to out body opponents to take easy marks. If he gets the ball in traffic the speed of the game might mean his skills by hand or foot aren't great. His defensive effort probably isn't going to be fantastic. Every chance is the pressure of the game means any set shots he gets will be hard to finish But what I will look forward and am excited about is his reading of the play and leading patters and his ability to contest in the air when given a run and jump at the ball - which might only happen once or twice in the game. If he can get up on the lead and have a jump at a few high balls he could end up with 4 or 5 marks and maybe slot a goal or two. Add in a few more possessions from general play and it will be a nice debut. All the best Sam.

I'm saying it's [censored] that all teams do with their best players just in the hope that the other team then wastes the time preparing for them. I can't see Hogan playing. In fact I'd be annoyed if he did play.

Because it's the done thing, not because it will happen. Can't play Saturday if you can't train Thursday. Not this late in the year anyway.

Juice out. Ben in. By the way, just as I post this they announce the Weid will play and Oliver will as well.

Swung by training for a little bit this morning. Fairly decent crowd of school kids in a couple of groups. Looked like an Indigenous school group who Nev and Jeff talked to after training and another group from which one kid slotted a goal and had a hug from a pumped up Wattsy. No Hogan on track. No Spencer either I don't think. Mitch King and Lumumba the others missing. Everyone else including Max King was on deck. Usual kind of drills divided in to different groups and focuses. Ball movement for the backs, slick hands for the mids, goal kicking for the forwards and mixed groups doing a range of things. A group designated for Casey did some extra ball movement drills at the end (presumably taking advantage of the longer break?) with a focus on spreading from a stoppage/contested area. With the Casey group: Wagner, Matt Jones With the senior group: Weideman, Oliver and I think Ben Newton. So it wouldn't surprise me if it's: Weideman, Oliver, Newton in for Hogan, Matt Jones, Wagner

Those numbers seem fine for the role played. Viv mopped up across half back. If he played on ball he would've had 15 contested touches, he's as good as any VFL midfielder at that role. Newton's pretty solid at the contest as well, and would've played wing and half back as well. I watched a bit of the replay at Coburg did ok at contested footy, they have a few solid body VFL types. It was the weight of numbers and overwhelming possessions that really undid them.

Daw's better than Holmes, but he might actually cost something. You'd think we take someone as ruck depth and they are hard to find. So no great options there. Vickery is a forward who can pinch hit in the ruck. As a free agent he's going to cost nothing in draft picks but something decent in salary. I wouldn't take him as I think Hulett and Weid should come on pretty quickly and one of Dawes/Pedo can be kept for depth. Certainly both ruck and forward/ruck are positions where we need someone and there might not be a lot of good alternatives. If the Bombers cut him I'd take a look at McKernan as a very cheap 1 year deal player.

Not sure why you've copped so much grief for this. I agree with you 100%. Terlich could've taken it easy and coasted through but he had a good preseason to give himself one more shot and has embraced the forward role and got on the end of a few goals for it.

Getting way off topic but I didn't have a problem with that kick. We needed to open it up instead of bombing it inside 50. I thought it was a good decision and reasonably well executed. I know Watts is the man of the hour and rightfully so but he should've marked that. Had he gone a little harder it would've been an uncontested mark and given our best kick in Watts open space to hit a target inside 50.

We've lost and nearly lost the last two weeks due to overusing the ball without getting momentum to the build up. The Hawks almost always are going backwards or sideways to then go forwards. And a lot of that is because of the movement off the ball which DE can't factor in. Zac Dawson has one of the best DE in the league. That's how you know it's a bogus stat. The guy couldn't kick a drop punt if his life depended on it. Then we get the issue that Champion Data might not even code each play properly. If a >40m kick has to go to a 50/50 then this is wrong:

The best question was when I think King it was asked him if he was worth the money. That got Roosy thinking. He was quite diplomatic of course and pretty much said he was hired to do a job and he's done it. He didn't want to heap too much pressure on Goodwin for next year, that's what the youth comment was about. He said the 1st half was better than he thought. 2nd half terrible. I agree. 1st quarter was super sloppy but it was all our mistakes, 2nd quarter we dominated and should've put more on the scoreboard. Second half we held on. I think Roos has done a fantastic job. He's taken a lot of the heat, promoted the club and hopefully helped put the entire football department and club on the right track. That said, I'm looking forward to having a coach who's all in, doesn't have a brand to protect and isn't some form of consultant. 4 more weeks to really have a free swing at getting a couple of wins to send Roosy out on a high.

He's so strong in the air, I just wish he'd stop colliding with team mates. If he's going up others should stay down, and if others have a clear run and jump then sometimes he should realise that as the little guy he can stay down. Especially now with Tom, Frost, Wagner, Hunt we have some other defenders who can win the ball in the air. Except Oscar. Always go up if he's up, the bloke can't spoil to save himself.

Running with the bulls, sailing in Croatia. Hibberd should be mentally fresh and physically it can be good too as long as he can get in shape before round 1. New start as well. I'm more worried about them adapting to changes in the game and to a new team than where they are at mentally or physically. Although I'd like both of them to have complete resolution of the matter with the courts and with Essendon, including any law suits.

Jones, Viney, Gawn are the locks from this years group. Watts is a big chance. If Tom McDonald signs on he'll stay in. He's a bit of an unusual leader but he's a hard worker and he's earned it. Garland, Vince might not stay in it, but it's important to have senior players. Vince probably stays and Jetta might be a chance. If Garland is on the list next year (which is a near certainty) I'd have no problem with him being a leader even if he was set to play the year in the VFL. As long as he's comfortable leading from that situation there's nothing wrong with having a leadership group player as a depth player, as long as other leaders are making a difference in AFL games.

The experience will help and the zone system suits him. We might be able to use Hibberd, Wagner and Melksham as 3 mid sized decent in the air defenders and do away with the 3rd tall. Add Jetta, Hunt, T Mc and Frost and that could be a solid back 7. Or if we want to play another tall and/or Vince down back it means decent competition for defensive spots which has obviously been a weakness this year.

Pro: powerful running (but not super quick), long kicking midsized defender, strong in the air and solid one on one Cons: Probably struggles with his weight at the best of times, will be interesting to see if he's in shape. 27 in Jan. At 186cm he probably doesn't solve our 3rd tall issues

Since he's come back in the last 3 weeks Brayshaw has been averaging 21 disposals, 10 kicks, 7 tackles, 73 supercoach points and getting better by the game. Oliver averaged 18 disposals including 5 kicks, 4.5 tackles, 65 supercoach points. I love Clarry, and I think he'll probably end up a better player than Brayshaw, but right now Brayshaw is contributing pretty well and holding his spot and I don't want to see Oliver having 2nd year blues like Brayshaw did this year because he was too tired by the time preseason started to build on next year.

Patience everybody. For now Jones, Tyson, Viney and Brayshaw are the first picked inside mids. Vince, M Jones and Stretch play on the wings. Harmes is doing a job at half back. Anyone else has to play predominantly half forward. Kent, Petracca and Vanders are better at that. That's 11 of 22. The other 11 are 1 ruck, 4 forwards, 6 defenders. Now you can shuffle Vanders to a tall forward spot meaning we are undersized, Vince to half back and maybe Brayshaw to a wing and create room for Oliver to play on ball, but he still has to run out 60 or 70% of the game and make sure he's covering the ground. And yeah his clearance work and ball use in traffic is fantastic, but he wasn't getting many kicks at AFL level so it's hard to see if his kicking was developing. He also struggled to use his left hand handball. That was early in the year when he was fresh and was carrying a decent amount of muscle. He needs to improve his running and build muscle to last him through the year next year. Flogging him in to the ground now won't help that. We've seen that with Brayshaw.

Petracca is the one for that play, we have to get the ball hit down to him I think, he'll make things happen. Ben Ken is another who can do it. Kent's really a half forward who can crash and bash a bit but most of his good work comes from his hard leading and run. Jeffy just seems off and a bit scared of contact at the moment. He dropped a chest mark with a minute to go, missed a snap earlier, tried to slide/fall on the ball several times instead of backing his speed, step and strength. It was there for him against Collingwood, has been largely missing since.

I'd agree with this. Adelaide are another team who have focused on getting outside run. GWS have been blessed with being able to draft a bunch of everything then keep the ones they want. 2 number 1 picks in Scully and Whitfield who haven't done all that much the last 3 years but came on this year as the team started to feed the ball to them. I'd say this year there's been a focus on making sure there's run in the team. 3 of Matt Jones, Stretch, Grimes, Harmes, Vince and Bugg have played nearly every week so that we have rotations through the wings of hard runners. Newton was trialled but his tank and speed was found wanting which is a shame as his skills are very good. Harmes has been moved to half back, so that along with Hunt we have guys who can run with the ball from the backline. I don't mind the focus on talls and ball winning mids first and outside players are often up for trade as they can really struggle in bad sides. I'm hoping increased fitness for Oliver, Petracca, Brayshaw and Tyson + a healthy Salem can improve outside speed and skills as well. I'd even include Hogan in that. Salem's the clear classy kick from that bunch, but they are all classy footballers who can get the ball in good spots and move it forward. With more run in their legs I think they'll use the ball better. Tracc especially has so much power that he can turn a contested ball in to free running in just a few steps. Brayshaw has the ability to kick on both sides that should be encouraged as it can lead to fast ball movement. Kent's improved a lot and is working hard on his ball use. I haven't given up on JKH just yet as he can run and kick. We still struggle when teams play a man behind the ball as we can't play our sling shot brand and have to be more patient or creative with it. It's also why we struggle at Etihad. The trade off is when Gold Coast did it to us we stopped them scoring for most of the game as well. Unfortunately we will cough up at least 1 or 2 goals a quarter from dumb mistakes due to the inexperience of our backline/Bernie Vince having a shocker/Tom McDonald. Despite the 2 ugly games I haven't been all that disappointed with the Gold Coast and Eagles games as they are very good learning in how to attack teams that sit back and our backline has had a chance to compose themselves. We didn't need to work on forward structure in the first half of the year when we were getting over the back of teams consistently. Had we continued like that we wouldn't have learnt anything that we are hopefully learning now.

He was labouring under the knee injury, think he's better now but I agree he's a bit out of steam. Isn't intercepting the ball as much or breaking the lines like he did. Still doing some good things but I'm sure the year is wearing him down. The problem is it's hard to find a replacement. White's a bit slow to play as a running defender but getting up the ground might help him. Michie is slow and has never consistently won or used the ball well at AFL level. We could send Nath Jones to half back and give the young mids the run of it in the middle but that's a lot to ask late in the year and against the Hawks.

I can understand the urge to bring Weid in and play him close to goal and stick with the Watts, Dawes, Vanders trio across half forward and in the ruck. Dawes did his role to some extent and moved and marked better than he has been but still does very little. I'd have no problems with him staying in, but equally no problems with him out. I've seen enough of him to know if fully fit he might still be ok depth. He's not completely useless, but no more than that. So maybe it's Pedo's turn to show if he's better than Dawes or to put another midfielder in. Matt Jones was Matt Jones, there's moments of good clear running and moments of nothing. Probably time to go back to Bugg. If Vince is injured then I'd give Grimes another shot. Either Bugg or Vince should tag Isaac Smith. Jeff can't keep putting in such stinkers even if his defensive efforts were ok I'd go back to Kennedy here. Rotate Kennedy and Petracca from deep to half forward. Ideally we'd upgrade all of Wagner, Harmes and Oscar. Wagner is consistently ok but struggling to impact. Harmes is doing some great things with run and getting the ball but can't use it well enough, but his speed is vital against the Hawks. Oscar played his best half but faded badly and still has such little commitment to the contest in the air and will struggle under the Hawks pressure. He's getting better with the ball, but his lack of intent to body spoil is an indictment on himself, Rawling's and the club. I'm far from convinced with any of the Casey defenders though so I'll await the VFL report. Hawthorn have lighter shorter mobile talls in Gunston, Sicily and O'Brien and then a ruckman. At this stage: Out: Hogan (inj), Matt Jones, Garlett. Potentially: Oscar Mc, Vince (inj), Dawes In: Weideman, Bugg, Kennedy. Potentially: Garland/White, Grimes, Oliver/ANB (with Tracc and Brayshaw staying forward)