DeeSpencer

Agree, the 2nd had the right intensity and was on our terms. 2.6 to 3.3. The loose back in the 3rd was staggering. Just meant the game was played there and we couldn't score, but maybe the plan was to wait until the 4th? We clearly didn't adapt to wet weather in the 3rd and the backline could've been torn open. Last quarter had some better moments but the continual overuse really undid the forward line. They couldn't get in the right spots when they never knew if the ball was coming or not.

Whether it's Roos or Goodwin our coaches aren't perfect, they make mistakes. Errors at selections and some strange in game decisions. I can live with it. Everyone's an expert in hindsight. Cartlon have played well more weeks than not this year. They aren't very young at all, far older than us, and well coaches by a coach schooled in the number 1 system that the league has right now. I'm not all that angry about lack of effort - after the first quarter there was plenty. Or even the lack of skills. Or game plan. When your teams best players don't play very well and the other teams best players do AFL footy is a hard game to win. Gawn's our best player right now and he was nullified. Viney and Jones couldn't lift the team early. Oliver and Tyson tried hard. The backs and forwards are super young an inexperienced. A champion player could've got us right back in it and take the game away from Carlton. Even Petracca tried in the last quarter with 3 shots on goal for 0.2 and an out on the full. A bad way to effectively end the season but I'm not going to go in to full melt down mode after it.

For all the talk of the game speeding up and 2 ruckman going out of fashion off the top of my head the only team to win a premiership without 2 rucks has been Collingwood in 2010 with Leigh Brown. The Hawks have always had 2, as did Geelong, as did Sydney. Watts as 2nd ruck has been a nice way to get him in to the game and give us more skill around the ground but I don't see it as sustainable. I think we need a player around the 200cm mark who can ruck more effectively than Watts and can really spell Gawn and even rotate with Gawn more frequently depending on the match up. I don't really care if that player is more of a forward who can ruck or a ruck who can play forward, but it's still a need position. Watts could keep doing it and Weideman might have to but I think that's asking for trouble. I'm yet to see any evidence that Spencer is capable at AFL level. Mitch King won't be ready for another few years. There's a gap in between there. And there's a gap in team to fill the Dawes/Pedersen role as a big body up forward. I'd be inquiry in to what Toby Nankervis would cost. He reminds me of a young Mumford with his physicality and I think he can play forward.

Nothing about Mitch King is ready to go next year. He's a kid coming off a knee. Shouldn't even be counted in any way as a viable AFL option. We need a 3rd option to compete with Spencer and ideally replace him.

Merrett is completely finished as a player, if he had anything left he'd be staying on and Brisbane should be looking for an experienced defender. For most of this year they have had Merrett and a bunch of kids under 50 games and have given up record scores. In my mind Brisbane would be crazy not to get at least 1 experienced defender in. When our midfield stocks were bare we went and got Vince and Cross and that was the best thing for our development. I also think that's unfair on both of them, and wrong. Dunn's been pretty important to Tom McDonald's development, he's a vocal on field player who prior to this year was well regarded for his ability to set up a backline. Garland is a good off field leader, a popular team mate who's helped keep the group together. Neither would top my list of mature recruits but Brisbane aren't landing an A grader and probably will struggle to land even a decent depth player in their prime. So Dunn and Garland might be the best they can do. Josh Walker was the best they could do when they needed a forward to do the same thing. Trent West for when they needed a ruck. What we'll both agree on is we aren't getting pick 20 for them, but to move one on and maybe get a slight pick upgrade or a pick for points could be a good deal.

I like him, but not convinced he's clearly better than Kennedy or Kennedy-Harris. Agree with Chaser, in that if someone went out he could come in. Otherwise for the price to get him - mid to late 2nd or early 3rd I think we'll have other priorities.

24 has been playing college basketball, NBL and in Finland, stopped playing in year 10, kick 14 goals in a school match.

As well as working for the HS and MMM he does some work at Collingwood in some of their in house media. Aside from that he seems a hard working and smart journo. Not saying it's easy but it's hardly rocket science. Get sources and contacts in places, listen out for things, ring around and write fair articles that result in sources and contacts being willing to give you more info. If at least 5 clubs were in to Maynard and he was training with Casey and Crossy then it's not like this was a top secret mission.

The last few years I've been disappointed we haven't been able to use our Category B rookie spots but now with Smith and Maynard we will be using them and using them pretty well I think. To get 2 father sons, both high level sportsmen who grew up playing the game and have basketball movement skills is really good recruiting I think. At the least it helps Casey and gives us extra depth.

I'd probably go no change. And I'd swap Harmes to a wing and Stretch to half back for more of the game. I'd love to get a good defensive forward in to clamp down on Carlton's half backs but the form that Kent, Vanders, Brayshaw and Petracca are in makes dropping one of them very hard. Pittard got away from Kent, he'll have to lift his defensive smarts to stop Simpson. Hopefully they can drag Docherty deep and away from goal. Jeffy needs to watch Touhy as well.

All 3 are amazing ball winners for kids. This preseason will be interesting to see which of them is able to do the work on their fitness and kicking and push towards being consistent performers. Brayshaw and Petracca are both very good forwards as well. Clarry isn't as natural forward but he seems to have a nose for a goal like his off the ground effort on the weekend.

Forgot to mention Vanders who's clean hands around the contest was another reason why we controlled the fist half so well. His kicking was pretty decent as well. Looks to be finding some kind of consistency which is good.

Bugg made crucial tackles, smothers, spoils, contested ball wins etc just when we wanted and bobbed up with goals and decent play with the ball. He's not always great with the ball and can be very one sided but he's a vital player in this side. Just makes us better.

6 - T Mc 5 - Brayshaw 4 - Tyson 3 - Hunt 2 - Gawn 1 - Bugg Apologies to Jones, Jetta, Oscar, Vince, Clarry.

First half was good but not the great half the score may look like. Port were pretty insipid. They botched a heap of chances and we did too. Garlett and Pedda both ran in to open points.The ball movement through the middle of the half was great though and for the backline to keep structure against a potentially slick moving Port was impressive. Disappointed with the 3rd quarter. A solid 10 minute patch after half time would've iced the game, instead we were flat after half time for about the 80th time in a row. A major weakness we haven't fixed. Also we let Robbie Gray and Pittard get on top and they are the 2 damaging Port players. Viney should've thrown off his tag by going to Gray and someone needed to put some time defensively in to Pittard. I love Dean Kent and the way his aggressive leading and run has massively improved our forward line but he's still shaky defensively on clever quick types who can turn him or break his tackles. Vanders or Brayshaw had to be moved on to Pittard and the whole team had to sort out the poor kicking in the 3rd. The 4th was a pleasant turn around and it was only bad kicking for goal that stopped a nice blow out quarter. An important win to keep finals alive, get 3 in a row and notch an away win, but just a so so performance overall if we are fair dinkum and there's a lot to work on to make sure we are focused defensively for full games and to get our skills up to a decent standard. If Carlton bounce back hard next week we'll need to play better to get the win we want.

With a bit more confidence and balance he could've kicked 4 tonight. What a weapon.

Ross Lyon doesn't take crap from anybody. It's why he's a great coach but also a potential weakness. Players take after their coaches. So Mundy is the captain as he's the senior player and leader. Fyfe is the superstar with a superstar attitude and wasn't the right choice for captain. Who knows if that's upset him, I doubt it. Plenty of time for him to captain the side later. Freo right now are rubbish. Freo next year will likely be far better. But they still need a tactical improvement and a lot more talent. Fyfe, Bennell, Johnson, McCarthy, pick 3, Sandilands (for 1 more year), that's an improvement but to rebuild it's going to take some sustained drafts and trades. I'm about 90% sure Freo will improve to at least an 7-10 win team next year and Fyfe will sign on and probably captain them in 2018. The 10% chance is that Fyfe gets injured again or Freo get a lot of injuries or Ross Lyon can't adapt at all and Freo struggle along to 5 or 6 wins and Fyfe says stuff this I'm off to join a contender.

He was certainly far better than last week! He's never going to be a perfect half back flanker. He should get to roam around the ground as we develop more players who can play multiple positions. But he's embraced the role pretty well. He's taking the kick outs because he's an experienced player down back who can kick! Once you take out young players and ones who can't kick he's pretty much the only one left!

If Oscar attacked the ball with full conviction the best result would be a spoil and hopefully we clear it, the probable result would've been Gunston marks but gets taken to ground or held up. A good learning situation for him. The worst thing was probably the lack of 50m penalty! (If my memory is right). He probably was forward enough to pump it in, but the game plan of the day seemed to be to deny the Hawks the ball and not bomb it and get caught on the counter attack. Especially after bombing it in so much against the Eagles I can understand why Brayshaw (and several others) wanted to share the ball around.

Not attacking the ball was Oscar's mistake. He stood and waited for it and didn't help the team by putting his body on the line. Bad kick from Brayshaw, too much hang time, but Oscar could've bailed him out.

Probably because we don't want Frost, T Mc, Oscar, Hunt or Harmes ie. 5/7 of our backline doing the kick ins. Even Jetta isn't a great option. So a lot of the time it's waiting for Vince to get there. In time more of the backline (including some of those guys) will be capable of taking the kick ins. Edit: I think we scored 2 goals from kick ins on the weekend and the Hawks had only conceded a few goals from kick ins all season, so we got some of them right!

He's starting to become very good in space even if he's bad in close still. His work rate is high and it stands out. Skills are getting better. 1 or 2 errors per game in concentration and 1 or 2 per game where he just needs to get more physical. The concentration should come and given his age and body type he's deserving of some benefit of the doubt when it comes to his physical play. A few kilos of muscle and then some really good contested marking/spoiling training could go a long way to fixing it over the summer.

He was and good luck to him. Nathan Jones doesn't mind finding a young player and giving them a bit of what for. Hopefully more of our players do. Although even better has been watching Clarry clean up some veterans of the game.

Agree with that. The Brayshaw tackle looked particularly like it had a lot of lift in it and was very close to getting him in a dangerous position. Very surprised it wasn't looked at (or not really).

There's a mixed bag and a team effort but Watts, Oliver, Kent, Jones, Tyson, Gawn and Viney certainly were heavily involved in the scores. The one that did surprise was how much the Weid was involved in the goals, particularly in the first quarter! He was in nearly every one of them. Mark and goal, clever handball, chest mark and moving the ball on and so on. Now it helped that the side seemed 'on' and were up and running through the corridor but the way the Weid got the ball on was great to see. Short attacking kicks and quick movement has been the way to beat the Hawks for a while now (even if most teams can't do it) so maybe that was the catalyst to get guys leading up more, but along the same lines I think the addition of Petracca and Vanders then now Weideman could give us a lot more movement around half forward. The Jeff out the back, Kent in to space (a new addition this year) and Watts (also new this year) and Hogan both carrying a big load forward line was far too predictable.