DeeSpencer

Can we get Pickett a pair of shorts that fit! Lindsay adapting to half back against real pressure for the first time. Harvey doing a lot of good stuff but he’s been off the pace all preseason. Hes not built for March footy, but he needs to sharpen up. Quality is still there

Can we get Pickett a pair of shorts that fit!

Had enough of the headless Jiath, he’s so dumb

Just a truly awful miss

Diabolical Rivers fumble but Lever was asleep at the wheel

Both missing the same chromosome

Credit to Gawn, Steele, Chandler and some others who tightened right up that quarter and put their heads over the ball! Simple skill errors cost us a few more goals across the half. If we can score 45+ a half against Freo we’re building something pretty good. Obviously we can’t give up 65 but once we started actually having a dip we stemmed that bleeding.

Disco hand/finger, Windsor shoulder possible ac

Nonsense. Look at how much run and grunt we lack at the drop of the ball. Last thing we need is a big bopper on the bench

first look of Culley in the ruck - nope

Perhaps to ruck or just to buy Petty the ruck rotation.

Because we have lazy players who wander off the mark with no intensity

Yeah we’ve jumped on Hollywood ball and forgot the fundamentals. Need a few willing to put their heads over it

Huge test for King and Gawn here, we’ve got too many who are afraid to put their head over it

Not much we can do about having Disco and not having great fullback options. That said tho, Lever had 7 intercepts and left at least 4 on the table with dropped marks or poor attempts to spoil. Maybe he can still intercept at a high level (if he starts holding his marks with a bit of match fitness) and that covers the lack of actual lockdown defence. His ball use scares me more. That kicking seems terminally stuffed.

King picked a team designed to play a certain style of football, who then win playing that style of football and every second post on here is bringing in an extra key defender or even worse an extra ruck! If Lever plays another stinker he should be replaced by Tom McDonald, but not both. If Gawn needs more help it will be a stronger rationing of Petty, Mihocek, JVR and Culley. We're going to struggle to contain Treacy forward and Jackson in the ruck/midfield no matter how we line up. As well as Freo's plethora of skilled running players. The most important thing is we hit back with our own running game.

I think he thought it was not 15, which isn’t totally crazy

Affluenza?

His ball use does seem to be getting better. I do wonder how much the decision to put him on Wilkie was about nullifying Wilkie and how much was about getting more pace in to the midfield mix. And whether Culley picks up his pace now he’s had a hit out after missing the preseason games.

Both I believe came from miscommunications/reads with Langford. One had Langford peel his lead for the kick over the top when Salem was under pressure and would’ve taken a lot of leg to get it to where Harvey wanted it. The other was the kick back into the corridor after the wide option was shut down. Harvey led flat across the ground. The saints player from the fat side came forward and intercepted. I’m not sure the coaches would put either on Salem as much as you’d expect.

Totally different tactic up 13 compared with up 3, I can see the argument either way but though AJ was right to have the shot, especially as he would’ve had to have gone backwards with the ball. One errant kick and the giants would’ve had the footy at half way. We mucked up plenty late yesterday especially in the period after the Sharp goal with about 7 minutes left. Refused to take short kicks across half back when they were available. Lever had a horrendous turnover. Gawn and JVR bombed nothing entries awful spots. But the last few minutes after the Fritsch goal we found some short wide kicks, put Mihocek back, forced repeat stoppages and iced clock at the end. We nailed the end of game procedure, just need to work on tempo footy for the periods where it’s required

individually most were fine and certainly 1.5 practice games against bad sides doesn’t compare with St Kilda having a proper first game. It’s just going to be a big balancing act for King and Co to find the right mids and flankers with so many imperfect options. Culley forward gave us another target, added pace to a midfield mix that needs it with Steele and Langford, but took away a ball winner.

Kolt’s athleticism is in the combination of a big tank, above average speed, and the agility to jump on a couple of loose balls and fire handballs out. He hasn’t always looked quick or agile because he’s been adapting to AFL footy. But the tank has generally been evident and it was on display running off Nas before half time to get involved in several scores.

We’ll stick with Jake. But geez he has to stop making so many disposal mistakes and he had probably 5 more chances to mark and 5 more chances to punch in contests where he did neither. I suspect we stick with CJ too. It’s a new zone that will take even our smarter defenders time to sort out. I actually think our problems were more with midfield transition, midfield defensive pressure and despite the improvements still a heap of room with forward cohesion/ball movement. Kolt tagging took CBA’s from Sparrow who’s been our best defensive mid. Culley played the second half as the 3rd tall forward tagging Wilkie. Culley, Langford, Sparrow, Rivers all looked a step off the pace. As did Sharp before his crazy last quarter. There’s a reasonable argument to just play Melk as the 3rd tall forward given that’s what he does best then trimming a spare mid. Although I’m not sure we do that off a win.

Turns out Max likes high game time, who knew? But also he didn’t have to bail out the backline on every inside D50 and more importantly didn’t have to be the long down the line for every forward attack