bing181

Hard to see him making it back to Full Salem this year - which as others have pointed out, will make it 2 years in a row. Far from ideal, he's a key player for us.

To be specific, clarification on long-term loading IN-SEASON, not just a couple of harder weeks around the mid-season break.

Don't think they'll make more than 3 changes unless forced (injury), Goodwin and co. have always favoured continuity and consistency. May for Thommo plus someone for Max would be 2. Then it's perhaps a tossup between JJ for Harmes and Hibberd for McVie. Tom Mac has indeed been underwhelming, but Max out perhaps throws him a lifeline, at least for a bit. Not the week to be dropping a tall who can pinch-hit.

Not sure where I said any team were favorites.

Going to be tough this year. I actually felt more optimistic last year, at least you knew where you were. Collingwood and Lions both look scary when they click. Going to need everything to go right.

If anyone's interested, here are the current guidelines. Quite specific I would say. Page 10 is probably the one you want (re impact). https://resources.afl.com.au/afl/document/2023/03/01/9c9bdc05-2377-4ffb-a8a0-885835edcaf1/2023-AFL-Tribunal-Guidelines.pdf

Because they upgrade the level based on potential to cause injury. i.e. it's as much about how dangerous a tackle is as the outcome.

Notable absentees: Steven May, Jack Viney, Bayley Fritsch, Christian Salem That's 4 of our top 10 or so players missing, including our key back and forward. May out is massive, our backline is just ordinary without him as the general, and the absences of Viney and Fritsch take the edge off around the ground and up forward. It'll take a miracle to win this, all those outs to key players have turned us into Essendon or something.

Nothing to do with MFCSS, if you take out 3 or 4 of your best players you're just not the same team. So yes, we could easily lose this - through no fault of our own. Disagree on the rest. We would never have won the premiership without Viney and Salem, they both play key roles that no-one else can cover.

Please. By his own admission, JVR couldn't get through a VFL match, yet alone an AFL one. (Not a knock on him either, young player, blah blah blah).

I know that this has become Demonland orthodoxy, but just BS IMV. When you don't have the players, you don't have the players, What people seem to struggle with is the idea that sometimes there just are no solutions, and that not every situation is saveable. The idea that we would have won finals through sending second-rate players like Baker or Dunstan or an underdone Van Royen out to the slaughter is just fanciful.

Wonder if this is also part of a long-term plan to keep Max playing into his thirties - park him down forward to protect him from being knocked from pillar to post each week as full-time ruck. Perhaps noteworthy also that Tom Mac took ruck duties deep in the forward line, once again taking some of the load from Max.

They have to earn it, and Bedford was always behind Pickett, probably Chandler as well. Sorry to see him go, but just the way of it and there's nothing the club should have done differently.

"McLachlan will host and call on Thursday nights, with Pearce – shifted due to her commitments with the Cats – providing the special comments for the increasingly important Thursdays."

We are loading. That's the point of pre-season. Once the season proper starts, no more loading, emphasis only on management, maintenance and recovery.

Almost with you, and we seem to have good depth - but we also have a few players who are in a class of their own and irreplaceable. Longer-term injuries to any of Gawn, Petracca, Oliver and in particular, May, could be enough to tip the balance in terms of going deep into finals. We saw how much even the losses of Tom McDonald and, effectively, Salem affected us last year.

Yes. Also (posted this elsewhere), the difference in what we'd come from is stark. In 2021 we'd come off 2020 where we only played 17 reduced-time games. In 2022 we were coming off the 2021 season where we'd played 25 games, many at high intensity.

No-one here is saying that they're happy with the way 2021 turned out. But winning back-to-back premierships is a near impossible task and you need a lot to go right - which for whatever reason wasn't the case last year.

It's actually not obvious at all, it's conjecture. There could be (and are) any number of reasons for our failures at the end of the season, many of which we're not even aware of.

People keep saying this, but move on to who? By his own admission, JVR couldn't even run out a game at Casey, yet alone in the firsts. Howes looks likely but had a long term injury. Turner got a run, but then concussion + other injuries kept him out. etc. etc.The idea that we could have gone deeper in the finals playing the likes of Baker or Dunstan is just ...

We really need Salem back to his best. He was a key to our 2021 success.

The other consideration in comparing 22 to 21 is to look at what the players had had to face the previous season. In 2022, we'd come off a long season of 25 full-length games, many of them high pressure/intensity. Contrast that with 2021 where we'd come off 2020's 17-game season of shortened games. Little wonder we were flying in 21 - and that it all caught up with us in 22. (In the various 2022 post-mortems this hasn't been discussed enough in my opinion.)

Lingering injuries, yes. But as both Gawn and Goodwin commented at the end of this season, we didn't really get a break at the end of 21, the two seasons virtually rolled together. With predictable results. No accident that back to back premierships are so hard to come by.

- Longer off-season break for all.

Made it through the first slab of pre-season without any (additional) injuries. That in itself is something given the news out of a couple of clubs with their 'training mishaps'.