bing181

This is just hindsight bias. Go back and read the same thread from last week. Plenty had nominated Weideman in on the back of a breakout game at Casey, just as plenty were pleased to see Petty - who'd been doing well in the VFL - coming in for Vince, who many here had been calling for to be dropped all season. Neither Spargo or Garlett did particular well in their last games in the AFL, and neither of them have done particularly well at Casey since. They're in because of the conditions in Darwin, but they've hardly been banging the door down.

Hard to argue with the outs, like for like position-wise, except we've exchanged a tall + small forward for two smalls. Tyson done? Would be a shame, he has some abilities.

You're presuming the coaching box can't see this. I'd suggest that the coaching box see exactly what's going on, and then some. But this idea that we can then suddenly switch to Plan B, and everything will be hunky dory ... if that was even half true, no team would ever loose a match of footy, and every team would win the GF every year. Though as if this whole Plan B idea existed in the first place - it took Paul Roos 2+ years to build a half-way decent Plan A, yet alone developing Plans B, C, D etc. to use as contingencies. Players play/execute well, you give yourself a chance. If they don't, no amount of Plans B, selections, positional changes etc. are going to do much more than minimise the damage.

Not just your view. Would have thought it was obvious to all and sundry, but there you go. Easier to go clamouring to bring in an untried player from the two's who has shown a bit to replace the untried player from the two's who had shown a bit.

Hindsight Bias on steroids.

We kicked 18 goals without one.

Nothing ever changes with its supporters.

In spite of everything, lost in the back line, though that was also because of what was happening further up the field and the way the ball was coming in. We kicked 18 goals which is a winning score - but let them kick more. Lost through some indiscipline and those handful of needless 50 metres that just handed them goals and gave them confidence. Also inexperience (my constant theme), across much of the team but especially Petty who was clearly out of his depth unfortunately. Then throw in those handful of players we have who get the ball but have poor or unpredictable disposal, which leads to turnovers (Tyson, Harmes, ANB the main three). No easy solutions, short of Jake Lever making a miraculous recovery, though I thought Smith played himself back into it, and Hibberd was decent. Thank god for Bailey Fritsch. I'd be looking at Stretch (decent kick) and Vince (experience) back in.

One word: inexperience. Need cooler heads out there. Really missing Lever, and Vince straight back in?

Losing Lever is going to cost us ... well, whatever we might have achieved. Backline inexperienced, both individually and together.

Tiges will be one of the teams in the GF. Who knows for the other, but on tonight's showing, not sure it matters.

Agree with that, maybe Stretch for Tyson or Harmes would be the only other realistic possibility. If it's Tyson, you'd have to start to wonder about his longer term future. Frost though ... these selections put him a long way down the pecking order, even though he was written up as the standout in the Casey backline last weekend, so ??

More THAN anything else ... (not sure why I can't edit/correct my own post, but there you god ...)

Not just one. A lot of this under-performing under pressure WILL sort itself out ... but not overnight. We still have the majority of our list and most of our key players under 100 games (including even Gawn), and it's just not enough, on so many levels. What we need, more anything else, is time, and with it, experience.

Petracca's fine. He had more disposals and more marks than his fellow forwards, ANB, Melksham and Hannan, and I don't see too many calling for their heads. People should stop expecting him to be the second coming.

We don't. It fixes itself - with experience. We have 8 players on the list with more than 100 games. Port have 17.

As he nearly always is. Will finish in the top 5 of the Bluey again this year.

Yes, and the one goal was from an unattended mark on the goal line against Brayshaw when Oscar was up the ground minding the mark. Some of the other talls should have dropped back.

Can't complain about the effort and intensity, but still too many lacking the clinical efficiency and smarts to finish or nail that last kick into the forwards - Harmes, ANB to mention two. We need to get 50 games into most of these players, it's going to be a couple of seasons before we become really consistent at the pointy end.

Certainly feels that way. I can understand the Tyson in move, but Tyson for Spargo has left us a small scrapper down. But there are a few players we're not getting enough out of, even if the intensity is there: Harmes, T Smith, even a few in the backline even though the ball has hardly been down there: Salem, Joel Smith. I can understand them keeping Fritsch up the ground because of his ball use, but we need a couple of smarter players closer to goal.

OK, but goal at the end via Smith - inexperience, needed to slow it down, keep possession. Still ... we've come to play, at least.

Watts and Trengove, maybe, but Toumpas had a year under Neeld etc., but then had two seasons at Melbourne under Roos and co. The other thing that gets me about this, is that Watts has done no different at Port than he did at Melbourne, and no different under Hinkley than he did under all his preceding MFC coaches.

I'd have Pedersen, Vince plus one of Spargo/Hannan out. Wouldn't be surprise to see Stretch or JKH in, perhaps Garlett or Tyson, though I realise that none of those are replacements for Pedersen or Vince.

Not disagreeing, but look at the VFL report: Tyson didn't even make it into the 3 who got "votes". The issue with Tyson isn't getting the ball, it's what he does with it. He's just not a great user of the ball, much less distributor. Happy to be proved wrong, but for the moment ...?

... perhaps our players should have picked up on this ...