P-man

I’m actually kinda enjoying this. Just me? Sure I’m numerous beers down. Sure.

That was classy from Gus.

Kozzie is going to be some player. Clean every time.

Hunt is playing aggressive today. I like it.

Locky in another chain of great play.

Tom Stewart down. Our forward line needs every bit of help it can get.

We haven’t been bad on the ground but when the ball is in the air we are uncompetitive. Fritz just shouldn’t be dropping that mark at this level. If he takes that and converts we’d be a goal behind which would be reflective of the game.

Danger milked that for all its worth.

Locky. Put him in the side every week.

Harmes in the midfield ?

Welcome back Vanders. Give em hell son.

Dixon is box office when he’s in this mood.

That Round 1 loss to the Eagles is starting to look pretty ordinary. They suck.

I don’t think we are a mile off as my Demonland brethren above think. Even with our list massacred and our horrible lead in to the season, we were the fifth ranked team for inside 50s in 2019. The forwardline is the issue. We’ve added some outside run to the midfield and have plenty of weapons to rotate through the centre. We have arguably the best up and coming weapon in the league with Petracca. And yes, one player can make a sizeable difference. The backline isn’t the best in the league by any stretch but has enough quality if they can get game time together. They didn’t have their best day against Carlton but have looked okay in pre season and round 1. The forwardline however just isn’t anywhere near consistent enough. How that gets remedied quickly with the cattle we have I’m not sure, but our fortunes rest on it.

You’re a cheerful chap aren’t ya?

Jones out is quite a statement but I don’t mind the changes from what was on offer. Mainly excited to see Vanders back in to hurt people.

I dunno rjay, I reckon we should play him as a defender... (jokes) I agree to an extent. Fritz is a natural forward but kicking it on top of his head when it’s a 2 or sometimes 3 v 1 in the goalsquare isn’t doing him any favours. He also seems to have lost his shooting boots but I’m sure that will get rectified. Otherwise I agree we need to play him to his strengths.

Brown’s career goals need to be placed in the context of his role at Essendon which was often as a link man. His best performance last season against Brisbane was 3 goals, 25 disposals, 11 marks and 10 score involvements. The bloke can play. And he can impact the scoreboard. He will never be the contested crash n bash forward that many are rightly crying out for, but given our obvious struggles down forward I’d have thought either he or Weid were a sure thing to come in. We saw what Brown can do in the pre season. He stunk it up in Round 1 but who didn’t? I’m guessing the insistence on playing Jacko in the senior side may have something to do with them not seeing great developmental benefit in him playing scratch matches where we beat up on a bunch of Carlton no namers by 10 goals with 14 men a side. If true that has some merit. But winning needs to come first. Let’s just hope the forward line resembles something functional this week. It feels like a long time since we’ve seen that..

It’s an indictment on the entire league that this mob has won two of the last three premierships.

Having Harmes going through the middle doesn’t relieve others of being accountable. If they aren’t doing their job when the ball is in opposition hands then they should come under the same amount of scrutiny irrespective of Harmes’ or anyone else’s role. It is frustrating seeing our best tagger running off half back. In some respects we struck gold with Harmes and right now he is being wasted.

I’m a big Lockhart fan so would be happy to see him come in. He’s a well rounded player as you say. I think he has a real future at the club. Reading the scratch match review makes many players sound tempting to slot in - Weid, Vanders, Brown, Lockhart, O Mac, Sparrow, hell even Hannan sounds like he would be a good addition. One problem we have is vast majority of those who flopped on the weekend were “name players”. We can’t accept performances like we got on the weekend with the opposition slicing us up because our mids refuse to defend. With a full list to choose from, everyone regardless of their surname should be on notice. And for god’s sake get Harmes into his 1 Wood role: placing a hard tag on the oppo’s best midfielder and being damaging while being led to the ball. Clamp down on Merrett and we’re halfway there.

Write up on the club site alluded to him missing out due to missing training with a sore quad: Jay Lockhart “He missed a little bit of training with a sore quad, so he was a bit stiff to miss out on selection, but he was really influential – in particular in the second half. He helped out his teammates in the air and used the ball really well coming out of defence – he looked really good.” You make a good case. He’s rarely wasteful with ball in hand and a smaller forward line could give us headaches.

Jonesy will bounce back against the scum. No need to push the panic button after one bad outing. If he can bring some of his pre-season form to the table he can be a weapon in the forward half. Koz and Weid to come in for Jacko and, regrettably, Nibbler. He played better than others but was a late call up and has to make way. I don’t think it’s possible for Melksham to play much worse than that. Will inevitably be another week of T-Mac’s inflatable flailing arm man impression. If he can’t do something I’m hoping the coaches don’t waste a third of the season waiting for it to happen.

Was a very apt ending to that match

Eh? Lockhart is an average kick? We’ve been watching a different player. Far from average. At least by the standards of the rest of the side.