Demon17

Your last sentence. obvious all game.

I like your thinking. Gawn is not a natural forward and should either ruck all day, defend down back if needed or rest. LJ still has a some way to go to be effective as a resting forward also, maybe playing up the ground a bit. Tmac plays closer to goals but has different leading patterns to Ben Brown and should work. In regard to Tmac geeting further away from goals lately, Kevein Sheedy once said that when the bombers played St Kilda, he didn't mind Robert harvey getting 35 possessions as most were upfield and not necessarily damaging. This was said by an oppo player this week of Tmac. The fix is hard here IMO. There are other issues than I am sure YZE is working on mid-field -wise.

Thanks for this background LN. If they were trying to play him into form etc he does 100% or close to it. I suspect he's passed his 6 weeks mini preseason and is ready to go and a lock for this Thursday. May turn out to be smart strategy by match cttee and Burgess.?

Great post TU. . I would be mortified to move Hunt from defence. he's a key and helps with Langdon's running patterns. I forgive the brain fades this last game. Its just not his forte to dodge and weave. He has been a big improver IMO

Timely post H I. I really rate the GWS and they are back in the 8 where they belong with a top class midfield and the best mid sized forward in the League. Phil Davis still has it too. We lost to them by 9 points and all of our own doing. Thursday will nedd to be top notch competitive or else the dogs will be barking a slide is on.

Hunt should never have been moved from defence. Its revitalised his career. Dealt with Tipenwutti last week, and others. It was a desperate roll of the dice yesterday and he's never been a quality forward at any stage - doesn't have the evasive tricks as shown in last 1/4. back to defence if theres amatch up

Agree with all your points except the last. We move Salem and tinker with defence at our peril. its the maon/now only reason we are still competitive.

Sensible summary jaded. They are certainly worthy finalists and were grand finalists only 20 months ago. Upside is the reality check for match cttee. And weaknesses that need addressing.

Your first sentence nails it. Last week papered over cracks but were there for all to see today. Disconnect into forward line. Defence brilliant again but couldn't do any more. Small forwards ineffective with spargo the only one with football I Q Oliver going backwards in effectiveness Viney couldn't play out game. Poor conversion rate costs games. Single most important kpi. No more domination of the corridor

Gawn is not a natural forward. Experiment over. Let's bring in a real forward. Say ....ben brown . Mitch brown....?

Good call. Game over now. Last week bombers weren't good enough. Gws are class and we're a 5 to 8th team. Selection forward strategy non existent.

3 highest possession winners for the quarter were defendets. Oliver ineffective. Poorest forward connection for a top team ever. Gws system and connection far superior.

I love Thursday night footy, mainly because it means the Front Bar is on a day earlier. But the ratings have slid for Friday nights with some dud games and the later 7.50 start too late a timeslot. Thursday night at 7.25 start will please our sponsors. Everyone's home and watching hopefully.

And is Rutten as good as they say? i.e. Tom Stewart - 13 uncontested marks. No planning or just no-one to counter him? I think he will be good culture-wise for them however.

Not unreasonable . So far theres only been 1 wwek without the extra tall, if you assume Weids was contributing when he played? Last week w/out BBB I reckon.

Kudos for this post. The original post was 22 hours ago. Normally the other team's insigths correspond to a meltdown of hilarity and comment on here. No such luck and says just how different it must be to follow a new team as opposed to the traditonal ones with rusted on emotion. Sad really for them. Suns commentary must be worse.

On the contraty it tells us the teams thst genarally did well in last half of last season carried that good form across summer and into first half of this year. Whilsy last years also rans are still in that position.

At our peril.

Well said here. It reminds me of the selction mistake (IMO) prior to the 1987 prelim, when the great John Northey, dropped a forward David Williams, for a defender, Rod Grinter. Williams was a proven goalkicker and was in tears in the race at the end of that disatsorous game. He was back in the the 1988 GF team but little consolation at the time.. Willaims had a poor game in the lead up semi against the Swans, but in the prelim our best goalkicker was Ricky Jackson with 3. Wilson 2. The other forwards didn't fire a shot and we lost by only 2 points. Brown will free up Fristsch to do what he does best - dominate in the air in one on ones.

I'm with you DRD on this issue. It's an intersting discussion between a supporters optimism (which I don't have) and reality (which I do have). My only additon to your prognostication is that I have a lot more faith in coaching and leadership on the ground nowadays (note Dogs and Lions wins for example.) On that score I think a Port win and a Geelong win is possible - but not bankable in the slightest. The others are realistically in the loss column.

Matthew Lloyd is a rank ameteur on providing analytical discussion along with the child-like graphics he/the show producers use to explain an issue.

Good point. I am new to On the Couch and Kayo and have found that show and Kayo game day special comments head and shoulder above any show on Free to air - with 2 exceptions: Any Ch 7 game with Daisy Pearce as special comments and The Front Bar.

His father was awarded life membership of the Dees at the AGM several years ago (maybe 2019) for service as a long term trainer I think. Huge Dees family the Stanaways. Clint was there with him.

Sorry my Mistake and good Luck. With zero cases today again I expect the stated 85% rule to apply by Dan Andrews. The club told me their email is on hold till that is clarified , assuming its tomorrow morning .

The media aren't generally deep thinkers with long attention spans and tend to predict the last impressive team they saw. So this week its the dogs after their eagles demolition with Brisbane after the last game. When Dees beat up both those teams we were flavour of the month until the next big performace by another team. Dropping the pies game didn't have a lot of impact on predictiosn after beating the next big thing -the Bombers. ON the Couch's Gerad Healy tipped Dees last night for flag if he was forced to predict someone - " haven't done a lot wrong,just need to fix forward connection..." , but also noted the tiges won in 2017 with only 1 tall, and by inference why can't the Dees. Others said 4 are in the race - us, lions, cats and dogs.