binman

With all due respects, whilst I think this is an important game for the team and is a big test, this is not a crucial game for Goodwin. I mean he win a flag in 2021 and we finished 2nd after the home and away last season. On saints, let's see where they are at in 6 weeks.

Spot on. They are super fit. I heard an interview yesterday on RSN brekafast with Daicos senior who said the thing that was missed last year when people talked about all their close wins was how brilliant their 'condtioning' was last season Mcrae has made a point of referencing their condtion and how solid their preseason was mutiple times this year. Their game plan is actually very similar to ours in the sense that it relies on wave running and creating out numbers thouygh work rate. And just like ours, it relies on them being, and remaining, super fit to work. All credit to them for being so fit - they must have teriifc program in place. And the players are obvipoulsy fully invested. But if they can't mainatin that condtioning they will fall aawy like we did last year. Three of their key players in Cameron, Howe and Cox are all out with medium term injuries that will impact both their own fitness levels and the teams performnce. As you say, it's a long season

TMac gives us fair bit of postional flexibility given he can go back or forward.

Because Brown is to rucking what i am to marathon running. JVR spent afair bit of tme in the ruck in the second half of last year's VFL season and was the back up ruck in orund one of this year's season. Plenty of pratice rucking against men. I'd be more worried for the oppoents he is going to launch into.

Trump gets indicted! April Fools. Wait a minute, that actually happened! Or as The Donald wrote on his tawrdy Twitter knock off, Truth Social, he has been INDICATED

I am.

The Pies and the swans share a simlar game plan (as do we now too for that matter) - ball in motion, get it forwad quickly, agressive kicks and use the corridor. In many ways that game plan was a reaction to ours - it became obvious the only way to beat us was to play fast so our defence can't get set. The way to beat their game game plan is huge pressure on every disposal, but in particular kicks. Press up to deny space, corall, chase from behind, harrass. Add clogging up the corridor as much as possible. The Swans' game plan fell apart under the Cats pressure in the GF. The Pies did well to almost beat the Cats in the prelim - but ultimately lost it because their kicks to the corridor in the last quarter came unstuck. My tip is that scoring will go down now as the early season fast ball movment trend will disapate because if teams can't go with teams like the Pies, swans and the dees - and by that i mean literally leg speed but also conditioning - they will get dismantled. And coaches dont like that. So i expect to see more games like last night where teams look to take the speed out of the game and make it a kick to kick, stoppage based slugfest and clog up the corridor as much as possible. I suspect that trend wil start tonight because the Pies will cut the Tigers up if they just go head to head fast footy. The slippery conditions wil help the tigers turn the game into a scrap. As for our game, the key will be how much pressure we can apply. Pressure, pressure, pressure.

Well yes, let's.

Not like you DS to have such poor grammar. That is a ruined van, not a van ruin.

Since when does a good nickname have anything to do with how said person want their name pronounced! Van RUIN it is!!

I'm all in on Van Ruin

A handy workhorse? A good key defender? Makes you wonder whether Taylor confused him with another player when we took him at 19 in the draft. Makes you wonder if Goody is also confused, given going by these comments he seems to think he is ready NOW: “We’ve known for a while we've got an exciting prospect at our fingertips. But you've got to make sure with guys like Jake that they're ready to play. AFL footy is a challenging game,” Goodwin says. “He's worked incredibly hard at VFL level to develop his game over the last two years. “You need to be ready, as a 19-to-20-year-old coming into AFL footy as a power forward, you need your game in really good shape and we feel like we've been patient with him and got him to a point where it's time to unleash him.” Just checking DS that YOU haven't confused JVR with another player? I mean, i assumed the stats you posted (7 disposals, 2 marks, 1 behind) were from the round one VFL game. But that can't be the case given this article notes 'the 19th selection in the 2021 National Draft impressed in his first outing for the year, taking 11 marks and kicking a goal from 19 disposals in last Saturday’s VFL opener against the Bulldogs.'

I'd be very surprised if jvr isn't the second ruck, with so.ething like a 30-70 split with Grundy. Tmac is all at sea in centre square ruck contests. And when in ruck he is taken away from the very important role he plays as a forward, in particular the up and down the ground running he does to create contest - a role jvr is not suited to, nor has the tank for.

Practising my Vaaaan Ruin!!!!! cry as we speak

Go Redlegs.

Their fans have every right to be confident, even cocky. A big test for us - but one i'm confident we'll pass. I'll be looking for super high pressure on every Swan player who is about to kick the football, swarming all team defence, and really going hard at contests. I'll also be looking for us to be daring and fast with our ball movement. If we see all things, which i think we will, we win. We'll know 10 minutes in i reckon.

He'll still kick a bag.

I agree wholeheartedly with almost of the above - not so sure about not winning means no premiership, but i take the point nonetheless and my confidence in our chances will certainly take a hit if we lose. Huge test of where we are at on a couple of fronts. One, we need to psycologically rebound from last week and the impact of Maxy going down. We need to stand up this week and prove that we can win without Maxy and that there are mutiple leaders. And two, the numbers are stark - i had forgotton how bad (4 win in 20 games? Shesh). I think a big factor in that record, at least in the last 2-3 seasons is that their method (fast ball movement off hb, quick transition, incisive kicking etc) works well against our game plan. We have made some tweaks to our game plan, defensively and offensively. Offensively the tweaks involve faster ball movement, playing on from marks and more changes of lanes, particualry into the corridor. In many ways these tweaks are a direct response to the way the Swans and Pies are playing. We struggled to implement those tweaks last week, for whatever reason, until the resumption after the break. In this week's game we realy need to make sure we continue to implement the changes to our approach we worked on all preseason. For me that's part of the reason why this game will be a real test of where we're at, and one of the reasons why, as you say gator, this game is so critical. The weather will be perfect. We can plan for no Max. We will have a strong team on. No exuses. So i'm really hoping to see, right from the get go, fast ball movement, quick transition from the back half and aggessive kicks to the corridor.

I'm going to interview my family and five mates ahead of the interview tomorrow. Interview loading. Taper Wednesday. Talking on top of the the ground come interview time.

Yep. And losing to the roos AT HOME in round two, after losing round one, is a shocker.

A bonus about their losses the controversial finish will feed in nicely into freo's fans and players sense of the world is out to get them and the Jackson recruitment is a curse that will condemn them to mediocrity until his retirement.

Scans this morning

Feeling sick. Just plain sick. One thing helping me not panicking is a few years back at on of our preseason qld camps maxy hurt his knee. He was devastated, with vision of him looking similarly dejected ad he was sure he had done his ACL. Turned out he was wrong.

Agree, not likely to finish that low. But a handful of players, including Jackson and Darcy, dont look AFL level fit. And they only need a couple of key injuries to start getting the wobbles, particularly if there is any disharmony (not suggesting there is....but).

My take on tonight? We win by 6 goals plus Why? We are in absolute peak shape at the moment, fitness and injury wise (salo being the one exception) We seem to be in grate psychological shape Can' speak to their fitness levels, but being hammered round one is not a great sign re: their psychological shape They seemingly haven't addressed their two biggest issues - leg speed and a modern defensive system We killed them for leg speed when we played them last season and in 2021- with the second half of the semi being the outlier when we were out of gas We have added leg speed, they haven't and Coleman out hurts big time on that front We know how to exploit their game plan (win contested ball) and our game plan matches up really well with theirs They don't looked to have adjusted their game plan at all - whereas we have tweaked ours so they will need to do more tactical homework One example of above is the decision to bring Foote into the side - considered plan or desperation? We travel well They are the ones under pressure, not us We are a 4 goal better team For punter, there are two bets that appeal. The line is 4.5 our way (was 3.5 an hour ago). That's crazy. Way too low. Money for old rope Kade Chandler is $34 to kick most goals. Good value With Kossie out, Chandler will be our main crumber and will get his chances. if he can sort out his set shots he can snag 3 or 4, which might be enough with Fritter back in spreading the goals