binman

Omac's selection brought a football related smile to my face for the first time in weeks. Love it. Seriously impressive effort to get back playing AFL footy after being delisted and copping not one, but two very serious, long term injuries. Respect.

I thought it was a good move selecting him because we need his kickong skills (though it made little sense to make him a sub). But agree, he's not been great. Goody flagged changes - I'll be fascinated if he follows through and who he brings in (surely Brown comes in given his terrific pressure at Casey)

Which highlights one of the problems of not dropping players when they should be dropped.

I'd stick with - geez our jumper is the best. Great colours.

The crazy thing is as furious as i was, and still am, about our performance lsd5 week, I'm starting to get excited about going to the footy on Saturday. As always, we'll know 10 minutes in if we've come to play. My mood will revert very quickly if the answer we haven't. I picked the wrong season to start following the spurs.

True 'nuff.

This has been one if the most noticeable aspects - where are all the leads from our forwards, medium and talls? It was particularly evident in the bombers game given they went small with selection. Leaving aside the inanity of that decision, why weren't the smalls and mediums going crazy making lead after lead? It did my head in watching us constantly kicking long to mediums and smalls, in most cases out numbered ones at that - surely that wasn't the plan? And jvr seems to have stopped making any leads altogether. Just wants to wrestle.

Yep, excellent points. A problem for us though is there's not 140 playerspaid paid more than clarry.

Not an unreasonable perspective.

At the risk of contradicting myself, clarry has clearly worked his backside off in terms of his fitness. The reality elite fitness is iterative and any elite athlete who missed 6 months of training, as was the case for clarry in 2023 into 2024, will take 18 months minimum t8 get back to their optimal condition- assuming I'd course they do thr work. All the track reports, amd my own observations at training, highlighted how hard clarry worked in the preseason. But he's still got a ways to go and alot of sort in front of him

To be honest I'm losing a bit faith in clarry. And whilst I had huge respect for him last year in terms of his effort levels, that respect is waning too I'm sad to say. Love the bloke also, but some of his defensive efforts this year, particularly against the bombers, have been very poor. I have little doubt he is one of the players goody was thinking off when he critisised our efforts 'without the ball'. He looked in much better shape in the preseason than last season, but he is still miles off elite fitness. As gator notes hard to run fast being overweight, which he clearly is (for an elite athlete). I was very supportive of how the club managed clarry last season, particularly in regard to the mental health and well being aspect. But clarry owes us big time - he's had his mulligan and now needs to repay the club by playing at a higher level than he is.

Why not just edit it and delete the offending text?

No wonder they keep getting hammered in GFs!

I'd be suggesting pinball

And therein lies our biggest issue IMO - we have too many butchers. All teams have plenty of butchers but i'd argue our issues are compounded by most of our senior A graders (Tracc, Max, Clarry, Viney, May, Lever) all being poor by foot. I'd also add that its not as if this issue has only just become a factor because of the new game plan - its long been an issue and in fact i'd argue it was the key reason why didn't win the flag in 2023 (way too many missed shots and turnovers)

I haven't read the article, but if that's an accurate summary they're wrong. Fitness is def an issue for us - it's a major worry. I wish the cause of our fade outs was because of our contest, pressure and how hard at it we have been. We have been woeful in those aspects of the game (which by the by are acritical for all teams no matter what their method) in the last two matches and whilst out contest and pressure were good in round one the Giants ran over the top of us despite being just as hard at it. And in case the article's author hasn't got the memo we ARE move away from the model that won and are trying to implement the fast, handball central game that is being played by other teams.

He looked good actually- hard a5 at and good kick

Soft.

Great attack on the ball by Culley leads to goal. Top stuff.

I'm having acid flashbacks.

I'm not one to write of players as a rule, but geez i'm getting close with Laurie. Watching, i thought he had to go forward for that mark and show strength in his attack on the ball. And speaking of attacking the ball, just a few minutes earlier he didn't straight line a ball inside our 50, they won it and transitioned it up the ground. Poor effort.

Sick burn bro.

Which is a point goody made when answering a question about our midfield and game plan in today's presser. Spoiler alert - we ain't going back.

I'm confused. I am at home, just had dinner (delicious too I might add - perfectly cooked porterhouse with vegetable medley) and did regale them - as is my wont.

Master is doing an awful lot of work in that sentence.