binman

And his larrikin shtick hid a brilliant tactical mind. It was a great shame h was never made an Australian skipper. Shocking. Two years younger than me.

Check the freezer

Yep, i was thinking about that (7 defenders). On that logic, totes agree with your likely selections.

Yep fair points. I think there is a chance Smith may take rivers' role I said in my post it is hard to asses the performances of any of the defenders. That said hard to get enthused about baker or Hunt, both of whom had average games. But i thought Hunt was terrific last season and i like him in the team, so i hope he gets his chance to prove himself at some point. He mightget the nod ahead of Smth, but i doubt it. Barring injury, i'm guessing the back six will be May, Lever, Salem, Hibberd, Bowey and Smith. With no Bruce we only need the one key defender really and may can take Naughton. Bowey and Hibber can probably cover River's run. That leaves English and maybe Ugle-Hagan. Smith and Lever can share duties on them. And Smith can also play the half back rivers role so provides some flexibility. Alternatively, thomo comes in and takes English and Smith is not selected. But he can't play HB, so offer less flexibility.

Nothing of substance to take from last night as it was clearly little more than a glorified training session. Some random reflections - The foundation of our 'system' is pressure and intensity. The system does not work if our pressure and intensity does not meet the minimum threshold If there was a scale for pressure and intensity, lets call it the binman scale, our grand final (bar the second quarter) would be a 10 and our round one game against Freo maybe 6 On that hypothetical scale, lets say 6 is the minimum threshold for our system to work On the binman scale we were a 2 last night, except for a brief period in the third and the start of the last quarter, when maybe it got to a 4 By contrast were 6 plus on that scale all game against the Roos When we lifted our pressure and intensity the system rumbled into gear and we got on top I think the biggest challenge of the dees this year, and in particular for coaches is calibrating our pressure and intensity. We will lose games if our pressure and intensity drops below 6, but by the same token can't be at 10 all year as it is not sustainable and we will burn out. This calibration is something we did brilliantly last year, but as they say on the ads for super past success provides no guarantees for future performance Speaking of intensity, and at the risk of being too negative about Weed, his first involvement in the game perfectly summed up what he needs to address if he wants to be a regular in the ones. Weed dropped a mark he should have clunked, but that was not the real issue (after all, he had come on late in the game after playing earlier in the day ). It was his next effort - or lack thereof to be more exact. When the ball hit the deck he simply was not urgent enough, which i find baffling given he he is bloke trying to force his way back into the team On the selection front, the only thing to come from last night is i think it cemented Smith in for Petty. I thought he was good, without being great, but had a better game than tomo, who i think lacks a bit of pace and lateral movement ATM Tomo is better suited playing against the biggest opposition forward but that role is now Mays. So my tip is Smith will get the nod as he has the closing speed and leap to impact more aerial contests and can better run of opponents On a related note, it is hard to asses the performances of any of the defenders. For one thing this was a group that probably had never lined up together, so confusion, for example covering ground balls, was inevitable. But more significantly, the pressure up the field was non existent and our defensive model relies on that pressure to function It was no surprise that Lever had no impact in terms of intercept marks until the third when we noticeably upped the pressure and intensity The biggest win for the night was no injury

We had our serious hit out last week. Yes, we played the wooden spooners but our intentisity was full on, something that was super apparent at the ground. Our intensity tonight was lucky to be half that of last week. Chalk and cheese. A mirror image of last year's preparation.

Jeez, you are pretty hard on your match report skills given you took stats!

Quite possibly. But riv's injury also gives them option of playing both Tomlinson and Smith with Smith taking riv's running hb role and tomo Petty’s role.

Really? The evidence seems pretty conclusive to me that my prediction on team selection was correct, but we'll have to agree to disagree given you don't find that evidence persuasive. And i'm pretty confident my prediction about the round one team will also prove correct. We certainly won't be seeing any of the following players in round one - Weideman, Turner, Baker, Bedford or Chandler and likely not Hunt either. We've had our serious hit out. And it was at Casey last week in the practice match. Just as it was last year

Agree. My feeling is the best way to break our system is playing on at every opportunity, playing fast and using the corridor. - the way the Crows played the first time we played them. With our scoring power, to beat us teams have to score at least 85 - 95 points and the only way they are gong to do that is being super attacking. It's Catch 22 though because playing fast is high risk and we are so good at blocking the corridor, shifting our zone to stay ahead of the ball and punishing teams on turnovers with slingshot rebounds. And teams that play fast struggle to set up their defensive structure when the ball is turned over. But slowing the game down like the Cats tried to do in the last quarter in round 23 just plays into our hands

As i suspected, a repeat of last years strategy in terms of selections for the practice match and community series. Barring injury i expect the round one team will mirror the lineup against the roos. With one exception - Lever in and one of Tomlinson or Smith out (i think Smith will ply round one)

Point taken. Posts deleted.

Isn't moonshine forged with fire?

Exactly. I don't have a digital wallet. To show my vax status i always scan the QR code to bring up my services app and vax certificate. Or for my regular haunts that i have saved, just pull up the app. Love the fact that this year i'l be adding the g as a favorite

#crazylikea(red)fox

Yep. The same rules as for pubs and restaurants - the logic being that in those environment people are sharing a space for extended periods so the risk of transmission is high. So, the fewer unvaccinated people in such environments the better - for them (coz they won't get covid and get super sick) and more importantly vaccinated patrons (coz unvaccinated people are more likely to have covid).

Sorry DS, but i think you've got this muddled up. The team we selected for the tiger's practice match last year was the same as lined up in round one of the 2021 season against Freo. It was our starting 22 and our best team at that point of the year. That game was the full dress rehearsal for the start of the season. We didn't muck around with a big bench, using only four for much of the game and played at near match intensity, with all our key systems and tactics reflecting how we played though the season. And we played all our guns Then against the Dogs we took a completely different approach. We used heaps of players that were not in our round one game and rested some key players. We also kept out tactical power dry (not bothering to try and stop the dog's mids, being less defensive). And we used the six man bench, which is decidedly non match sim. Interestingly the dog's fielded close to their bets side and, unlike us, approached the match like full match sim. Given how much emphasis Goody has placed on repetition and predictability, i think they will take the same approach this year. Why wouldn't they - after all that preparation was a step towards a premiership The Roos game was our dress rehearsal and i think the starting 22 will be close to our round one team. And in the Blues game, just like the dogs game last year, we will select a whole bunch of players who will not see round one action, with some second year players getting a run, maybe one or two first year players and a number of our fringe players. In any case we don't have long to wait to see if i am right or wrong.

Agree on all of the above. The other thing i'd add is we are a systems based team. And with a flag under our belt we have proof positive that the system works, so we have complete team buy in thta system (not that we didn't have it last season). But also another year to cement that system, so it becomes completely automatic. Every player coming into the team understand the system and know what role thay have to play in it. I think that was a huge factor in the Tiger's run of success. Also, other teams face a big problem against us, a problem that was evident last year - to what extent do they modify their own system when playing us to try and beat us? That's a problem because system based football has proven to the most effective model in the last say decade (longer probably). Sure every team will employ tactical tweaks to blunt opponents strengths and exploit weakness, including us. But if teams move too far away from their own system in their attempt to beat us, it is doomed to fail. So i think the 'other teams will work us out' narrative is a furphy. The only path to wining a premiership, and finding a way past the dees, is to develop a rock solid system that works - whatever that may be. And as dees fans know all too well developing and cementing an effective system takes years. Which is why why i see the Bombers and Freo dong well this season. Both have been developing an effective system in the last 2-3 years, one modeled on the dees defensive structure. I think both will be really hard to score against this season and are on the right path to be top 4 teams in say 2023 or 2024.

That's not the case at all. We ran with our best 22 in the practice match against the Tigers, just as we did against the Roos (except injured players of course) and then experimented in the dogs community series game. In the game against the dogs the following non best 22 players lined up (albeit with a 8 man interchange): (Note: best 22 is a bit of a nebulous concept applied retrospectively to a preseason game, because some of these players ended up in the starting 22 , but were not considered as such at the end of the previous season, or even coming into the game) Oskar Baker Toby Bedford, Bailey Laurie Jake Bowey (obviously made the senior team, but not till the end of the season) Aaron vandenBerg Tom Sparrow (made the senior team, but not 'till about mid season and then as medi sub for much of the rest of the season) James Jordon (trained super well over the preseason, but given he had yet to play senior game, he was no lock to get selected round one and beyond - at least from a fan's perspective - ended the year outside of the starting 22) Kade Chandler Jay Lockhart Harrison Petty (was not best 22 at the start of the year - obviously was after tomos injury) In addition to that list the following players were borderline best 22, as reflected by the fact that they by mid season they had lost their spot in the senior team: Neville Jetta Nathan Jones So, 26 players selected in total. And nearly half of them not best 22, or in the case of 2 or 3 borderline at best. I suspect our selection policy will be much the same for the blues game on Thursday and in all likelihood we will see some second year players like Rosman and Laurie get a run, maybe one or two of of our first year players and a number of our fringe players like Smith, Melksham, Chandler, Bedford and Weid.