binman

And koz, who obviously wasn't in the round one and two teams when jvr, jeffo nd fritter last played together.

Jeffo and JVr are both pretty good at ground level.

5 For the same reason the pies didn't chang their plans with managing players after a loss, we aren't with melk. As mcrae noted the program for managing players is months in the planning. And though he didn't say so its also true for the overall conditioning program for each team. Planned to the minute and metre. I really wish the footy media drilled down on the impact of team's high performance programs given how critical it is in terms of influencing the result of each game. My tip about the freo pies game - freo wil look a completely different team to the one last week that looked like they had led in their boors such was their appalling defensive running Why? They are set for this game, and will have planned their program accordingly months ago. Part of that planning is a calculated gamble of of a performance like last week. And of course pies are coming off a five day break. Another tip. In the wash up analysis this won't be mentioned at all. It will all he freo came to play, look how much better their defensive spread and running was compared to last week, blah, blah, blah. All symptoms, no diagnosis.

'Hawks and Dees are very similar in the ruck and clearance stats this season. Both among the top few for centre clearances, both among the bottom few for stoppage clearances. But we tend to setup with a spare behind the play at stoppages with the intent to win a lost clearance back and rebound from it.' I thought these comments were interesting. We also setup with a spare behind the play. Or at least we did in previous seasons - I think we have done so in the last few weeks but I reckon we were bringing extras to stoppages at different times before that.

The real icing would be Hogan and Bedford also both coming home.

Exactly. Choosing to raise this when the club has said he's taking a well being break is pathetic. Leaving that aside, the reporting is lazy. Claz is clearly not yet fit enough- which is why he's not getting the minutes he was in 2021. I mean, der. Another solid preseason like the one he just had and he'll be closer to his optimal condition. He'll get more game time, be quicker and play at a higher level

Thanks luci - great stuff

Kolt is a lock in our best 22, even with his middling numbers. He leads up hard has good hands is good on the ground and brings great energy. He has an X factor and just seems the sort of player who if he gets his end up he can do a lot of damage. Break out games are a bit of myth I reckon, or least rare, but I could see kolt having a massive breakout game - lots of quality score involvements and a bunch of goals.

That makes zero sense.

Total bollocks. The data over many games absolutely 100% contradicts your opinion on JVR. Have you even looked at the data? Laving aside his poor form.this season, his first two full seasons are the equal of the very best key forwards in the last 30 years, including any playing now (not to mention bestingevery other young key forward playing now). You can do the research on thst - you'll find a post on mine from last year going thru the data in forensic detail. Opinions are great - but claiming you have data that supports that view is so on point these days

Because it's an infringement to kick or hit the ball into the stands after a whistle had stopped play. Melk got pinged fir it in 2021.

I watched the last 10 minutes on 7 and saw that chsnge in decision - couldn't believe the commentators got that so wrong, particularly cornes who was up in arms about something he got 180 degrees wrong. So much for expert comments. A split second after play had stopped a roos player booted the ball into the stands. A free kick should have been paid against him for time wasting. The umpire clearly thought it was a bombers player who kicked the ball and so was going to give the roos a free kick. Bomber's players immediately started yelling at him that a roos player kicked it. Someone told the umpire the call was wrong Technically the free should have been reversed, but instead he changed the decision to a ball up - which was the prudent call. Good use of technology and good umpiring- not that viewers would know that based on cornes ridiculous, wrong comments (his reflexive instinct to be 'controversial' and editorialise is annoying at the best of times but just flat out stupid in the context of calling games)

Only having two key defenders (Turner and Tmac) as our key defenders would be no different to last week when they ran with only May and Tmac.

Sure, but that logic didn't apply for fritter who came back into the seniors on the back of one, at best, average game at Casey - a game in which he didn't sem to address his issues with defensive intensity. And that decision has a cascading effect - he comes in, kicks two goals and who knows perhaps gets somewhere close to the defensive kpis they no doubt gave him. So they don't want to drop him after one game back in (hopefully fritter repays the faith, has a blinder, gets back to his best and is once again a best 22 lock). As fans we don't have all the information that feeds into selection. For that reason I don't get too worked up about them. But that doesn't preclude me being perplexed about some decisions. I don't mind melk's selection - most teams run with a defensive forward who have a focus on negating the opppo's best intercepting tall defender, and he'll likely go to McGovern who is a critical player for them. He is arguably the best kick in the team and provides important leadership in our forward half. Bur the non selection of JVR, particularly given they dropped fullarton and didn't select a back up ruck, is flat our strange imo. JVR has had two games now at Casey, the second of which was a cracking five goal game where he was hard at it and was back to leading up to ball carrier. And now Casey have a bye. As a fan I'd love it goody is asked about the logic behind his non selection. By the by, I'm tipping JVR will end up coming into the team - perhaps as someone has suggested in place of May.

PSD - what's the talk on Reid over in the west? If I was an Eagles fan I'd be very unimpressed. Doesn't look fit, unsurprising given he cake back from his break in [censored] condition. And his head seems all over the shop. I have a feeling JVR will end up playing

Um, i think Goody really wants to..................... Nup, i got nothing

Yep, they decided rest smest- maxy can play 100% TOG and take every ruck contest.

Fascinating. No JVR - who gives Maxy a chop out?

I will never understand the psychology of trolls.

You'd get better odds on the Eagles into a Liberal PM: 2.93 x 10.25 = 30.03

Fair bit of chat on this thread that the Eagle's match is danger game. I reckon the only sense in which it's a danger game is the fallout of a loss. With the exception of the roos game, this is the first time all season I've been confident of a win. They can have as many crisis meetings as they like but that won't change the fact they are clearly not fit enough and are coming off a six-day break (after having to fly from Melbourne, after a late Sunday arvo game, and arriving back in Perth midnight Sunday) I think we will: look to attack and be aggressive with our ball movement from the get-go really look to spread them and use the width of Optus oval do so by using short kicks to switch and hit up players leading at the ball carrier control the tempo with short kicks until we can 'press go' and then go forward quickly use the corridor more than we have been use lots of long forward handballs kick our highest score thus far win by 64 points

I don't really know NS, however i doubt the change in training times is related to their loading schedule. It would have some sort of impact no doubt but i reckon the change is more about responding to feedback from players and perhaps changing things up just to freshen up the routine, one they had in place probably as far back as when Burgess started in 2020

G'day @Webber - funny you should post the above. I was thinking yesterday that it was unfair (and a bit meta) of me to call you out on the pod for a post you made on DL, not to mention not give you right of reply. To be honest i hardly ever go into post match threads anymore, or indeed a whole bunch of threads where negativity is predictable. I've done my time pushing back on over the top negativity - life's too short. But i happened to see your post, and whilst not over top in terms of negativity, to be honest i was surprised how trenchant you were about the standard of the game. Seemed a little out of character. I can see your argument about how poor both teams were, and how frustrating the turnovers and skill errors were, but personally i reckon the standard was better than in our loss to the Bombers. Now that was a horror show. One reason your post surprised me is, unusually for you, you didn't factor in the impact of both teams coming off a five day break (and also 3 games in less than 2 weeks - 12 days for us, 11 for the tigers). We had a 7 day break into the Freo game and looked fresh and running on top of the ground - and made far fewer basic skill errors. The tigers had 6 day break into their win over the Suns, looked fresh for the first three quarters before running out of gas in the last. Unless a team has really planned to maximise freshness, like we did into the 5 day break against Port last season, all teams will struggle to play anywhere near their best on a five, or even six, day break, partic teams with so many first and second year players (they had 6 players who had played 15 game or less, we had 3 such players and 4 first or second year players). And fatigue of course exacerbates skill deficiencies, like our average kicking skills. Look at the Cats Blues game. No doubt the media is pumping up the blues, but the reality is the Cats were coming off a 6 day break, a bruising match against the hawks on Easter Monday. The Cats looked fatigued and miles off it against the Blues - and made howler after howler. As an example of their woeful play, in the second quarter they did not score a single point from their defensive half - nuts for team that is one of the best transition teams in the AFL. And at half time they had 14 fewer clearances, their second-worst differential in the last five years. Yes, fatigue is only part of the story (for example, the Cats have been struggling all season with clearances), but it is a part nonetheless - as was the case in our game. As for our last quarter performance, i would argue when a team has a match winning lead at 3 quarter time (eg 6 goals plus) often the last quarter devolves into a training run with the losing team kicking goals that tend to 'flatter the scoreboard' (though i actually think we played ok up until taking Maxy AND May off - we did have the same number of scoring shots) One such example this round was Dockers leading by 42 points against the Crows at 3QT, not kicking a goal in the last and only winning by 18 points.

If the forecast holds it won't be raining and as you say optus drains well (too well?) and its going to be 22 so hopefully conditions will be pretty good come game time. Are you going PSD?