binman

Loss is the most likely outcome od. And no shame in that. We have close to half of our best 22 out playing the reigning premier, who have most of their best available, at their home ground interstate. But hope springs eternal and whilst a loss would hurt (but not sting, assuming we give total effort) a win could change the trajectory of our season and be one for the ages. Beware the motivated underdog, coming off an inspirational last gasp win, who have nothing to lose. Go dees.

The dewy, slippery conditions will negate their biggest weapon- the marking power of Kennedy and Darling (as well as making it harder to maintain possession through kick mark possession chains). Tmac on the other hand is well practiced in not taking clean marks and taking juggled marks (joke btw). Dare I say it but the ground ball battle will be critical. Rioli a good in for them but let's hope he is a bit under done.

I have been a fan but I'm going a bit luke warm on him to be honest. I wonder however if the threat of being dropped curtails his game as he is incredibly risk averse with his kicking and in terms of when to play on after a mark 9often choosing to hold it at half back instead of a quick kick to a free player). Which is a shame because he is an accurate, if not long, kick and good by hand. Maybe with stretch of games he might be confident to take the game on a bit more. We need good kicks in the side, he is fit, works hard (so important at the moment in terms of getting across to disrupt or man the mark from the chip kicks to free player so many teams are using - which by the by is one reason I'm glad Baker has come in, he will chase and harry all game) and he has his chance to lock in a best 22 spot. JKH will take his spot if he can't do so.

I would be now that WC has elected not to go with two rucks and have selected Rioli. Preuss makes us too slow i reckon

Really? This is the BoM forecast: Friday 17 May Summary Min 3 Max 17 Mostly sunny. Chance of any rain: 0% Perth area Mostly sunny. Areas of light frost about the northern suburbs in the early morning. Winds southeasterly 15 to 25 km/h becoming light in the late afternoon.Fire Danger

100% efficiency though

That's great. Our two biggest deficiencies kicking skills and speed, in that order. Petty helps with kicking and Baker with speed.

Me too dazzler. Always love seeing new players and i didn't like Petty getting only the one game last year. Exciting. How do you see them playing Petty? I suspect they may play him as the lose man, goal keeper role Frosty has been playing allowing him to take Darling or Kennedy Kennedy. Good hands and reads the ball well by all accounts. Not sure how good his kicking is but has to be better than Frosty. Gig challenge for Frosty and OMac. If Petty plays well and keeps his spot, one of those players will come out for Lever.

I have always wondered why players don't propel teammates in the air as they do in rugby line outs, though instead of lifting them lock their hands together and hoist them up like they do in the circus.. Imagine how high a big fella could fling a little fella. Would make stopping goals a lot easier. Is that against the rules?

Yes, is the short answer. For context I tipped us to beat the Hawks, but i will be tipping WC in this game (no surprise there). That said I think we are good chance to get within a couple of goals (on my ESPN footytips I will picking a margin 0f 14 points - it is the first game so a margin is required) and I have a feeling we are a sneaky chance of causing a boilover. Easy to argue why we will lose. So I won't bother. But here are the reasons why we can win: I've got a feeling in my bones (but that could be gout I suppose) Despite playing poorly last week, the last gasp heroics would have built team belief and synergy, with the dees getting lots of kudos for how well drilled were at the end (which reflected comments from a number of players that we had done a lot of work on end of game scenarios) Even in our losses we have been getting the ball inside 50 enough. If we suddenly 'clicked', the much discussed connection came good and we took more of our chances we might get a jump on them and kick a winning score WC are not going great We travel well and leaving aside the prelim horror show have the memory of last years home and away win and the TMac heroics in the one point win to give us positive vibes Hibbo and Melk are big losses but ANB and Smith are both fit and raring to go, and their fitness will be important Playing at night helps us a bit as it will be a bit dewy as it will gte down to 3 degrees overnight. Won't help our fumbling but will make it a bit easier to stop WC chipping it around it around and as any pressure will make marks harder to snaffle. That factor definitely helped us against the hawks (ie a slippery ball), who play a similar game to WC A cold night is also nowhere near as taxing or slippery as the GC game or as taxing as the prelim last year Lycett really hurt us last year and they won't be able to smash maxy (who was cooked) as they did last year even if they bring in their underdone second ruck man (whose name escapes me) Omac will do his job and get 10 plus spoils TMac is getting closer to some good form We will definitely use Frost , Fritter or Hore in a deep sweeper role, keeping the scoring down and us in the game (on that point the bookies have the Total Match Point line at a crazy low 154.5. Even in a wet game that is low but no rain is forecast - though as I said I expect it will get dewy, but it does start at 6:10 over there so perhaps not really bad to the second half) We are not expected to win and in some ways that can sometimes help teams to play with freedom, which is exactly what we need to do Surely we can't miss as many targets as we did last week. Surely Did I say I just have a feeling

I played cricket at brens with parkville cc for a number of years. The local residents (all 100 od them) made putting nets up difficult. Super militant. And rich. Pains in tbe backside.

Luxury, sheer luxury

And an easy instruction to carry out: Goody: i really liked the way port denied wc tgw easy intercept msrks with scungy, crappy, scrappy kicks inside 50 and i want you to adopt the same method. Boys, to achieve that, with our inside kicks the only change I'm looking for is that you don't try and kick in high and long. Otherwise just stick to how you normally deliver the ball inside 50. Ya got it?

Could not agree more. I love going to the footy with mates who support the dees and teams we are playing. Great space to chat about the game, catch your breath and also catch up prior to the game game and quarter and half time breaks. Well it used to be.

I'm with you DG. I sit at the top of the Posnford at the g and is is stupidly loud pre game and during breaks. Can barely hear someone next to you . And it is mostly bloody TV ads!

Hunty said on the Demonland podcast that he 100% shanked it. And then TMac dropped the uncontested mark (Q:where was Collins, TMac's opponent? A: rolled the dice, sagged off TMac assuming harmes' kick would be on target and make the distance, was wrong and then doubled back and ran past Tmac who kicked the ball off the ground for the match winning point) Hunt said they all gave Harmsey and TMac curry

So good he can do it accidentally as he did on Saturday

Yes, absolutely. It would provide an incentive for team to keep attacking even if they were too far behind to win. And by attacking that would open up scoring chances for the opposition. ;leading to a higher scoring game. i punt on the line a bit and i can't tell you how many game basically stop once a team get say 25 points up with 10 minutes to go, with both teams going at half sped and just chipping the ball around.

Very good point sue. My idea is based on the premise we need higher scoring but like you i'm not convinced scoring is an issue. I am firmly in the camp of leaving things alone and letting the game game evolve organically. A beauty of the sport is the incredible tactical opportunities the combination of the size of the playing field and the number of players provide. I love how it seems to change and morph into something different and enjoy the high pressure, contest first game that it currently is. Tactical and strategic innovation happens less frequently in basketball and soccer because they have fewer players and less space. But it would seem you and i are in the minority sue. Most seem to want a high scoring, free flowing game. Like that god awful Essendon v Dees game earlier this year.

I think Demonland's injury is fake news. Having trouble cut and pasting it but according to the MFC site at 10:24 am this morning Lever is a test, Hannan in 1 week and Hibberd is two weeks. Unfortunately Melk is 4-5 so no joy there.

My perspective is that the 6 6 6 rule has little to no impact other than the rare game, such as ours on the weekend, that are close at the end and teams get a small window of time to get a clearance into a forward line where the opposition has not flooded back. It may have contributed a tiny bit to some teams', like the dees, scoring chances if they used players off the back of the square as an attacking weapon, but that's hard to quantity (and in any case we stopped that largely by the end of last year). I thought the kick out might have an positive impact but as we have seen (and i think Lucifer's Hero might have predicted?) teams are just setting up the wall higher. All team seem to be giving the short kick to the pocket, which just slows everything down. Coaches are too risk averse to direct players to go down the center as a turnover means a score is likely. The real reason scoring has dried up is so many teams are maintaining possession and eating up the clock crossing back and forward across their half back line until they get some space to move it forward or instead take the slower option of slowly tic tacking it down the ground with dinky little 20 metre lead up kicks. The 'goal keeper' is also back in vouge and when both teams play the extra back you get games like the Freo v Crows game that are played in between the two 50 metre arcs. The one thing everyone agrees on is the problem (which the AFL has defined as low scoring), which is that coaches will always find a way to design defensive systems that make it hard for the opposition to score. Much easier to do than design attacking systems that regularly generate high enough scores to guarantee a positive win loss ratio (though of course they also have to work on attack). Given we know what the problem it makes sense to design the solution to target the problem - the coaches. But instead over the last decade the AFL have introduced on field rule changes to try and address the problem. And the evidence is clear - rules changes do not fix the problem of low scores and defence first game. So what's the solution? Simple: create an incentive for higher scoring in the home and away season. An extra premiership point for any team that scores 100 points in a game (for both the winner and loser). Coaches would move heaven and earth to get that point as success is making finals. And a premiership point is gold. You would get higher scoring games and far less games where one or both teams put their cue in the rack early and chip it around once the result is clear. There are a number of arguments against this idea. And one is that some teams would have an advantage as they play on drier grounds. Marvel stadium can close it roof and teams who randomly copped more wet games would be disadvantaged. But that all that would even out and in any case that argument presupposes the current draw is fair, which is patently not the case. Most of all providing an incentive to score would not change footy. Sure we have had four premiership points for a long time but final systems have changed multiple times and on field it would not change the game in the way something artificial like fixed zones would. The rule changes the AFL have introduced do change footy. Let the coaches coach. Let them innovate to their hearts content. It is one the best aspects of the game. Make them part of the solution, not the problem

We were worse than downright poor against the Suns. Can barely recall a MFC team missing so many targets. Remarkable we won. But as they say in the classics - it's funny old game. Who'd of though the hawks would roll GWS or blues push the pies?

I guess so. If it is only form that is one hell off a form drop. He dos look like he is getting closer to some good form though. Took a couple of nice contested marks against the Suns.

I simply don't believe it is only form. if not injury then must be fitness. He is not moving any where near as quickly or as freely as last year. As a number of posters have pointed out can barely pick the ball off the ground and has a turning circle of an ocean liner. Isn't attacking the ball in the same was he was last year either.

I pointed this out last year but for those who do not know of Stats pro on AFL.com it is a brilliant resource. If you are a Telstra customer, in addition to having access to live pass you also have access to video of every player's involvements in each game from the last 3 years. It is great way to get an objective perspective on a players game. Watching the video of Omac's last two games highlights that a key feature of his game is how many spoils he effects. All of his 13 one percenters last game were spoils (and 9 of 10 v the Hawks). Spoils often go unnoticed by commentators but even they made comment on how many spoils we made (though of course not the fact that Omac got most of them). It should be noted that reflecting his poor start to the season Omacs one percenters were way down (averaging around 5-6) prior to being dropped, and no doubt that was a big factor in him being dropped. Omac killed Peter Wright - gave him nothing. Don't believe me, look at the evidence. If Wright gets off the chain we lose that match. Colins meanwhile gave up 3 goals to TMac, who despite those goals most are saying still played poorly. And i can't believe in the analysis on Footy Classified and AFL 360 i saw that Collins' decision to sag of TMac (his man) at the death and his failure then to get back on him and either stop him kicking the ball off the ground or stopping the ball was not highlighted (or even commented on) as it literally cost GC the game. I have no doubt Dew highlighted it in his review