binman

Above was from weatherzone, this from BoM Sun protection not recommended, UV Index predicted to reach 1 [Low] Saturday 29 July Summary Min 3 Max 15 Rain at times. Possible rainfall: 2 to 4 mm Chance of any rain: 70% Hobart area Cloudy. High (70%) chance of rain, most likely in the late afternoon and evening. Winds north to northwesterly 25 to 35 km/h becoming light in the late evening.

Weather update: 12pm Mostly cloudy 12°C 26% 85% N 28km/h 4°C 56% 3pm Cloudy 14°C 21% 91% N 28km/h 4°C 50%

Bummer. i want us to play their strongest possible side. if we are going to win the GF we need to be able to beat other sides at full strength and i rather risk losing than play an undermanned side and shore up a top 4 spot. JOKES!

You are probably right but i hate wet games. Though we have struggled in the this year to modify our handball happy game style

Yes it is likely to be windy, but it always is, but i doubt it will be very wet with the game starting at 1:40pm if the current forecast (which says rain 'at times', though only 1-3 mm, likely in afternoon and evening) is correct: Saturday 29 July Summary Min 3 Max 14 Rain at times. Possible rainfall: 1 to 3 mm Chance of any rain: 70% Hobart area Cloudy. High (70%) chance of rain, most likely in the afternoon and evening. Winds north to northwesterly 25 to 40 km/h.

Andy i like the thumbs up symbol for like. The heart one is a bit strong! (though i guess there are some posts i love - taco girl time?)

I can't believe some of the rubbish on this thread. Some the hatred is crazy. And i struggle to understand how some people can take what happened at the EFC and their subsequent response so personally. To be frank it is plain weird. Not much different to some dickehead - who should be charged with assault feeling justified at throwing a football at someones head because they barrack for a football side. Good on ya Ash for posting so reasonably.

Good lord please delete the percentage reference. it is a curse. i still have nightmares of sitting with a bunch of mates who are bombers fans and not being able to resit yelling PERCENTAGE! when we kicked the first in the last to go, i think, 45 points up in the last quarter only for Salmon to go crazy, kick a bag and lead the bombers to a famous comeback win.

Thanks Ash. Hibberd has been the best recruit we have had for years, right up there with one of my favorites, also a defender, at least when he played for us, Steven Icke. On tagging him, sure they could but i reckon he would be harder to tag than a mid as he running hard. perhaps stop his run a bit but the way we run in waves means that they would lose a player essentially and he can give off tho Frost or Hunt to run it out.

Me too Ash. Interesting comment before about goody giving Melksham specific roles. i seem to recall when he came to the club him saying Roosy was going to give him specific roles and i assume this was down to the fact that goody knew what worked with him. Did he ever play the defensive forward role at essendon? Its a great role for him because he has good defensive instincts and as you say is a great kick. i agree his errors are often about his decisions and the decisions are much simpler up forward - kick for goals or to a leading teammate. And errors are not as costly. A great kick to seal the game on Sat and i loved how he took on himself to kick it. He never even looked like giving it off. Six golas in the last two weeks. Top stuff for a defensive forward.

Because they have twice as many fans or are twice as wide?

no not that. My head my explode in that scenario. How about we [censored] them and they do not receive a single free kick all day and we receive a number of very lucky ones?

This is what they should do but they alternate who is the home club (and therefore who gets the gate) for the ANZAC clash rather than share gate takings.

Spot on. And it augurs very well for our next couple of months that he his hitting his straps. I love him out at chf. Gives him so much space and he can really use that super dangerous combination of strength and agillirt, not to.mention his tank. Look out

How on earth do you come to that conclusion? He had just come back into the side which suggests he does fit tbe current player requirement. Strange

Good thing i wasn't. I never once even suggested it as an example of 'how well he is going' or even that it was a good effort to spoil. I thought i made that clear in my response to STMJ, who also suggested i was pumping up his tyres when i said in the post you quote above: 'I wasn't making a comment about omac i was making a comment about the zone and Omac just happened to be featured in the example i used' Do people have a comprehension problem? Anyway, this is my very last comment about OMac. I find it remarkable how much frustration a young fella in only his second season can cause some fans of the club he plays for. Particularly given he is holding down a critical spot (and by doing so freeing up TMac to play forward) in a side pushing for top 4 at the pointy end of the season. I mean he is obviously a reliable defender or else the club would hardly be playing him. After all they do have a vested interest in winning and are hardly likely to carry an unreliable defender for shits and giggles. It's not as if they don't have other options, the obvious one being Tmac going back and Pederson playing forward. And again does anyone, even his harshest critics really, i mean really, believe he will dropped before the end of the season? No? Of course not. Anyway different strokes for different folks i guess. Carry on

Good lord, we could get into all of each other's accounts!

Steve, you simply don't get it. I wasn't making a comment about omac i was making a comment about the zone and Omac just happened to be featured in the example i used (note: I'm done defending omac. You have your view, which is fine. I don't share that view. but we are not going to come together on it so lets leave it) 10 metres back is of course long way back in a defensive set up. Look at the shot at 5:31. No one is close to Dixon at all. Unthinkable in times gone past and still for some who have not got up to speed with modern football - like the expert commentators who are to man ex footballers from another era who when a spoil is missed say 'they just had to go body in body - you can't give a player like (insert power forward) THAT MUCH SPACE'. In the good old days there was no zone and defenders went man on man - literally touching their opposing players at all times, particularly those trusted with manning up the big forwards like Dixon. Dunn was/is terrific at this as it plays to his strengths - physical strength, good use of his body etc etc. But he cannot play the zone defence, which is why we traded him. The zone requires a different skill set, eg knowing where to set up, how far you can be from a KPF and still get to the contest if required, hitting a moving ball in flight whilst running to a contest (as opposed to locking arms with an opponent and waiting for the ball to land on your head, which is much easier, particularly on day such as Saturday where the swirling wind was moving the ball around a lot) and having complete synergy with your teammates. Most clubs play a zone defence these days, though there are degrees, with some mixing man on man and a zone (which is sometimes as simple as having spare men in space). The Pies are a good example of the latter, which is why is why Dunn (and Howe for that matter) has a role. The dees on the other hand usually employ a much more aggressive and pure zone with very few direct man on man match ups - probably the most aggressive zone in the AFL. Of course applying enormous 'defensive pressure through the midfield is conducive to an optimal zone defence system'. The reverse is also true, as we saw in Darwin. Poor mid field pressure exposes zone defences. But to say the midfíeld pressure was 'the number one reason why our zone worked so well and we were able to keep players like Dixon under control' is just wrong and sells the back six way short. The number one reason our zone worked so well and has for much of the last 10 weeks is that the back six, as Jnrmac and others have pointed out, is working so brilliantly together and all, including Omac, are doing their jobs so well. They have won us games because their zone has held up despite poor midfield defensive pressure. I have to say i really think your clear bias against OMac is adversely impacting your analysis. And by the by you said you would give an involvement by involvement review of his game on Saturday. I look forward to reading it.

Just watched this video and thought it had a good example of the point i'm making above: Not sure how to do a gif but freeze this video at exactly 5:31. This is a really good example of my point about their diamond zone set up, players not standing key forwards (or indeed hardly any forwards) and instead running to the contest to spoil. It's a stoppage so everyone has time to get in position for Wines' kick. The obvious target is their key forward Dixon. Despite this there is not one dees players in touching distance of him. In fact of the nine defenders inside the 50 metre arc, only 2 are right next to a Port player (note they only have 7 forwards in the arc). Omac is set up way behind both Dixon and another Port player. Frost is in front, Jetts and Hunt are to the side, with Hibberd not far away also guarding space. When you roll the tape (so to speak) you will see that Wines does in fact kick to Dixon (with the zone set up making it hard for anyone to lead into space, with maxy getting back hard to fill the hole in front). Omac comes from a long way back (wheres' the block?) and jetts comes from the side to both effect the spoil. Other defenders then come to the contest, fight for the ball, win it and with out number try to work it it out, initially by hand (backwards and towards the Port goal square, which used to be no no - hit the boundary line!), ending with Hibberd who tries to clear the 50 but mishit it. Now of course they don't always set up like this and there will be times they will play the old school man on man on the KPFs that Dunn loves to play but it is instructive they don't here, and didn't all day, against one of the best contested marks in the league in Dixon. And it worked a treat. he was ineffectual really and the zone really frustrated their attempts to bring the ball in to their forward line, keeping in mind they are one of the highest scoring teams in the AFL. In the end they had to use Boak to run though the corridor and inside the 50 metre arc to generate goals scoring chances. Which worked but took him away from getting high possession numbers. The zone also allows us to attack from the back half, through using free men, chains of handballs and wave running which when on we do so well. Great to watch.

I'm out of the Omac discussion (though i as looking forward to SMJ's promised involvement by involvement review of his game - oh well, and it does raise a chuckle that earlier in the season he was being criticised for not being able to spoil at all and now it is for spoiling into the corridor) so this is not an attempt and defending him, but you make some good points here. I think some football watchers don't really understand the zone. And i include the ex footballers who do 'special comments' in that. More often than not key defenders do stand their man the way they used to, the way Lynden Dunn does for instance, certainly ours don't. They stand to the side and to the front, with a small sometimes behind, often in a diamond around the key forwards It means they are often running to a contest to spoil and have far less capacity to direct a spoil or drop it to their feet and cause a stoppage (it also is why so often a jetta is going up against much bigger players). And in most instances they will have to spoil in the direction they are running. A good example is the attempted spoil on Dixon that Omac missed. He was coming from the corridor to that contest. If he had made the spoil, as he should have, it would have gone towards the boundary because that is the way he was running. Frost, who started closer to Dixon, but in front of him also missed the spoil. If he made it he would have likely had to have hit it towards Ports's goals and perhaps even into the corridor as he was running back slightly with the ball. The second Omac spoil to the corridor he was running from the boundary to the goal square to make the spoil. He had to spoil - imagine the barbs if he hadn't. Where else could he have hit it? And it is easy to forget the fact that he made the spoil, saving what would have been a goal and then did well to get the ground ball, clean up and be part of a chain of possessions from our well drilled and connected back six that worked the ball out of our defensive half.

It really was an awful look for Dixon to be standing over jetts and screaming in his face. Ugly. Deserved every boo he got. And by the by i have never heard a player get booed all day for yelling at someone before. And it was actually a really dangerous tackle as both players were going flat out. Jetts was lucky not to be seriously hurt

A topic for the podcast? When the crowd came up on the big screen a couple of port fans next to me said what a pathetic crowd. That may or may not have anythng to do with the i then started to give it to port for being pretenders, tellunf them they are playing a real team now and that's two in a row for us - away and home. Nice acoustics at the top of an empty ponsford stand!

Yep good point. Nathan Jones has improved his kicking out of sight hasn't he and now is very strong off both sides of his body. So there is scope for tyson to improve, you're right. I hope he does. The issue i see for him is he has a technical issue in so far as he drops the ball from a long way. When he hits it well he is a really penetrating kick and can bullet them but he does tend to shank them. A situation made worse by the fact that he can't kick right footed.

I loved that last quarter. I backed the pies to cover tbeie 4.5 line. Had givwn up on the bet. They gor a super lucky free to give them a chance of getting out to 7 points. Even at the end fasola had to kick that goal to cover the line. Thought he was going to chip ir ti ajother player. Ans then wc should have gor a free in rheir forward line wirh 10 seconds to go. Great stuff