Pates

The unlucky thing for Nibbler (which I would’ve thought would constitute it being a straight forward two weeks) was that he had the jumper so he wasn’t in full control of the tackle or the player. As always luck plays the biggest role in this, the Crows player landed badly and got injured. But straight to the tribunal and a minimum 3 weeks is a clear indication the AFL using a no name player (pretty consistently seems to be a Melbourne player too) to “send a message”. Meanwhile Burgoyne must be laughing.

He reminds me of Trav Johnston a little where he tries some high risk kicks and when they fail they look awful. That one in particular in the back line near the pocket was particularly poor. Turning it over there is almost always going to result in a shot on goal. Needs to play the percentages more.

Just seeing the Blues vs GC in Darwin the club should be making it an absolute priority that we play our Alice game this year. I still think we should be even pushing for maybe a second and play it back to back with the first one being Essendon on the back of their hopeful Dreamtime in Darwin game. Saints and Lions are getting the armchair ride, Lions should finish top 2 and be pushing for a premiership (although I don’t think they’re as good as everyone thinks).

Jeez seems harsh on Nibbler, I’d give it two weeks and move on. I felt the sling was to try to get the ball out of the crows players possession rather than it being a malicious act. Watch him get 4 weeks after Burgoyne got nothing.

I wouldn’t be dropping him but can his body hold up to a 4 day break?

Random aside with us on more level pegging with games to a few others we are sitting 12th with an ok percentage and we can't go any lower (although we could go higher if the Saints beat the Suns by a comfortable margin). EDIT we could go lower if the Swans beat the Pies by a large margin.

Wouldn't be against that, I'd also throw out the idea of trying Viney in a HF role where we've been playing Jones/AvB and give Brayshaw more minutes in the guts. Challenge Gus by asking the question was 2018 a fluke?

I must be in small company on the trade regarding Tyson. GWS picked up Kelly (from memory) with that pick but the thing was when Roos came to the club the players he had at his disposal was just so bad something big needed to change. Tyson didn't end up being a veteran for us but the years we had him for he played a role and the more important part was we had a player that could make us a better team immediately. He was very good in his first year until we well and truly turned him in the a Melbourne footballer. We also got Salem for that trade and he has been a good player (particularly in 2018). I call that trade an equal win for both clubs. Anyway to answer the broader question on Taylor, I think he's been pretty good for us. Not every pick has been a win but I still feel like the bigger issue is in development and not the picks themselves. I really like the look of Kozzie and Jackson though.

Maybe the Dees and North match committees could "come to an understanding" and not play either of their no.1 rucks!

100%, I'm baffled why of all games when he is clearly tired they didn't give him this one off. Whether he plays against North or not we will be well beaten in the ruck taps because he looked off the boil tonight. Terrible player management, perhaps the first black mark against Burgess.

Even before the match I had this feeling that the game would be tight until we kick away in the final quarter. I haven't been able to see much more than clips and a little bit of live action here and there but what I've seen didn't impress me. Whoever is responsible for our defensive rebound when teams have opportunities to set they need to come up with something better than "long down the line". Tonight it what happens when Max is not in form/underdone and not able to rake in his contested marks that frankly the club expects too much of. By all means have it as a get out kick, but for crying out loud something new needs to be created because most other clubs when a behind is kicked it's a case of "ok we've got the ball in our hands now how do we make them pay?" But for us we just look like we will either turn it back over or at best get a stoppage. The Crows (bottom of the ladder basketcase) were able to get repeat inside 50s against us, that is not good at all. The other really worrying trend is we were losing a lot more of the clearances than I would like given our image is that we are meant to be a clearance winning team. I said this before team selection when there was word that Max might miss, I think they have become a bit lazy and expecting him to just tap it down his throat rather than working for the second and third contests to win the ball away. What I saw of Max told me he shouldn't have played, what a great chance it would've been to give Jackson main rucking duties and perhaps bring in Brown while giving Max a much needed rest. I worry he is going to be toweled up by Goldstein who is in great form. The rest I'll leave to talk about once I've watched the replay and can properly dissect it, but we got the win which is a good thing. On to North now, massive game.

I haven’t seen the incident, most commentary seems to point to it being undisciplined. I hope he gets a grilling for that, take the free kick and kick the goal, then be smug and arrogant. We have nothing to be smug about right now.

Harley has been “handy” most matches he’s played this year, I’d really like tonight to be his breakout match for the year. 2-3 goal, score involvements, clean kicks. Give him confidence for the rest of the year.

They're missing players as well, that's a club that knows how to perform almost every week. No excuses.

And just like that it's all but certain that Tex will kick a bag.

Is it ultimate MFCSS to say I'm starting to get nervous?

I guess what is a little annoying about OMac getting dropped is I kind of feel it's another case of favourites getting passes while Oscar get's one poor game while almost the entire team plays awful but he gets the chop. Seems like the margin for error for him is very small. I will admit I kind of like him, I recognise he has his deficiencies but I really feel that our defence has looked more settled since he came back. He's allowed May and Lever to play their more natural roles, and really I didn't think he's done a hell of a lot wrong considering that against Port there was an onslaught of easy inside 50s.

Oliver has massive upside but he needs a good midfield coach to get the best out of him, he just seems to make decisions really rushed. There's a difference between someone who can make quick decisions and someone who's rushed because what he does puts players in worse positions under more pressure. I feel like Gus has reached his ceiling and is on the decline (that said could get back to being a good footballer), he just doesn't seem to be coming close to hitting his 2018 form. I'd hope for an early to mid second rounder for Gus. First rounder for Oliver but I would be firmly against it.

I’m a little meh about selection this week, I’m worried the match committee have had their good period across GC to Lions and they’ve gone back to form. I feel like they needed to drop one of Melksham, Fritta, or Hannan as collectively they haven’t been great recently. Hannan missed some tackles badly last week so perhaps it’s a bit of a message. I like the INs, they address issues we had last week. Bennell - shocking skills Lack of run - ANB and Tomlinson Appetite for contest - AvB OUTs wise the only eyebrow raiser is Oscar as at least having him in the team provides another option should May not be having a good day or if he gets injured. I feel like we’re being short down back. Ultimately the midfield has to put in a much better showing, they are the lucky ones to have missed out on the chop. Brayshaw, Jones, even Harmes you could’ve quite easily argued for being dropped.

Or possibly Jones for Tomlinson.

It did almost seem to be a procession of Rising Star nominations against us, every week some random newbie would come in and show some players who had been at the club for 5-8 years how to play football. I’d really love to see Jacko get a nomination at some point this year.

I would liked to see Bedford given another crack but I’m ok with ANB coming in for Kozzie. I think one of the major questions is do we bring back Bennell with the full expectation he won’t play against North? Or hold him back one more game perhaps looking ahead to say we may need him vs North. Also looking even further ahead if almost argue he’s more important to have vs the pies. I have a feeling that Jones is going to survive the chop, it’s tempting to make some wholesale changes but I think we’re going to end up with OUT TMac, Kozzie IN AvB, ANB.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Tom back in against North as a way of managing Jackson’s fitness. It’s interesting you point to Tom getting to more contests because I felt like last Thursday was a real embodiment of what he’d been dishing up for a while, he always seems to get to the contest just that fraction too late which means at best he can spoil it but most of the time he gets out marked. In 2018 his first few steps off the mark were, for a tall forward, actually pretty powerful and quick. Now they just look slow and lumbering.

Not a lot of tackles stuck properly last week, not a problem for AvB!

Tough on our defence, their entries were with very little pressure from our midfields. How often were they streaming towards the forward line with players essentially escorting the player with the ball? Not unlike the forward line, for the defence to function properly it requires the midfield doing their job properly. Instead they turned the ball over with easy kicks and handballs (jeez it really was a horror show).