Pates

Negatives: Destroying us in the middle, our clearance winners are being given a football lesson. They’ve clearly done their homework on Max and his tapping, despite having easily the best ruckman on the ground we’re getting no reward for it. Ae lost our heads early in the quarter, started doing more hack kicks to nothing and our disposal became atrocious. Pulled it back a little but they were bringing a much higher intensity. Some good inside 50s ruined with poor kicking and decision making. I really wish Langdon had left his mark to Melksham, much better kick, I had very little confidence in him nailing it. The umpiring has been abysmal, marks not given, plucked free kicks out of nothing that cost us. And the Lions do 3 short kicks in a row in our forward line that should’ve been play on to put the pressure on them allowed to be called a mark. Positives: Not many, but their dominance didn’t cost us as high as it should’ve. They were all over us and had some great chances, I’d put the margin at at least 30+ if they had taken their chances. Our midfield needs to lift. By the way, the commentators continue to blame Nev for putting his head over the ball. He was picking the ball up, even if he had done what Dal Santo was saying there wouldn’t have been time to turn the body. For them to keep saying that Jetta basically created the contact is completely ignoring that the Lions player chose to bump.

Both teams had chances and both would feel like they could’ve got better reward for opportunities. Weid is taking grabs which is a plus but bugger me that miss was god awful. I hope there’s someone giving him pointers on what he’s doing wrong. Can’t be coughing up opportunities like that. Clayton’s kicking is becoming a liability. Twice he butchered it to give them an inside 50.

Poor Spargs! ?

If we’re to play finals we need to pull out wins against quality opposition, we lost to West Coast, Geelong, and Richmond albeit the cats one was close and I great chance to snatch it. We simply have to win one of this week or next week. I think we face Brisbane in an interesting time because they are in form and we are just starting to find some confidence. The Lions fans aren’t wrong about a couple of things, Gawn and Petracca are a large reason for our form but also the way we’re playing around the ground is a lot more reminiscent of 2018.

I think we would’ve been a team that benefited had they extended the bench, we have a healthy list a would’ve been able to rotate players through the game. But I’m fine with the decision not to, there’s been plenty of tinkering already this year.

I’m happy to see Jones back, I think he’ll be hungry to make this shot count. Pretty similar types of players, Jones needs to bring that pressure and tackling to his game. Hopefully he snag a goal or two as well.

This is the really screwed up thing with the Essendon game, we miss out on being able to have a rest when the whole competition gets to recover. I know it could just be seen as “one of those things” but it still feels like we’ve got the raw end of the stick.

If I’m not mistake Richmond somehow got a free kick from this even though he flew over a Melbourne player.

Ah good old Bruise Free Footy, still would enjoy seeing Viney smash him into the ground (fairly of course ?).

I hope Viney smashes him into the ground this week!

I can’t see Harley playing all the games, he above anyone will probably be one that gets “managed”. Given that our tough couple of games in a row is in the same state he could back up those two but we might have to rest him for Adelaide and then bring him to Tassie vs the Roos. Good to hear the confidence in the playing group though, this is hopefully where that monster pre-season on Hell and Back starts to bear fruit.

Harmes may have his hands busy with Neale.

I’d like to see us trial 3 talls but I’m not sure this is the week to do it. With it meant to be damp on the weekend I think a ground level player like AvB is probably the better choice, for me that’s Jones. I back Weid and LJ in to play with confidence this week, Tom’s got a fight on his hands.

Personally I’m pretty happy with those times, living in the UK it means I do t have to wake up at 4am to watch the games!

Hate to say it Saty but the health of AFL players is always up for speculation and release of information. What reaction do you think people would have if someone got injured in the game and afterwards the media chose not to report it or ask about it? If it's a disease or mental health issue that's different, but if it happens on the footy field then chances are the information will get out at some stage whether it's through the club, media, or leak. I say well done to Goodwindees for having the scoop. As for AvB, I'm gutted that he'll miss a few matches but on the plus side when others may be tiring from the crammed fixture he will hopefully be fresher and able to have an impact.

Bugger! Crap time for it to happen as well, credit to @goodwindees for the scoop! I think they will try to squeeze TMac into the team because of this, rotate Weid and Tom as FF/CHF. LJ can play as a bit of jack of all trades role, start him in the forward pocket, give him all ruck time when it’s not Stef Martin, possibly even play him as a midfielder. Really not ideal for AvB, bloke can’t take a trick. Jones and ANB probably in the mix as well.

Squad depth is talked about a lot in the premier league during the busy December period, unless teams come up against the best teams they usually have at least 1-2 players that are usual starting 11 playing off the bench or not named. Now we can’t quite do the same thing with the Dees aside from rotating in and out of the side but I wonder whether they may look at positional changes to give players rests. Such as playing Petracca predominantly forward for a match or giving Jackson more ruck time. Either way I think the club, with Burgess advising them of player conditioning, May have to be flexible and creative. As another aside I wonder if this could be something the AFL considers for future seasons. Cramming extra matches is in the middle of the season, end it with a bye, get an extra round for TV $$$.

I feel like we’ve got the pieces of the puzzle to be a competitive club in the top 4, it’s just a matter of whether we can put it all together and whether the game plan (and coach?) holds up.

That was very reminiscent of the old Neitz rubber chest, if you saw him do that early you could just about bank it he’d have a mare. Definitely shouldn’t be dropped though, if Tommy comes in it shouldn’t be at his or Sam’s expense.

It’s not quite season over but it will make it difficult. We probably needed to win either one of them to make finals anyway but there’s something about losing two on the trot that hurts the confidence. That Geelong loss could well come back to haunt us, lost it at selection and had our chances at the end.

I have just though about one annoying factor with the next games having shortened breaks, I suspect Harley will have to be rest for at least one of them to ensure his recovery is on track. Unless the AFL announce an extended bench which I would be up for given our headache of how to fit TMac in! But assuming not I’d say play him vs Brisbane and have him miss the Port match.

That's true but given the nature of the rolling fixture you can make requests for the next run to be kinder based off the way we have been pretty screwed over.

I'd be very happy for us to play two Alice Springs home games back to back. We're no longer giving up any home ground/crowd advantage and Alice is a place we'd be more familiar with than most so I would be strongly advocating it on our end. Very few teams have anything that they can call a home now, maybe we can take advantage of us actually having played there many times.

Haha I want them to suffer as well, but we know the AFL won't be doing that to them so we need to make it at least somewhat appealing to all parties.

It's a damn good question, maybe by being arrogant cheats? But on the subject of them, I think we should apply to the AFL to play Essendon in Alice Springs as THEIR home game and then have our home game vs Freo in Alice afterwards and there are a couple of reasons why this would actually work and make logical sense. There is word that they want to do their fabled "Dreamtime Match" in Darwin. So how about this: * Richmond vs Essendon - Darwin Dreamtime match (Try to arrange a decent break for both teams, not that the AFL ever did that for us!) * Essendon vs Melbourne - Alice Springs, do the make up match in a way that Essendon don't have to do a huge amount of travel onto their next game. They can do clinics to build back their shattered reputation, I'm sure they could find somewhere to base themselves. * Melbourne vs (Unknown) - I say Freo because that's been a common opponent but it could be anybody, we don't have to travel for a week and we get a good chance to stay up there