Pates

Keep giving us silly soft goals, then when it’s our turn we don’t take full advantage of things. Why did Salem wait for every cats player to get back before kicking it?

The forward line is still my main concern, I like someone's earlier suggestion of playing Hunt at FF and move Fritta into a HFF role, keep Tommy Mac as a CHF (please let him clunk some marks this week!). Like so much of course it's dependent on delivery, spot up passes or at least space for players to run into. Hunt has had a good start to the year and looked good in the limited footage from the Intraclub match. Honestly with this year going the way it has I literally don't have a clue what we'll bring to the table this weekend.

I'm no Waleed Aly apologist, frankly I think the guy's a bit of a self-important [censored], but there's a big difference between putting forward a political standpoint, and outright, blatant racism JUST DAYS after Eddie goes up to Goodes and shaking the blokes hand telling him it's not on what happened to him. Eddie makes some big statements almost weekly that have him up the top of tool of the week nominations, but they are mostly self-serving and ego driven. This was making a mockery of a guy who had been devastated by being called an ape by a young girl of the club he's the President of, Darcy was teeing it up to tell him to shut the F up but Eddie is still of the boys club mentality where if "it's all in a bit of fun" it's fine to say anything he wants. He's also been offensive towards women, and while Sam Newman on the Footy Show has been the one doing the disgusting acts such as mocking Nicky Winmar with the blackfacing, Eddie was one of the leading voices behind the show and he never stopped him. TV/Radio channels can decide what kind of values they stand for by who they employ to be their talent, and advertisers can decide what kind of people they want to be connected to their products by paying for air time during those shows. So you ask who arbitrates the cancelling? They do by deciding what kind of people they want representing them. Since you bring up the domestic violence side of things, much like racism it's a cultural and generational change. No not all men are responsible when a woman dies from domestic violence, but there's no doubt that I think as men we need to more accountable for what we say around our friends and likewise what they say. If a mate of mine wants to make a flippant comment about doing something disrespectful or abusive towards their wife/gf/partner I'm going to call him out on it because I think it's our responsibility to push things in the right direction. I usually try not to do big long social topic posts, but I think Eddie has got away with a lot in the past. Maybe Lumumba is a bit of it catching up with him.

Harmes was really good and important in the middle in 2018, his shut down roles were absolutely critical on certain players and he forced them to be accountable on the rebound. I'm not convinced of him in defence but it is still early days in terms of the season, the proof will come at the end of the year.

Urgh, reading that is just cringe worthy. Darcy isn't even subtle about it, that Eddie keeps his job after that and so much more is disgusting.

I started this thread with asking how long do we wait, obviously Essendon may well have put a crimp in that timeline. From the footage they released on the website from the intraclub match it appeared that Tom was playing a higher CHF role almost borderline wing. Which is fine as it gets him into the game. I just really want to see him clunk some marks, I still have faith the ability to be a good forward is in him, I think he's just down on confidence so he doesn't seem to attack the aerial contests with as much force as he did in 2018.

My main question regarding Spargo is what is he? Is he a small forward? Is he a small HFF? Is he an outside midfielder? I just don't see where he fits into the list.

Waiting another round to see Bennell and Kozzie play together feels like such a tease. They should have played together vs Carlton but Kozzie got himself suspended through poor judgement, they should've played together last week but Essendon went and ruined that (they're very good at ruining things), and now I finally thought they were going to get in a game together and they choose to omit Bennell. I fully expect this is just management, there hasn't been any word on him hurting himself so I picture the fitness staff had this worked out in advance. As for who stays on the bench, I feel like they had a plan for the forward line and how they were going to tackle the ruck situation without another tall so Jackson might miss out. At a guess I'm going to say: Pickett, Brayshaw, Jetta, Hibberd. But truthfully I've been pretty out with the selections so I kinda give up now!

In some ways I think if clubs knew of some particular dirty laundry regarding this topic right now now would be the best time to come forward and acknowledge it and apologise. Collingwood have denied it for so long that to admit it now will kind of look hollow, as if they were forced into it.

Throwing up a thought, if hypothetically we could have a full crowd in Alice Springs, and bearing in mind that Tourism NT are one of our key sponsors, would people be keen for us to have a home match up there? My personal thoughts are that in this crazy world of ours if we could have a scenario of having a game with a crowd there vs an empty MCG I would take Alice Springs with both hands.

I would also be interested to know more about this, or at least what era it fell in.

I can't imagine off the back of an intraclub match they will be making many if any changes. The only one I can see happening is Brown in for Hannan. Just on Hannan's selection for last round was there any word in particular as to what had prompted his selections? I do see him being (somehow) squeezed into the best 22 when he's fit but we hadn't really heard much about his progress and then *boom* there he was.

Sorry can someone catch Emma up on something. Is there a suggestion that Essendon allowed him to train AFTER getting the irregular test? If that is the case then that’s disgraceful handling and we should be petitioning for the 4 points. If not I actually feel like they could’ve done a bit of a cheeky and postpone the game until mid week to assess if they could field a team, then make our game against the cats on Monday night. Definitely feels like we’re getting shafted with zero wrong doing in this case.

I like Hannan a lot but I agree, two weeks in a row Brown pulls out some goals, it shouldn’t be ignored. Our forward line looks short without one of Weids or Brown in there as well. I really wanted to see Sam do well in the intra-club but it looks like Brown has the form.

I understand the decision to postpone the game but my question is why couldn’t they pencil the postponement to Monday to establish how many players were in close contact with McKenna? If the AFL rules are clear that they can play if they have a list to choose from and they established those players by now then we could’ve played a Monday night game instead. Would’ve sucked for Essendon but now two other teams benefit and we get royally shafted. To me it seems like the panicked and shut it down before considering other plans.

Dogs have really shot themselves in the foot here, game should be over but they've kept GWS in it.

Difference is the JC has a lot more seasons backed up, Tom has one outstanding season and half a season where he started his swing forward.

Good game so far, high intensity and decent skills. Dogs need to start converting though.

Agree with this, I'm not sure if it was the desperate plea of a homesick player as has been in the past but clearly the club got the impression he wanted to return to Perth and felt it was the right time to pull the trigger. I think they also recognised he was damaged goods a bit at the time. He would barely have played a game for us last year, if at all. But the club also did roll the dice that Tom would continue his form and Sam would improve as a footballer. So far both gambles have failed. So far.

Melksham was worse but I think they're slightly different players. For forward line structure I think Melksham is more important. I'm a little worried about the fitness of players as well, but perhaps their banking on the fact that Vanders did a large body of work in the pre-season. I think Vanders was actually ahead of Bennell fitness wise. Weid, ANB, and Oscar are all players that people have long believed to be Goody's favourites. I think it's quite telling that all three (and Jones) aren't playing.

Going to start this by saying I think he still has the goods in him to get back to being a good power forward. Perhaps not the 50+ goal a year forward we need but still capable of 30-40+. Having said that Tom has been poor for a while now. Like others he had injury issues coming into 2019 which made him start slow and aside from the Carlton game which he subsequently got injured, he never really played a game worth noting. Now in 2020, with a full pre-season of fitness under his belt, he has started with two poor games. The question in the title says it all: how long do we wait for him to turn it around? This could potentially tie in with Weiderman and how he isn't being played, where if Tom's poor form continues and maybe if Sam is banging down the door, perhaps Sam takes on the full mantle of the FF role. I have long believed that Tom's form is massively linked to our ability to compete with the best, without a key forward target taking grabs, we look really lost as a team.

Have they announced they're definitely doing one this week? Would be nice if they had a little more of a running tally with a score.

I have to believe that the FD has made the decision based on two things: they want Weids to be bashing down the door before they select him again and based on the expected conditions possibly being suited to a smaller/mid-sized forward line. Might well be that the spot Sam takes is in fact TMac.

For me the interesting thing about the inclusions is I feel like they have gone for multiple options in the forward line. There are players we can shift around the ground to give people rests up forward and potentially provide different avenues at goal. This has to be seen as crossroads game for Tommy though, 2 poor outings you can shrug off a little but 3 will start to create serious questions marks and dropping Jones I feel could be a bit of a statement to say that previous service now means nothing. Produce or be dropped. For me I'm happy with those changes. ANB stiff, but he must have know the selections committee was only going to keep him in if he produced the goods. He gave one good quarter (like many others), that was it.

One of the major shifts that the Carlton ruckman did following the first quarter onslaught was he just made absolutely sure that Gawn didn't have a clean run at it. He put body on body which meant Max couldn't get his deft taps away as easily. I would imagine that is that way all coaches will look to play against Max (except the gun rucks in the comp like Grundy). It really disappointed me seeing our ball winners fail when the heat rose and they no longer had Gawn tapping it down their throat. Really hope that if that happens again this match they know how to better handle it.