Pates

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.

I can only imagine the FD have demanded that he back it up again this week, it may be as SWYL has suggested they are really making him earn his spot rather than getting it by default. If he has another good performance in whatever version of a scratch match they are doing this week (any word on that?) but gets overlooked again I will be very confused. Especially if Jacko isn't very impactful.

I'm not going to say he set the world on fire the whole time, certainly Geelong was a level above, but the rest of the games he played his role well with very good patches.

Hore might be unlikely for the rest of the year if he keeps getting these injuries. Might be best to just put him on ice for the year and have him focus on 2021.

Weid played well from his games vs WC in 2018 to the Hawks Final. 4 games in a row.

100% agree with this, without Tom having an impact this year I can't see us being much more than a bottom 6 side. Only way that doesn't happen is if someone else pops up out of nowhere to take Tom's place as key forward.

There seems to be a habit between these two sides of the underdog winning in recent years, we're the underdog this year so maybe that could be a good sign.

It's going to be interesting to see how much game time they give to Harley this week. Perhaps longer stints in the forward line as "rests". For me they shouldn't be bringing in two players that fitness wise are underdone, so I think they see Vanders as being able to actually last longer than HB.

Exactly, we kept giving kids a taste and games on the back of "he's got great talent" for way too long, if Jackson isn't being picked because he is PLAYING BETTER than Weids then I can't get behind the FD logic.

Fair enough, is Jackson earning his spot too? Honestly from what I've seen the answer is no.

I've signed it because it would drive the Pies faithful mad and make Eddie spit chips. But having said that, they entered the competition with a team that was already wearing black and white stripes that felt strongly it was linked to their identity, so they sought to protect it. Port signed a contract saying that they wouldn't wear the prison bars strip, those were the terms they accepted. I can tell you right now if they wore red yolk and navy blue in their SANFL days, agreed to the terms they have with the Pies and then decided "actually no we're going to do this instead" I'd be unhappy about it. A side note to add though, it wouldn't be the first professional sporting league in the world to have two clubs with similar strips. They're unique in their own way so for me it doesn't make a huge difference.

So I'm a little annoyed about Weid not getting picked this week but it could be they are thinking about the conditions and one wrap on Jackson that I will give to the FD is that his is good below his knees. But if Weid puts in another strong showing and gets overlooked again they might as well start to paint over his locker because whether we would want him to remain would be moot. He'd go. As for who comes remains on that bench, personally my choice would be: Pickett, Jackson, AvB, Smith ANB unlucky but Pickett is the similar sort of player and runs hard while providing a spark. If AvB is fit enough to be picked as an emergency then he's fit enough to be played and Jones was poor last week, a swift kick up the bum could be good for the former captain. Jackson stays as a back up ruckman and because this appears to be the route the FD are taking with him, he needs to show more than last week though. Smith stays as another lucky one. I feel like conditions helped him to keep his spot, OMac can be quite lumbering in the wet, this gives Smith a second opportunity to prove he deserves a spot. If he keeps flying at the ball and TMac is having another stinker then I would really like to see them swap positions.

All for this, what has Jackson done to earn his spot? Hardly set the world on fire in the pre-season games, I'm bemused that we are pushing him so early in his development on the back of what exactly?

I have feeling Oliver could have a day out against Essendon, this isn't based on anything in particular but Oliver has proven he hasn't lost his ability to find the ball. Petracca is turning heads now, which means the tag will comes. Instead of dragging the tagger away from the ball and playing Trac in the forward line I'd like to see him say to Goodwin, "leave them to me" and back himself to beat the tag.

The one thing I would point out is that we were absolutely murdering Carlton in the first quarter, if that had been full length I honestly feel like we would've been 10 goals in front. Quarter time was a massive blessing to them as it gave Teague a chance to talk with them to restructure and restart. Impossible to know how they would've reacted to being that far behind at that stage.

The interesting thing right now is that we really have a close to full list to choose from so this should be an opportunity for players to push pressure on their peers to force their way into the team. Interesting the Oscar wasn't mentioned in that article, might indicate that they will persist with Smith (god help us if he keeps going for stupid speckies). AvB is in our best 22 if fit, so the question comes when do they decide he's fit? I agree with the idea that we can't carry two players who will be on half game time so until AvB is up to being able to play closer to 70% he might not find a way in.

I think Fritch could be looked at to fill what Melksham was doing a couple of years ago should Jake continue to produce low results. Still I'm also happy for us to persist with him deeper, should've had at least two more goals.