Maldonboy38

May looks off his best and possibly carrying an injury, so Turner in for him. Spargo another week away. I will never be convinced of Dunstan or Shache as AFL footballers. Our forward set up is better with BBB in it, but he has to be fit and able enough. If he comes in, Rivers or Sparrow to the sub., Laurie back to Casey unfortunately.

Happy to go hard for elite talent, but 3 picks for one player seems too much for me. Taylor and Lamb know what they are doing, so I am very relaxed watching how they play this out. The main issue for me, is how long will our current window last? I call it the Gawn window, because when he retires, we will probably lose May, BBB & TMac won't last as long as Gawn, and Viney will possibly have a shorter career because of the way he plays. Trac, Oliver, Salem, Lever et al... will be nearing the end of their careers. So, this Gawn window is open for another 3-4 years. Our recruiting at the end of this year has to be about the post Gawn era. For that reason, I prefer NOT to go after a single player, but prefer 2 or 3 top 20 players who can be part of the next generation.

Great game of footy. If it continues at this pace, everyone will tire, and it becomes a big man's game. At this point Essendon's rucks might make the difference, like Gawn and Grundy did last night in the last quarter. If the Pies win, my tipping is 9/9. I loathe Essendon. I hope the Pies win, but I feel impure typing it.

He's always had it - he needs a long run of games to find/produce it. He never was allowed a full season in the 22 to find his game with us. If van Rooyen was the Weid, he would have been subbed and dropped next week. Scott is backing him in and encouraging him to simply go for it. I always liked him, but in the end the selectors went with other options. But I can't stand that he chose the Bombers. I hate it that I like the Weid but hate his club and jumper.

I have slept on it all, read over the posts added to this thread today, had my morning coffee, and can now be a tad more reasonable about reflecting on last night. This was a Dees Goodwin win. His ethos is that the 22 can reset after any play, goal, break etc... Last night, it took us longer to reset than usual. Often, if we have a bad quarter, we reset at the break, or at half time. But things didn't change or turn until half way through the 3rd quarter. But we did reset, the game turned, and we surged ahead. The last quarter was us at our best. Dogged. Manic. Fierce. Lots of little extras, one percenters, off the ball hard work. Richmond were very good at ground level, while we were atrocious for 3 quarters. JVR and Chandler - wow. Although they were collectively responsible for a lot of the poor skills and messy decision making, our central body of players need more credit for the win: ANB, Jordon, Sparrow, McVee, Bowey, Brayshaw, Grundy, Hibberd. These guys in the 2nd half worked their a**es off, albeit with frustrating errors involved. Gawn & Grundy and finding their partnership and I love it. We have a lot of work to do, especially forward, but we won.

Brayshaw must have snorted a line, had 5 energy drinks, drank 3 cups of coffee and had a Boost drink. He is chirping along like a chipmunk.

Now, what do we do about our poor contested ball intensity, and our horrid ground ball skills in our defensive 50? The Tigers ripped us apart in these 2 areas tonight. If Dusty kicked straight we probably lost. A major and persisting issue - terrible handballing. Inaccurate, wrong choice, to a player under pressure, high loopy blind dangerous ones, players having to stop running to take them. Poor in every way. And although only 20 touches, I hope we don't drop Jordon again. Some of his off-ball work, tackling, and defensive running tonight was so, so good.

6. Viney daylight 5. Langdon 4. Gawn 3. Lever (including a LOT of brain fades) 2. Chandler 1. JVR NOTE: Sparrow, ANB, Hunter and Jordon all worked hard but...

I cannot believe we won that game. Apart from an increasingly good last quarter, our game play, skills, and decision making were as poor as they have been in 3 years. Take a bow Jack Viney - epic game in every way. And welcome to the big time JVR.

That JVR is soft, rubbish, not up, to it, needs 2 years to develop etc... He goes alright though.

WHAT IS GOING ON WITH OUR DECISION MAKING???? AAAARRRRGGGHHHH!

Lever with 1 hand casually misses the ball. Facepalm.

Umpiring aside... I have not been up off my chair yelling at the screen since the 2021 GF, but this time it incredulous fury. It is simply not possible for a squad with this talent to make so many fundamental football errors, both in decision making AND skill. It looks like 2012/2013 /2014 team. And as for those pathetic, "get-rid-of-the-ball-quickly" handballs that go 50 cms, or the loopy one over the top so 2 Richmond players can cause physical pressure or damage, can't the on-field leadership correct that?

The last 2 minutes has been some of our cleanest method all night. Long may it continue.

Yep, swing Brayshaw into the middle and leave Trac down forward. JVR is being out-muscled but I would just get him to move more. Apart from BBB he is our best forward option and one I like. TMac is probably done, and I am no believer In Schache. We miss Salem so much. Bowey, Rivers and McVee poor tonight and making horrid decisions.

JVR is being out-bodied too easily. Needs to get on his bike and move Balta around..

Jack Viney has been immense. Love Sparrow's effort but his decision making is sub par. Langdon and Hunter working hard.

We are staying in this game by some great passages of play, but our lack of intensity and fumbling is killing us.

Well done Langdon and Fritta. But what has happene to our contested ball game? Not too long ago we were the best by a long way.

Richmond 3rd player sprinting to every contest, our 3rd jogging in. Very poor. Petty absolutely stinking it up.

Getting annihilated at ground level, and not much intensity or run around stoppages. And I think our basic method has been figured out by most other clubs. Not sure what to do about this.

Freo: Atrocious tall forwards and forward-entry system. Pearce lacks captain/leadership influence Bottom 6 bog ordinary

Bronx cheers. His hands have half held about 10 marks tonight, and one finally stuck. If he ever gets to the stage where he marks most of what he gets to, he will be an unstoppable player. Until then, he remains in the 'potential' category with patches of brilliance.

13 scoring shots to 4. An absolute thrashing in everything except the scoring. Freo look either 9/10 or 2/10 with nothing in between. Make that 14 scoring shots.

At last a journalist who can read, spell, think, critique, analyse, and write clearly, while remembering his place in the landscape. Like many, I watch little AFL media. Most of it is simply insufferable. I turn Kayo on 10 minutes before the game starts to avoid the torrent of glitz, glamour, ill-informed opinion, and stupidity. I occasionally try to watch "The Round So Far" or "Access All Areas" but I turn it off 3 minutes in. Kane Cornes is an intelligent, well-presented ex-player but has become the epitome of a social media shock jock, like the protest leader with the megaphone yelling from the back, while the real protestors are confronted by police.