deejammin'

I hope you’re right if we do rest some guys. Such an even top 12 atm it’d be great to put a gap on the competitors.

Time to start getting into Kane Cornes then. Made up a rumour to the advantage of his old club with absolutely nothing behind it. Deserves to be dragged because of this, [censored].

Found it on YouTube through Fox footy. Both the AFL and MFC app have the weird cut 3.50 version but because you told me it existed I was able to find it. The version on the apps is weird. Even shorter than where channel 7 left it one the broadcast. Oh well.

How did you see Goodwin’s full presser? I can only get the clipped 3.50 version that cuts out early on the AFL app and our MFC version.

I agree if they’re injured. But last year we were 7-0 playing a VFL West Coast side and 8-0 playing the Roos and we didn’t rest sore players, that’s when we should’ve. Right now we’re 4-2, not in very good form and have a chance to play close to our full strength lineup. If players are injured, sure, rest them. But if they’re just a bit sore but capable of playing we need to get our best team on the park, in the right positions and find some form. Let’s get to 5-2 and 6-2 and then think about resting players with niggles, right now I’d like to see us play.

I would be limiting resting players. We actually haven’t had much continuity this season and it would be good to keep changes to a minimum. Petty to go back this week, ideally with May, Lever and Hibberd. Brayshaw to play more mid/wing. In: BBB, Out: JJ (sub), Laurie(plays VFL) Obviously if anyone is injured or sore we rest them, if May in for Turner, if Chandler Laurie in. Grundy stays in, he and Max need to play together. I think BBB has to play, Schache is the other option but he doesn’t have BBB size and presence up forward. BBB’s preseason and his first two weeks were good and he will take McKay off JVR. We also need Fritta and Pickett to get back to their best after a few lean weeks. Most of all our defense needs to get back to its best and our mids need to start winning clearance and contested ball again. Big chance to reset against a team that despite a good coach and a few gun players is absolutely putrid.

A difficult game to watch but a win is a win. Proud of our resilience and great to see us come back to win from a decent deficit, something, as it’s been noted, we haven’t done for almost all of last season and this one. Viney, Chandler, Gawn, Grundy, Langdon, Hunter, Lever all huge. Van Rooyen unbelievable in the last quarter. Trac and Clarry a bit off their best but still very good. There are however, worrying signs. Our backline is a bit off. It’s happened all year that teams get easy uncontested marks to players around 30-60 metres out, even to key forwards, something that just did not happen our premiership year. May looks a bit off, McVee, Rivers and Bowey all do great things but also make big mistakes as young players do. Hibbo is heart and soul and a brilliant lockdown defender but his turnovers hurt us last night. Our defensive structure has broken down much more than in the previous two years, not to mention how vulnerable we are to ground balls. Brayshaw’s best is excellent, his worst very worrying. For this reason I think Petty has to go back, we look so settled with May, Petty and Lever back there and they play better together. It also takes pressure off Hibberd, Bowey, Rivers and Brayshaw to play their best. As Goody says our contest and defense is the heart of our team. Let’s put it back together, I don’t think May, Petty and Lever have played a single game together down back this year, let’s get it settled this week. Our contest is also off, teams have figured out how to stop or intercept our first possession and we tend to setup so aggressively this means they leave the contest with very little pressure. I have faith in Yze and Goody to address this but we need to do it quickly, we are usually an elite contest team but at the moment teams are beating us in there, Gawn back will help but it seems we need to do some work on our setup and pressure around the contest. All in all I believe we’re definitely a top 8 team, hopefully top 4, at our best top 2. We now have three games we should win. Bank them, get the structure and form of key players right and let’s launch an assault from 7-2. Go Dees!

He asked the umpire and then relayed what the ump said. He had no idea. He looked surprised when the ump told him.

That may be the rule. But it’s not the rule if you literally never pay it. I’ve watched close to every game this season (love Kayo!) and I can point to hundreds of examples of this. Watch the highlights of Florent’s kick against Port, there’s two players in that area, there’s countless other examples of players doing that. To the point that players had forgotten this is the rule. This is THE problem if you only pay it once in a hundred times it’s an enormous disadvantage to the one team it happens to. If the AFL wants to enforce that, fine, send out a memo at the start of the season that they will be harsh on this and pay it consistently, the whole time. What they did was cherry pick it once, six rounds and seven games into the season and have a huge impact on the game (reversing a point to a goal). It’s the same as the Coniglio free a few weeks back, if no-one is paying it and you pull it out once and say it’s the rule, but never do it again, no matter how much you justify it it’s a huge disadvantage to the one team who cops it. The narrative coming into this season and last was that they were going to be lighter on the protected area and only pay it when it blatantly effected the ball carrier as the fifty was too big a penalty for indiscretions that didn’t affect the play, same with the stand rule being loosened. This is the complete opposite of that.

At the moment it’s looking likely come round 10 that at best Freo will be 3-7 or 4-6, that’s season over. Particularly given they still would have played only one (St Kilda) of the current top 6 to that point. The question for us is do they then fall apart and give us a great draft pick, I hope so and will be deathriding then. But anyone thinking they are likely finalists is pretty brave, watching them these first 5 weeks they are a very ordinary side playing a very predictable brand of footy. The question now is not whether they make finals, it’s can they turn it around enough to save their coach. Not a fun situation. They’ve also had a pretty good run injury wise, their midfield has been pretty fit, worrying if one of them goes down.

I think we definitely prefer 3 tall forwards, usually two forwards and a resting Grundy/Gawn. I think if we get nice weather we’ll go with BBB, JVR and TMac moving Petty back. However, this week if it is wet as forecast I think BBB stays out and JJ comes into the squad with either Melksham, Laurie or Dunstan as sub. Three tall forwards, three tall backs and a ruck is too top heavy for the wet, assuming Lever gets up of course.

I think Goody was having a little dig at this in his presser, love his expression when he says “ not often we play a curtain raiser”. I love this about Goody, he’s aware we deserve more respect than we get in the AFL, premiership team, finished in the top two two seasons in a row, looking one of the best teams this year also, still consigned to a curtain raiser for pretenders Port. It’s a shame Hibbos out as he’s the perfect build for a role on Stringer. Oh well. If not too wet: Out: Hibberd In: Brown (Petty back) If wet (likely): Out: Hibberd In: JJ, Laurie also in as sub, Petty back, two relatively mobile tall forwards in JVR and TMac in the wet. Kozzie to play more forward with JJ more midfield. This looms as a danger game for me, Essendon have troubled us, even the last two years, when they were rubbish! If we can win this and get to 4-1 with Gawny, Salem, Hibbo, Woey all slowly coming back we’re doing very well. Frightening to think we’ve been missing May, Kozzie, Gawn, Salem, Brown, Fritsch, Viney at different times this season and we could still start 4-1. Go Dees just win!

Drafting Lachie Hunter a master stroke for our free kick count. 🤪🤪🤪

I don’t feel for Jackson, Nathan Jones went on radio last year and outlined this exact scenario and the club told Jackson this was a possibility multiple times. There’s a huge risk when a young player goes to a club on huge coin to be a cherry on top premiership winner. That risk is if things go wrong or your form dips the scrutiny is immediate and immense, probably unfairly so. Tom Boyd, Tom Scully, while they both ultimately pushed their clubs to some success their individual careers never hit the peak they were destined for as the constant pressure and mention of money stifled their love of the game at a young age. This was always a possibility for Jacko and as much as I love him and will always be grateful for his part in our flag he was very aware of this component of the decision and sadly this is just the beginning. It’s rare that one player comes in and completes the puzzle, Dangerfield took a long time to get the flag, Lynch is one of the few that worked for Richmond but even that looked a bust for a bit. I think this is just the beginning for Jacko and Freo, lose to the Suns this week and the blowtorch will turn up to 11 but even if Freo can eek out some wins the bubble has burst. They aren’t a team one or two stars away from top 4, they are a team that had one great season with some aging veterans and role players in career best form who are finding out that sustained success in the AFL is very tough. I do however feel for Jayden Hunt, after all these years he’s back at a bottom team playing his absolute guts out. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy with Hunter and the direction we took, but I do feel for Jayden who was a big part culturally, love and effort wise in terms of helping bring our club to where it is now and it’s sad we couldn’t fit him in.

Super impressive turnaround from Casey. Looked a bit lost in the first quarter but huge since then.

Pretty ordinary from Casey so for. Trying to do to much and not kicking it to our forwards. Frankston beating us at stoppages. Need to lift.

Yet to play a single contender and 1-3, perfection.

COVID not injury right? I don’t think we’ll see rucks as the sub. It’s too risky if you lose a mid or a small. They’ll manage Gawn and Grundy’s ruck time through the games and maybe if we can get ahead enough they’ll each get a rest in the second half of the season. The added run of a mid sized sub is huge in a game with no injuries, as we saw this week. I think we’ll keep the sub mid size players like Melksham, Tomlinson, Sparrow, JJ even Salem this season so they can fill a hole almost anywhere. If Trac or Clarry (heaven forbid) go down early in a game the last thing you want to be bringing on is a ruck.

You’re right, immense is overstating it. But he hit targets, moved the ball quickly and won one on one contests. Salem got dinky kicks that led to turnovers and couldn’t move, compete or tackle to his usual standard. Bowey should’ve been able to move better and complete his role better, would he? who knows? but I think an unfit Salem was one of many mistakes we made in last years finals.

100%. Dropping Bowey for Salem for our two finals last year was a big mistake. Salem didn’t look quite right and Bowey was immense in our round 23 flogging of Brisbane. Hopefully we’ve learned our lesson, 2019-21 Salem is one of our absolute best. 2022-23 sore Salem needs to get right back to his very best to fight his way in, with our current backline balance I’d even be tempted to move him to a forward/mid role, although there’s stiff competition there too.

Maybe the club wants to hold its cards close to its chest but I would’ve liked a more thorough injury report this week. No mention of Hibbo, who Goodwin mentioned had a sore achilles in his presser so it’s hardly a secret, Woey who is listed as 4 weeks between the AFL club site and ours which is a lot less than the 6-8 weeks last week, Farris White, Turner and Verral all not mentioned. There’s between 7-10 players to talk about there, it wouldn’t have been hard to be a touch more thorough. Thrilled about Gawny though, I reckon he’s aiming at Anzac eve.

Ditto. We need him, we’re light on for rucks and we need him to be developing. Such bad luck for the young fella.

I agree that Harrison Petty looked very good in his short stint in the ruck, he had a huge leap and his follow up work and tackling was good. Tom Petty I see more as a freefallin’ heartbreaker.

Lever being fully fit has been one of the biggest boons to our team this year. Looking back at 2022 he really only had one or two games (Brisbane at the G mid year) where he was at his best. These first three games he’s been back to his AA best and despite the backline being somewhat shuffled at the start of this year with some new young uns and the absence of May has been incredible.

Roo had already stopped being our second ruck in place of Petty by the last quarter against Sydney. He’s a great kid and he’ll be incredible but JVR also needs to build into full AFL game time. If Brown goes out for TMac due to back soreness I think Petty and TMac will cover backup ruck and JVR will play pure forward. Regardless, if we’re smart we’ll play two backup rucks and try to use them as much as possible to protect and freshen up Grundy. I’d be shocked if we dropped a tall for a small for this reason. Let’s see, but I don’t see Petty being dropped under any circumstances. Also WC with Bailey and Allen have a stronger ruck setup than Sydney, Ladhams may be better than Bailey but only marginally while Allen is a true second ruck option and is miles better than Amartey, who is no more a ruck than any of our options. Grundy will need more support in this game. With their decimated team the only area WC remain decent in is the ruck and for this reason we need talls.