deejammin'

-6 clearances, -27 contested possessions, -25 points from stoppage. Noah Anderson 22 years of age, Rowell 21. By any football metric that is a midfield smashing and they are on average 5-6 years younger than us, so yes, we got smashed by an inexperienced midfield. Trac said as much after the game. Our mids will be super flat with that performance.

My goodness Hawthorn are terrible, or trying to be terrible for draft picks…

Wins a win but: Petty forward experiment is over when playing teams with big forwards. Needed him back tonight, Turner looked all at sea on Casboult and didn’t show his best until moved off him early in the last. Unfortunately no KPF are putting their hands up but I think we have to pull the trigger, BBB, Schache, Joel Smith, Whoever, we need Petty back. I hope JVR doesn’t get suspended but given how the MRO hates MFC fully expecting 3 weeks. Most of all Yze and the mids need to get to serious work, for a team that “prides itself” on contest we were absolutely smashed tonight by a young, inexperienced and shallow midfield, they are good but that was embarrassing.

Goalkicking has killed us! 13.14 with at least 3 out on the full. Should at least be a lot closer. Annoying.

Sestan has been ok in and under in the midfield and kicked a miracle goal. I’d hate to be any forward for Casey today, our kicking into 50 has been appalling. No chance. The one decent kick we’ve had in the second half Jeffo marked but shanked the kick on goal. I wouldn’t write them off based on today.

Too easy for the suns. A coast to coast goal with no pressure. After a dominant display last week Melksham has looked lacking in intent today. Frustrating. Hard to see how we come back from here.

Great goal Melksham. White finally hits a good target in Spargs. All happened because of a great defensive mark from Tommo. Let’s go boys!!

Early days but should West Coast win this I think we all know what the first question in the presser should, but won’t, be.

Reminiscent of our 2022 seniors. We work so hard to create chances with no accuracy only for the opposition to take their chances and get a lead. It’s going to take something special from us in the last quarter as GC keep kicking straight and hitting their forwards and we keep having to scrap and kick miracle goals to stay in it. Frustrating.

Great block by BBB to give Jeffo a basically uncontested mark. Need this one.

Class Bailey!!! Great goal to Bill out of a boundary stoppage!

Amazing goal Sestan!!! Our kicking to our forwards is abysmal, always on their heads, never to advantage. Need to lift to get back in this. KFW started ok early but is dropping marks and getting well beaten.

Spargo nearly pulls down another two foot jump speccy!!!

Great goal BBB. Mitch White’s kicking has been way off today. Bizarre.

Goal to Casey. Casey would be super annoyed to be behind, poor kicking and disposal the difference.

Great intercept marking from Adams down back, link work from Laurie and Spargo and a nice kick from Grey to Melksham leads to an easy goal. Although the subs just got another contested mark forward..

We’re peppering the goals but 4 points. Not sure if the breeze is more difficult to our end but they’ve all been tough shots.

Compared to channel 7 at least they call the play, talk about the game and attempt to know the players names. There’s some annoying mannerisms and GC bias but channel 7 is so bad this is luxury in comparison.

Two quick goals from the Suns to level the game. Day and Burgess lively up forward. GC starting to win clearances and their KPF are marking a bringing the ball to ground.

Good first quarter. Despite missing Moose and Dunstan our midfield is on top and winning good clearances. BBB is worrying his defender, got two pitb frees. Great pass to Charlie Spargo late for a goal on the siren. Joel Smith looks super lively forward, should have three goals but didn’t settle on the run and put one behind, one out in the full. Bailey Laurie looks great, composed, quick, uses it well. Woey and Spargs also good. KFW doesn’t win many taps but his athleticism and follow up work is starting to come through, caused a goal with a great follow up tackle and handball. The backline looks composed and settled, we gave up a couple of easy contested marks early, but settled late. Tomlinson doing ok on Day. Deakin Smith looks a player, Howes does some nice things. Buntine a good leader down there. Only negative is after playing a blinder last week Melksham has been caught couple of times trying to do too much.

Disappointing to give away that late goal. Terrible turnover and then lazy inside d50.

Bailey Laurie, White and Spargs doing very well in the middle. KFW starting to look like a footballer. Smith super dangerous as a forward.

In case people aren’t aware you can watch the replay on the AFL app and site anytime, just search VFL replays, you can send the game as a link but sadly I can’t find a way to post the link here as that’s not a option available through my app. It’s not as enjoyable as the seniors one but some good moments, pretty rubbish commentary. Are you sure you watched it? It wasn’t his best game but watch 4.57 quarter 1 when Brown marks with clear separation on a lead and goals around the corner. There are many other examples but 1.24 quarter 4 is yet another example of Brown getting separation on a lead and hitting a target inside 50, those are the ones I remember off the top of my head, there’s plenty more, including Brown winning a good ruck contest in the 3rd quarter and kicking to Jefferson in the square (who sadly fumbles the mark). I’m not one for hyperbole, I said it wasn’t his best game but decoy is a bit rich. He played the role of taking both James Blanck who I consider box hills best key defender and experienced at VFL level and having Grainger-Barass often triple teaming him when we didn’t move the ball quickly. You may think Grainger their best defender who was on TMac and I don’t think he’s bad, but Blanck is much stronger physically and better as a shutdown defender where Grainger is more an interceptor. I don’t think that forward-line will lack pressure as firstly the four won’t be on the ground at the same time often. Max and Ben would alternate allowing the forwardline to always have three of Chandler, Pickett, ANB, Spargo, Trac, Viney and the other mids who have pinch hit forward this year, plenty of pressure there, plus Fritsch’s pressure has generally been better this year. Happy to agree to disagree but I think you are overly harsh on BBB’s game, I thought he played the role well and showed enough of each skill without having a stand out game. There’s also the question of how VFL form actually equates to AFL. The VFL tends to be a more contested, compressed game than AFL due to ground sizes and VFL game plans to limit AFL players influence. Mitch White absolutely excelled at VFL level but there’s no way he comes back into AFL level as the pace of the game would render him less effective than some of the more athletically gifted players who can struggle at VFL level. There’s many players like this. You may be right, it’s possible Browny won’t come in this week but it’s also not as simple as needing dominant 5 goal VFL performances to come back in, playing a strong role at VFL level can be more important than a dominant glamorous performance.

Yeah I watched it. I didn’t think he was terrible, he led up and down the ground and did some good things. He also did some of the grunt work in the middle of packs without much individual success in a way that freed Smith, Jefferson, Melksham, TMac up. He’s not on fire, it’s certainly not the performance he’d want to put in to be assured of a place in the team, but I think if he played that same role in a way that took the first defender (Collins) and freed JVR, Max and Fritsch up in the way the other three were for Casey we’d look pretty good. It’s also partly my own bias that I’d like to see the BBB, JVR, Max, Fritta combo as I think it’s the most dynamic and has the most different strengths while I really want to see Petty back with Lever and May. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just Petty in forward for Schache, but I’m interested in seeing the Brown JVR combo in particular and thought BBB played a sacrificial role this weekend at Casey that could translate to the seniors. In terms of the Casey game, Melksham was excellent but he plays the Fritsch role and I don’t think you can have two of those, especially against GC’s somewhat mobile tall defense. J Smith was very lively but I think he needs some time to play a few games, especially given how much time he has spent back the last few seasons. Tommy looked more hit and miss to me than Brown, his work up the ground late in game was good, but early on he kept getting swamped and caught and not taking his marks. Brown was workmanlike in a way that brought the other forwards into it and took Box Hill’s best defender all day, didn’t set the world on fire but structurally was important and bullocked and worked hard all game.

Looked like a corky in the upper right leg to me.