Demon Dynasty

Think they gave up on it after a block experiment of approx 4 to 5 games Lewis. He rarely if ever got to the drop at CB. Got on the end of a couple of receives and cleared or in the chain a few times but not much else happened. We are now apparently stuck with a player who was a small zippy forward and was light enough on his feet to pull off the amazing who is now (possibly) a few kegs over his weight of the last year or two. Which was fine if the mid field experiement worked. But not so great in terms of maxing out his original talent as a zippy, creative, crafty small forward that is able to shake loose his opponents on a regular basis and get to work quite a bit / damage around goals. He still does the latter on occasions but the consistency through an entire game now seems a little more muted vs prior years.

Gawn as the main ruck Grundy as sub BB back in for Chandler Bowey for ANB Genuine forwards when available pls. No wanna bees like Grundy and/or Max as a regular option. They just aren't effective enough, accurate enough (in the case of Max @ 44%) and take up the space of another player who could potentially add alot more value.

Thanks for stating the obvious

Think they were hell bent to get him in for KB. That decision might be coming back to bite everyone on the thigh.

He plays more like a medium small much of the time Ouch imv. Sometimes as a medium tall yes. Bit of a crossover player here.

The trouble is many don't play or work hard enough to get to the front often enough though JS. In addition you can have all the tumble punts/dump kicks you like but we lack any system to take advantage of those either in the sense of .... 1. The first point above. They mostly fall short. You need to be in front to take advantage; and 2. We structurally 'usually' play our talls too deep. Most pressured tumble punts aren't going to have the penetration of a drop punt with someone coming off the square in plenty of space under not much pressure. That means a big fella that could take the ball at a higher point usually isn't sitting in the spaces where the tumbles drop. Therefore not many clear marks, but also not enough contested marks with spillage for smalls to work amongst. 3. Instead.... we appear to prefer to use small / small medium forwards to play the higher CHF position for some reason. Usually the oppo are smart and play someone slightly taller and/or bigger bodied to either halve the contest or win it here. In the many times i've watched this set up from behind the goals this year, it certainly hasn't been a winning strategy for us and will often see the oppo slingshot the ball straight out & up the other end putting our defenders under immediate pressure and mids chasing tails. I didnt watch the Geelong game with as much intent as usual due to being very crook but as far as i know we were still persisting with this unsuccesful strategy prior to this match. I'd need to watch the Geelong game again to confirm if that was still the case on Thurs night. Maybe we came to our senses but from what i recall through the haze i'm pretty sure we didn't.

Best to watch the first half Sydee. Most players were a bit off in the third vs the 1st half as Geelong upped their effort & pressure significantly. Contested aerial work, lead efforts, 2nd efforts at ground level, Ruck work up forward, a few Marks inside 50, goal efficiency and work providing an outlet up the ground should see him coming straight in. 4th quarter was quite good also although not quite as busy/involved as his first half.

You'd run the Choco guantlet Mono!?? Not sure i would 😄

Very clever forward craft exponent. He finds space on his opponents when others often struggle. Takes the odd decent contested mark. He rarely misses from within range (say 30 - 40 max). I'd take him ahead of Spargo or Chandler at this point given his Casey form, experience and ability to finish off the good work up the field. That's not to say Spargo or Chandler can't get back to some decent goal kicking form themselves at some stage. However at this point, in terms of potential to finish off other's good work in front of goals, Melksham's presently a fair way ahead of those two imv.

In his rookie years Yze would be last off the track at Junction oval most training sessions practicing his goal kicking. Sometimes an hour after all players had already gone in and changed or having some home made soup! Even under the lights.

That's as plausible as any explanation likely to be put forward DS!

Having had a serious look at the Casey game there's a number of players that should be under serious consideration and a couple that are really putting their hands up. Should be coming straight in.... BB for Chandler Bowey for ANB Tomlinson for Petty (yes you got this completely wrong Simon..... put your hand up son). Tomo in his best form in years and even well ahead of Petty at this point (defensively). Petty as a part time forward is handy but experiment is over now that Joel's in & BB is back. Can't see how/where he fits in. Nothing against Petty just the way it is post injury. He's a VG back up once he gets back to his best form via Casey. Melksham or Harmes for Jordon (as sub). Melksham's in some serious form which might add a few goals up forward if Kozzy, Fritsch or Joel are having a mare. Knocking on the door.... Turner ...back to his best on Friday. No room at AFL level at this point but he is ready if needed imv. Howes ... clean as and reads the play beautifully. Rarely turns it over. Great by hand & foot. Also able to hit targets with last kick inside on occasions. Option here is to bring him in to replace McVee's role. Move McVee into Hunter's role on the wing. McVee great defensively and with his disposals/connections coming into 50 plus the run drive off the wings/HB that Hunter doesn't have. Woewodin...starting to get to the right places more often and alot more contests. Defensively he is quick to get in the oppo's face and corrals well. Disposal getting better by the week. Still kicks the odd clanger but its more like 1 in 4 instead of early days 50/50. Classy outside player with decent run/speed who often finds targets inside 50. Something we are crying out for big time. Woewodin's a juicy prospect. Once Clarry is back I'd be almost tempted to leave Sparrow or Langdon out for Woe for a block of games and see how he goes. Exactly what we need on the outside but can he cut the mustard at this point under the big lights for more than one or two quarters. I'd roll the die in the next few weeks once Clarry returns. Will any of the latter 'Disney' options happen? Maybe in a parallel world!

Chandler for mine. Needs to rediscover some form and finish at Casey alongside Spargo. We need at least two genuine tall forwards & a medium tall.... BB, JVR & Smith. Been overweight too many smalls for weeks. One or more of those three (maybe in a shared role) need to take the true CHF posi. Been our biggest positional weakness all year. We'll win more consistently once we solve the Tall/Small balance, have a regular tall genuine forward playing CHF (not Grundy or Max) and the forward line playing a more dangerous style/system that sees separation and room being made as a result of regular leads etc. That may mean playing Grundy as the sub? Comes on at some stage in the second half for Max when/if he's cooked.

Dunstan's kicking was certainly a coin flip in this match but he did pull off a ripping 40 meter kick lacing out BB on a lead into the flank at the 2:40 mark of the last from just forward of wing. The sealer for this match actually came from some nice work at ground level from Jefferson to Bill to Melk for an around the corner (7:30 in the last).

Can anyone explain why Shannon Neil was awarded a free at the 24 min mark of the third when he went up against Deakyn in a 1 v1?? Deakyn had front berth and both hands went up for the mark? Incredible. Lucky Neil's kick for goal was only a minor. If anyone can think of a reason after reviewing it i'd genuinly be interested in your thoughts.

Big call Macca. Thought it was the wrong call all the way. There was no malice or force in the sling at all. Both went to ground together. On the night i figured either HTB or a ball up. The MRO agreed and would normally go the other way if they thought there was any degree of 'dangerous'. The ump's call was proven to be wrong in the end.

Yes i'd also like to say .....that was an outstanding post Biff 👏🏼👏🏼👍🏻

Forwards playing from behind yes..... and doing so in the wet 🤔 Again we seem incapable of some of the required 101s in wet/slippery conditions. If we weren't required to play in winter i might be more understanding.

Im not sure if he's always had that problem since returning from the back injury though Jaded. Might've just flaired the last few weeks. If that's the case and i have know idea if it is, then Manager might be referring to prior this issue.

I wish i could take the kudos RM. Someone else on here coined that one. Fantastic and everyone should be using it from here where possible.

When was the last time we played them in a H&A at the G??

Yes DZ. A few stuck their hand up and actually out-performed but you can't cover that many being way off their usual output. The theory that the shorter break for us might actually assist didn't hold up on the night.

Team & Player Ratings to Rnd 15, 2023 vs H&A Season 2022 Player 2023 Rating 2023 Rank 2022 Rating % Change vs 2022 2022 Rank Change in Rank vs 2022 C Oliver 5.285 1 5.320 -0.66 1 0 C Petracca 4.775 2 4.456 7.16 2 0 J Jordon > 3.986 3 3.164 25.98 9 6 A Brayshaw 3.761 4 3.839 -2.03 5 1 T Rivers < 3.757 5 2.423 55.06 18 13 Jack Viney 3.654 6 3.971 -7.98 3 -3 C Salem 3.495 7 3.363 3.93 7 0 B Grundy 3.182 8 - - - - Steven May 3.169 9 3.971 -20.20 3 -6 Max Gawn 3.168 10 3.643 -13.04 8 -2 Jake Bowey < 3.078 11 2.856 7.77 13 2 T Sparrow 2.998 12 2.665 12.50 16 4 Jake Lever 2.992 13 2.703 10.69 14 1 Ed Langdon 2.983 14 3.109 -4.05 11 -3 L Hunter 2.975 15 - - - - A Tomlinson 2.965 16 2.079 42.62 22 6 J Harmes > 2.938 17 3.082 -4.67 12 -5 A N-Bullen 2.695 18 2.688 0.26 15 -3 M Hibberd < 2.589 19 2.613 -0.92 17 -2 K Chandler < 2.423 20 - - - - K Pickett 2.379 21 2.118 12.32 21 0 H Petty < 2.275 22 2.392 -4.89 19 -3 B Fritsch 2.235 23 1.936 15.44 27 4 Judd McVee 2.230 24 - - - - J V Rooyen 2.183 25 - - - - T McDonald 2.054 26 1.967 4.42 26 0 Ben Brown < 2.033 27 1.762 15.38 29 2 C Spargo < 1.891 28 1.981 -4.54 24 -4 Joel Smith 1.817 29 2.239 -18.85 20 -9 J Melksham > 1.437 30 1.947 -26.19 25 -5 J Schache * 1.375 31 - - - - B Laurie < > * 1.300 32 - - - - D Turner < * 1.075 33 - - - - Team Rating 71.52 69.48 2.94 * Played less than two full matches (in total) < Subbed Out at least once or more (player rating could be comprised somewhat) > Subbed In at least once or more (player rating could be comprised somewhat) Stats courtesy of footwire.com & wheeloratings.com

Free kick Freo tonight. How was that not a mark to Stringer? Freo very hard to beat over there as they've taken the mantle as the ump's favourite from WC.

2 meter's had a mare tonight I love how the ump called advantage earlier but then when it didnt become advantage he quickly changed his mind. Unlike Chandler's ridiculous advantage call which should also have been called back