Demon Dynasty

Roooos! That was a gutsy win and probably the upset of the year given who they were playing and what was at stake. Although you have to wonder where that's been aside from last week against the Pies. Many of them saying this one's for Noble so you have to take that on face value as fair dinkum. Zurhaar ... this bloke really punches above his weight when he's on. Goldy was also super in that last quarter or so. That No.1 draft pick did ok as well eh! In the end you can have all the systems and styles you like. To win these tight games against very good teams you have to bring the most important element for most of the four quarters.... great effort.

Whatever the issues, which may in part lie with Stafford, if our forward line was humming we would be an unstoppable powerhouse and storming into the finals well clear on top of the table right now. The fact that we arent and are now back in the mix with so many other teams tells the tale IMV. Our forward line hasn't fired consistently all year and remains our biggest weakness and the reason why most teams don't fear us and rate their chances highly when coming into their matches against us.

Yes there's a good reason Tracc has been playing more time forward of late. A much trickier match up for the oppo up forward vs Melk i would imagine. The alternative is Melk does actually play a fair chunk of mid field minutes allowing Tracc to play mostly as a forward. A bit of a win for the opp regardless IMV.

I'll stick with my call bing. Tipping the mid field contest in their favour here IMV. Not the smartest move i've seen but hope im wrong

It's simple Bing... he doesn't. Couldn't think of a worse replacement for Clarry. Dunstan by the length of the Flemington in comparison. If he was replacing Spargo or Bedford i'd be more understanding

Dunstan✅️ Tomlinson 🤷‍♂️ Hunt✅️

Very nice work (again) PF thanks mate. Surely there's someone on here who has a background in forging fake press passes. Get on it D'landers!

Me thinks you've been watching too many AFL 'Saints vs Dogs' ads Mr Fence

Before or after PF's visit??

Agree with much of your post 64 but IMHO Dunstan has been performing at (or near) a level that warrants plausible selection (possibly for Sparrow if he doesn't find some higher level consistency in the next week or two?) even if Clarry was fit. Dunstan is pretty clever at putting himself in the right spots to receive and his handballs i would rate as elite. Not as confident about his kicking but i did notice he found a bit of run last week which i hadn't seen from him prior. Keeps his feet as well which is one area i'd really like to see Sparrow improve upon. Sparrow goes to ground a bit too often for mine at the present. Having said that, Sparrow on a good day is as good or in terms of the scoreboard possibly a better alternative.

Ultimately i would think so Dee

Not sure why Melk & Rivers are even named here. Or Tomo but i'm assuming he's the only like for like replacement for Petty. So we are most likely looking at... Outs: Clarry (inj), Bowey & Petty (H&S) Ins: Dunstan, Hunt & Tomo JVR & Laurie very unlucky.

No doubt for the $$ Jaded but that may only be one part of the motivation behind him potentially returning to North....

Cant argue against much of that LD. The other aspect with Clarkson... wouldn't he potentially make North a somewhat more attractive destination option vs if he wasn't there?

Clarkson or bust? .... at least for another 7 to 10 years anyway. Even with Clarkson they're at least 3 to 5 years away from becoming seriously competitive IMV.

Not suggesting KF but North play him mostly as a medium tall foward (ie; he is pretty much played as a forward). He plays only minor time mid on occasions.

I reckon JVR could be as good or better than Zuurhaar. We need a big fella who can bust a pack / take contested but is also mobile. Larkey for mine. Isn't he under contract till end of 2023 though?

Only mature option with decent experience might be Tex. Im not up with draft/free agency side though so no point me commenting here. I like Lewis also. Was impressive against us earlier this year when watching live. Gave Smith a bit of a towelling and appears to have the smarts of a dangerous forward. Pretty quick off the mark and strong overhead. Very confident young fella. Hawks might have found a good one.

Sounds like a prospect dazzle. Assuming we lose the Weid & Macca ....you don't think we are gonna need a more experienced tall clunker to act as the No.1 or No.2 ahead of JVR during his early years?

I agree with that also. The slow predictable play around thr boundary and most often delivering to a pocket is now well covered by most oppos. They have our measure as long as we keep doing the same.

A few JVR highlights against the Cats... https://fb.watch/e9Nx3nir_O/

Our run finished after 10 straight wins CYB. We've only beaten 1 top four team out of 4 matches since we beat the Saints during that run in Rnd 8. That 25% hit rate against top eight teams from here would only see us winning 3 out of the next 6. If the alarm bells isn"t warming up and starting to ting a ling a little right now inside Goody's & the FD's heads it should be. We have a chance to right the ship but some serious changes/work needed on eveything forward of center before the match against Port if we're to make the top four. As i've said since we lost Macca, you just can't/won't win many matches at this level defending 8 or 9 goals. We have 9 days to fix it IMV or we'll probably end up outside the top four and/or at best playing an 'away' Qualifying final in Sydney, Brisbane or the Cattery.

Hallelujah to that Macca. Especially BB. And he isn't alone, with many of our forwards failing to understand this necessity when the opp is bringing high intensity tackling/pressure at particular moments within games. Ball is often going to fall shallow. Sometimes that pressure will drop and you can then look to double back or sit in the hole etc. Surely BB has this one down pretty well by now? The number of times i see defenders reading this situation better and sitting in front of one of our forwards for the easy chest mark and slingshot rebound is infuriating. Extra infuriating as we never seem to correct this basic error. Also... How often do other teams hit up their small forwards either sitting in space and/or on a lead? I wouldn't say the numbers would be high here (especially against us as our D is pretty decent) for any team but i would guess we would be sitting pretty low on the tables if we could access the data and do a comparison. When you watch our forward methods/craft/smarts at Casey we more often than not look like a team of pros that knows how to find space, hit up leading targets and clever use at ground level getting the ball in to the hands of a player in a better position to score for the conversion. There's often just more space for our forwards to work in as well. The rot at senior level starts & stops with Stafford IMV.

Do you want him to be the best player he can possibly be QD or just a goal kicker? I believe there's always room for improvement and that he can bring both. Just needs a small reminder