Demon Dynasty

Many said the same in the final round of 2017 WtM ...and i reckon it's been a fair while since we won three in a row. The Pies rarely put in ordinary performances regardless of which team they field and in the main are usually super competitive. They are the real deal albeit yes, a tad under manned as you say.

Keeping a lid on it as we've played a couple of the cellar dwellers two weeks running. First half we looked pretty flakey and anything was possible although Norf looked like a B grade team out there skill wise. Apart from some very early questionable assists from the umps, reasonable play from Norf on a few of those turnovers, a couple of gifts from us we should have been 4 to 5 goals up at half time had we connected / converted better inside 50 imv. A solid 2nd half mixed with a few too many moments of ineptness in front of goal. Had we kicked just a little straighter that would have been an 80 point plus thrashing. LJ was amazing in the middle and around the ground. Very early days but looks the goods and possibly an excitement machine, given enough experience and pre-seasons. Our two small forwards did their job very nicely. Spargo brought a solid game tonight and even showed a bit of urgency / zip with ball in hand along with some clever decision making and excellent attack on the ball. Kozzy is still a fair way off but he looks to have all the good bits to become a very very good small crumbing pressure forward. His decision making tonight and hitting up targets inside 50 was hard to fault. We looked unstoppable whenever Clarry, Gus & Tracc were the starting 3. Sparrow seemed to be replacing Clarry when he was resting and, although pretty quiet / average early, he slowly worked his way into the match and even went forward to kick his first goal. T-Mac. Well lets just say he can no longer jump but brought a serviceable game at times and Goldy certainly never got hold of the middle bounces or T-Mac / LJ at any stage. In fact apart from a few nice efforts at ground level and a few handy taps i thought Goldy was pretty ordinary most of the night. Is he coming to the end of a very good career i wonder? Happy with the win but the real test will be the Pies and seeing if we can put three in a row together. Hopefully Big M and Viney back and fresh should help. If fit, Viney comes in for AVB and obviously Big M for T-Mac.

Reckon you hit the shiraz VERY early Uncle! And why not

Wonder if Norf will look to exploit our lack of height in the ruck tonight by pushing Goldy forward for a fair chunk of the match? T-Mac unlikely to be able to go with him down there nor LJ.

Subject to where his bod is at i couldn't agree more Layzie. His impact on those around once he performs also should not be underestimated. Inspirational come back if / when he does as we saw with his team mates' reaction to his first goal. One goal from Harley could be worth 2 goals from another player vying for the same spot in terms of its effect on the team as a whole.

You can have all the stamina you like CF. The 2020 format doesn't reward stamina that much unfortunately and much of the reward is from players hitting in and away from the contest with mobility and a bit of power/ speed on the burst. Including closing speed to tackle and pressure. Critical in this format also. Hence why we saw Clarry & LJ have solid games last week. The game is always unforgiving in reg format but this year the burst advantage has been magnified by about 20% meaning anyone who's a tad plonky is going to be exposed and taken advantage of much of the time (or at least the opp will attempt to do so with their match ups) on match day. O-Mac another who is vulnerable in this manner, depending on who he ends up on on the day.

G'day Nascent. This didn't come up on my reply feed for some reason so apologies for the delay. I have explained this once before already but it was some time back and i can't find the response. Anyway, i've inserted the answers to your questions above ? Hope this helps make a bit more sense of things.

Not a bad idea Polly. Could be possible. I'm not a big fan of excel graphs so i'll take a look around and see what's out there. Have to be able to cut and paste in here as well without any major loss of formatting etc. I've noticed it isn't as friendly this year as previous years.

After Tommy's last effort i'm wondering about his Bin... 3 effective disposals @ 43% (30% off AFL average), 2 Contested marks (1 inside 50), two 1%ers, 1 tackle in four quarters, 2 score involvements, 2 turnovers, 0 intercepts and 0 goals at 91% game time. Will need to be a miraculous turnaround.

That's the most obvious main assignment for the day to ensure this isn't a coin flip result. We're about to see how switched on (or otherwise) SG & his brains trust are and they're not off to a great start. Selecting a completely out of form T-Mac ahead of Pruess and either expecting an out of form T-Mac to suddenly click up forward and throw a junior, who was just finding his feet / confidence up forward, on to a ruck giant in Goldy. Or expecting T-Mac to mostly ruck against Goldy (i doubt it though as if that were the case surely you would leave a winning forward line as is and just throw Pruess in to do exactly what he was recruited for!).

Because we are not one of the AFL's VIC love children. The AFL clearly treat some clubs (and players within those clubs) differently to others. As evidenced by (just a few examples there's plenty of others over the decades)... ? The club raising this with the AFL apparently on a number of occasions but zero response / protection on the field prior the match against the Crows ? Zero response to multiple incidents (mostly by the same player) towards Max against the Crows, even when they were clearly in plain sight of the umpires on at least one or more occasion and even when many were a country mile off the ball. ? Burgoyne laying exactly the same tackle as Nibbler but gets off vs Nibbler 4 weeks. Bartlett needs to take this vision and keep hammering Gil till he gets an appropriate response, on the field.

Melk says hello W4. Can't remember the last time he was dropped and he's had plenty of chances bringing the same efforts or lack thereof. Rarely tackles anywhere let alone inside 50 where he should be bringing decent heat for a senior.

And he will stay that way if we keep giving him only one game stints

I would think Harley even more so PF

I don't think so. Would've named Pruess instead of T-Mac if they were only looking for T-Mac to fill the centre bounce / square ruck duties surely. But then again. Tomlinson can't ruck to save himself from what i've witnessed, nor shoukd he be expected to, but happy to be proven wrong.

Thanks Uncle....Pruess sitting around for this exact scenario but let's bring back T-Mac . Just as LJ was finding some touch up forward let's throw him into the ruck against the hulking Goldy so he can get mashed. There's an old saying i live by ..."If you don"t be bloody stupid you'll be alright".

Easily in SG & Co's top 10 worst ever committee results. And that's saying something. T-Mac is Gawnsky and Spargo is bottom of the small man rung at the club. Goody still experimenting with the season on the line. What a donkey.

Well that's a season ending selection of ins. SG does it again. Roll on 2021.

Most looked ok to good last week W. And so they should given the team we were playing hadn't won a match to that point and of their 22 more than half (13 to be exact) were rookies vs our 5. Lockhart is playing in a similar defensive role as a rookie and doing just as well, even a tad better imv. The obvious in is Rivers for Harmes who moves into the mid to replace Jack. They play a similar game in terms of their capability to push forward and impact on the scoreboard.

No need at all. Harmes goes into the mid and Rivers comes in to cover Harmes. Was bog ordinary in a HB role anyway. Could be the tonic Harmes needs to get his mojo back and show the hierarchy where he should be getting more game time.

Pruess plays that role ok if he's in the hub. Not as well as Big M of course but as long as he's getting the ball to ground.

May should be the VC alongside Viney. Flies the flag.

Yes. He only rucks the square and plays a spoiling role a kick behind play down the line or as part of the wall. Don't see why he can't cover ruck down back most of the time as well. LJ covers anything in the arc.

Please tell me we got Pruess into the hub knowing that Big M was carrying & suffering from an injury a while back? LJ is just settling nicely in to a forward / minor ruck relief role and we are expecting him to take over a major ruck role the next week against Goldy? And T-Mac as LJ's replacement? Recipe for a solid loss if so.