Max
Imagine how bad Lycett will go against Gawn and Grundy lol.
Ruck Ollie Wines.
Lycett to give Gawndy the old warhorse treatment.
We could do worse things than bringing in Visentini to support Lycett in the ruck.
How many L-plate rucks can we play in a game? Fairly sure Teakle and Lord have priority there.
We are going to get smashed in the ruck no matter who plays for us.
With regards to the rucks, I am praying.
Ruck Ollie Wines.
I'm sure one of the ruck boys can "Sam Mitchell" him (Max) in the first 10 minutes. We need to think outside the box.
The forecast is for rain and if we get enough of it the Gawn and Grundy effect around the ground could be minimised.
Whatever the game plan is it will have to be based around losing the ruck contests regardless of who is selected in that role for Port.
The coaching group don't care about winning hit outs. Josh Carr said this weeks ago. But I am going to spew up this week if I see Melbourne kick uncontested goals from boundary throw ins when the ball is in their forward line due to Teakle's inability to provide a ruck contest. Teakle has to put body on body. None of this bear hugging his ruck opponent. And Lycett is not the answer. He should never play another AFL game.
Defense
Lever for 20 intercept marks if we use the usual Hinkley forward 50 entry tactic, especially with no Dixon and Marshall. Will be fun to watch.
A forward line of Finlayson with Lord and Teakle next in line looks worrying against May and Lever.
We will totally confuse May and Lever.
We can't just let Lever & May have a field day with bomb entries either.
If we can win the midfield or break even and get a bit of space and we hit targets, the influence of Lever and May will be lessened. I would be putting Drew of Petracca to slow him down too.
Yup they do seem a bit vulnerable with the ground ball in defence.
We are no chance without Dixon.
We need Dixon just to occupy Steven May.
Need to use a semi-fit Dixon and Lord to tag May and Lever and then use the smalls and Finlayson as the avenues to goal. The old decoy strategy.
Against the best defence in the comp, it will be a miracle if we can win.
Forwards
Would be tempted to bring in Burgoyne to try keep Pickett quiet.
Petty is unlikely to play which is a big loss for us.
Mids
The 2 players that need to stand up more than anybody, defensively especially, are Wines and Drew. Oliver, Petracca and Viney will have an absolute field day otherwise.
Ken
Boy, remember when Ken WAS brave and TRIED to win games we weren’t expected to! Then we have this plonker who has set up a few times to ‘minimise’ the damage… Where did it all go wrong Ken?
if we play the game with a defensive, just minimise the damage, don't even try to score plan, like we did last year I'll spew up.
Sack Hinkley.
Essendon beat Melbourne a couple of weeks ago. They are totally beatable with a good coach and a good plan. Carr to remain match day coach from the box while Stinkers stays on the bench where he can scrape the built-up mud out of the players boots with his tongue.
They definitely have weaknesses, and perhaps Ken is the man to exploit that… :) maybe not and Gawn will Gawn babies all over Teakle.
Miscellaneous
Given our extensive injury situation, and the fact that Melbourne are probably a class above us anyway, I won't be shattered with a loss.
I really rate the Dees.
We are going to be audited Friday night and our form over the last 6 weeks will be moderated as a result.
Port play well as underdogs. I’ll pencil in a win.
Melbourne by 49 points.
I reckon there is a really big gap now between the top teams: Melbourne, Brisbane, Collingwood, and the rest.
On top of that we have significant outs and your strengths are perfectly matched against our biggest weaknesses (Gawn+Grundy vs Teakle, BBB vs our short defence, May/Lever vs our forward line with 4 of our best players out). I'll be pleasantly very surprised if we're competitive in this one.
If we win over a team with 2 x dominant key defenders and 2 x dominant rucks it will show serious signs of both development and game plan improvement.
Ultimately nothing will be proven til finals but if we beat Melbourne it will be time to pull out the dumb and dumber memes.
I could see us going the dirty ball tactic from a few years ago over west against West Coast… however don’t have a 19 year old Rozee to park at FF and be able to hit ground balls at pace.
Some fun stats:
We are number 1 for generating offensive 1v1 contests, approx 20% better than second (Bulldogs).
We are AFL average for winning them.
We are AFL average for allowing defensive 1v1 contests.
We are number 18 for losing them, approx 15% worse than second (Essendon).
QD's fave
Ultimately it doesn't matter whether we take the knife, the machete or the axe to this gun fight, the result will be the same.