poita

Michael Hibberd was unfit when he came to the club and, missed the first month of 2017, but got himself sorted and was excellent for the remainder of the season. He looked out of sorts from the moment Lever came into the side in 2018 as he was shuffled into a more defensive role that stifled his ability to win the ball and setup attacks from half back. His form improved slightly when Lever was injured, then he missed a month of footy, and never really got going again. This year his form has been putrid. He has never been quick, but looks like he is running in wet cement at present. His kicking is a 50/50 proposition at best. He is one of the worst culprits at being fourth or fifth up in a contest, leaving his man unattended at the base of the pack. He is being isolated by opposition teams and exploited on an all too regular basis. Most significantly he has lost all ability to defend in a one-v-one situation. His positioning and timing are non-existent. He is easily nudged out of the way, even by smaller opponents, and far too often loses touch with his man. With only 126 AFL games to his name, his body should be in reasonable nick but he is 30 before the start of next season. Was 2017 an aberration and he is just a serviceable player quickly coming to the end, or is there something that we can fix to return him to his best football? If I was coach I'd be tempted to throw Hibberd forward this week and try to reset him with a different role. Petracca can play midfield or defence and try to find some more football.

As much as I understand why we wanted to trade Hogan and why we wanted to bring in May, the whole deal had an off feeling from the start. May never showed great enthusiasm to come here in the first place, rather we were his last pathway out of GC17 when Collingwood and others went cold (I wonder why that was). Reports of his initial lack of fitness and conditioning, coupled with his lack of discipline and lack of interest on field, make you wonder whether he is here to simply cash pay cheques or is actually committed to helping the club. Hibberd was able to turn things around in 2017 from a bad start, hopefully May can do the same.

If we come out of this game with a percentage of over 60 and no serious injuries, that would be a reasonable result. Worst case scenario is that the ground is in as bad a condition as it looks and we add a few more to the long term injury list, plus get absolutely flogged. Come on Simon, do something different this week, I dare you.

Our recruiting and list management has been absolutely abysmal for three years, and I have been saying as much for that entire time. Exclude Oliver and the problem is actually four years old. We carry blokes on the list year after year such as JKH, Maynard, Smith x2 who are not AFL standard. We need to make an early call and turn the list over. Other clubs can do it, why can't we? West Coast won a premiership last year and still had 4 picks in the top 40 (plus 5 the previous year). We trade out high draft picks for experienced players of questionable value. I get the May deal, although his durability has always been an issue, but the Lever deal was atrocious on all levels. If Kolodjashnij played more on the outside he'd be sitting in the stands. We waste mid range draft picks on guys like Spargo who are fundamentally flawed footballers. Neither Sparrow or Jordon excite me. We have zero ruck depth behind Gawn (I see Keilty and Smith rucked for Casey again today). We have zero key forward depth behind McDonald (Weideman is not an AFL footballer). We have zero midfield depth behind our only four AFL standard midfielders. There is barely a single brain cell between our entire defence. We had about six blokes carry the side into the finals last year. A few of those have been found out this year and the rest are not capable of filling the void. Couple that with a coach who won't admit that his game plan is stuffed, and you can see why the ladder looks the way it does.

Yet we take Spargo with a top 30 pick, a slow midget with no tricks. Not saying Miers is the answer to all our problems, but there have been some bizarre selections over the past couple of drafts.

Early days, but Preuss is looking like a bust. Not fit enough to play for a team that is crying out for size and physical presence. Meanwhile Tyson is playing regularly at North whilst our depth is so non-existent that we are playing Lockhart and two Wagners this week. Goodwin will have to play Preuss at some point this point to avoid Gawn being battered and bruised to the point he gets injured. Sadly that will mean Simon admitting he is wrong with his initial selections and tactics, so I can't see that happening any time soon.

I thought our round 1 side was bad, this is probably worse. Corey Wagner is a goer, but little else. Josh Wagner doesn't even have that. We have half a dozen not at AFL standard, another six or so woefully out of form or unfit. I hope that the few guys carrying the team each week have broad shoulders. I've suffered through enough dismal performances against Essendon over the past 30+ years to fear the worst tonight.

That's fine if you are prepared to kill off all of the local clubs (Darebin, St Albans, etc) that have been the backbone of womens football for its entire history. It's bad enough that AFLW clubs are allowed to run teams in the VFLW, but running the seasons concurrently would destroy the VFLW also. That said, congratulations to Adelaide who were light years ahead of the competition and fully deserved to win the premiership. Melbourne only have themselves to blame for not playing finals, and Carlton were as good as any of the rest in the second half of the season.

Apparently closing whole train lines for weeks at a time = intermittent construction works.

May never played close to a full season at Gold Coast. For all his problems, even Hogan has been more durable than May, but hey we'll still throw truckloads of money at anyone who'll return our calls. As for Lever ...?

I'd love to know what Goodwin and his line coaches have been doing since last September, because the lack of organisation and cohesion of this team at both ends of the ground is abysmal. It honestly looks as though our players have never met each other before taking the field together, let alone actually played together. How hard is it for McDonald to lead one way, Weideman the other, and then the smalls drop into the gaps around them. Only Melksham seems to have any idea how to find space. McDonald and Weideman keep leading to the same space, and Petracca and Neal-Bullen get sucked into the pack around them whilst their opponents stand on the outside waiting for the handball receive. We have to spread better and utilise the space inside forward 50. Don't all congregate in one spot. Make your opponent accountable for you, and don't let them zone off to empty space or to double team the key forwards. Lead up to the ball carrier and demand a pass. Pretty much the same things my son learns at under 9s. The other end of the ground is harder to fix. Jetta and Hibberd are both horribly out of sorts, and Jetta in particular looks to still be carrying an injury. Frost and McDonald should not be played in the same side, and May's underwhelming efforts exacerbated those issues. Oh for a Tom Stewart who falls into our laps and does his job each week. Our midfielders are not good at pushing back to help out the defence, so it is very easy for opposition teams to divide and conquer our defenders. Every time a Geelong player slipped their man on Saturday it seemed as though they were able to take possession and score. There was nobody filling space and nobody going third man up.

We've had three years now of absolutely butchering the trade and draft period, so it is imperative that we head back to the draft and stock up on talented kids, particularly through the midfield. We have 4 AFL standard midfielders - contrast to teams like Collingwood & Geelong who have 8-10 players they can run through the middle. The Lever trade was, as plenty of people suggested at the time, a disaster which has set us back years. I wouldn't be surprised if we ultimately look back at this period as a repeat of the issues we had in the early 2000s which cost us so dearly later in the decade.

I was critical of Petracca when watching on Saturday, but I have mellowed slightly since. As I said last week, he looks miserable on the field at present. The club has sucked all the enjoyment out of his football by taking all the flair and unpredictability out of his game. I don't want to see Petracca taking the ball 55 metres out from goal and looking for a short pass sideways. I want to see his first thought to be about kicking the goal himself. That is the type of player he should and can be. We have plenty of others who can be robots on the field. For this week, I want to see Petracca enjoying his football again. If that means sitting across half back getting cheap kicks for a week, so be it. If it means playing in the middle and cleaning a few blokes up, even better. That said, he would definitely benefit from losing some bulk so he can cover more ground. The amount of muscle he is carrying is definitely doing more harm than good.

As long he is match fit and has a crack for four quarters, I am okay with this selection given the lack of competition for spots at present. Good luck Jay.

Exactly the same issue as with Lewis. It's all well and good to say these guys are past it and are no longer best 22, but there is nobody putting their hand up to take these spots. When the alternative is to give Wagner, Stretch or Kennedy-Harris a 10th or 12th chance, I'll stick with Jones and Lewis all day, every day.

In: May, Stretch, Lewis (if fit), Preuss/Keilty Out: Frost, Spargo, Hore, Viney (inj)

Not sure that is a perfect solution either. I still remember Brent Moloney being suspended for attempting to charge against Geelong. But yes, anything is preferable to the current climate in which deliberate, off the ball punches go unpunished.

This club has made an art form of playing unfit players in the past 24 months, why would Gawn be any different? In fact he probably started the trend when he came back too early in 2017.

This is what happens when you promote AFL as an entertainment product rather than a sporting contest. People go along for the "event" rather than because they care about the team. They are too busy tweeting their mates and posting on instagram to actually get involved in what is happening on the field. I would guess we have roughly 10K members who are passionate and turn up each week, a lot of whom still don't make a lot of noise. The rest are just along for the ride. Any Port fans who turned up are clearly in the top 5% of the club's most passionate supporters, so you would expect them to make plenty of noise.

What's this fascination with having 70,000 members? I'd settle for having 30,000 full members who turn up, make some noise and support the team each week, as opposed to having a truck load of 3 game members who come for marquee games and nothing else. Look at Hawthorn who get 60K crowds twice a year for Easter Monday and against Collingwood, and 30K the rest of the year. Having a big membership base just means that every game is ticketed and you have to fight to get to finals. Sure some extra money is nice, but it is not the difference between winning a premiership and being an also ran.

Jack Viney needs to be saved from himself, and the coach and the medical staff need to step up and do so. Seven years in and still not being at 100 games must absolutely sting for a person as dedicated and committed Jack. Zach Tuohy has played 138 games in that time, being taken in the same draft. Viney has played 99 and has been been at barely 50% for the last 20 of those. It is clear that Jack is never going to put his hand up and ask for help (although as a leader he should be doing the right thing for the team), so the club needs to act in his best interests . At some point football needs to be a secondary consideration to his quality of life after football.

My thoughts, two days on: We weren't prepared for this game physically or mentally. We showed Port no respect and assumed that things would just happen for us. Many of our players are underdone, others are just plan unfit or lazy. A 26 point margin flattered us as we could have lost by ten goals. Our coach had a shocker, both at selection and on game day. Why did he get an extension before the season had started? He needs to sort out the forward line structure in a hurry and find some decent support for Gawn. Hopefully he get over his stubbornness and fixes the game plan before it is too late. Jones - I'm his biggest fan, but he was dreadful. Forget the skill errors, his major issue was wandering down the Southern wing by himself all afternoon whilst his opponent ran unattended where the football was. Salem - clearly our best on the day, and should be spending more time in the midfield this season. Harmes - had a crack and not our worst. Petracca - he may not be fat, but he is clearly carrying too much weight as he can barely move. More concerning is the battle that is raging in his head. He gets down on himself too easily and is second guessing everything he does. Needs to be allowed to play with the freedom that he displayed in his first season. Viney - diabolical decision to play by both coach and player. Clearly struggling with his foot and a complete passenger. If he needs two months off to get right, just do it. Spargo - slow, small and spectacularly good at being where the ball isn't. Not AFL standard. Brayshaw - not his best game. Needs to focus on doing the basics well, rather than trying for the spectacular. Gawn - the template to beat Max is now well established. Can player and coach respond? The big concern is how quickly he drops his head when he cops some physical punishment. Oliver - probably his worst game for the club. I'm hoping it was the effect of some big hits early in the game that caused him grief. Hibberd - the faintest shadow of his 2017 self. Some of his defensive work was appalling for an experienced player and his disposal has fallen right away. Frost - a great athlete but the dumbest footballer around. Ideally would never be in the same defence as McDonald. Needs the game made as simple as possible, so I would have had him chained to Westhoff for the entire game and told him not to worry about anything else. Melksham - clearly our best forward, but would benefit from keeping things simple. T.McDonald - a horrible game. Clearly suffering from appalling forward structure and delivery, but something doesn't seem right. Weideman - his best is potentially elite, but he goes missing far too often. Would benefit from focusing on repeat leading and providing physical pressure rather than trying to take big pack marks. O.McDonald - I'm a fan but he makes the same mistakes too often. Will benefit from May taking the number 1 forward each week. Hunt - a shadow of his 2017 self. I'm not sure he has the football brain to work through his issues. Neal-Bullen - the biggest front runner in the game. Will kick three goals running ahead of the football in a flogging of Gold Coast, but never contributes when the going is tough. Fritsch - doesn't find the football playing through the midfield and his defensive work is poor. His only role is to be leading at the ball carrier from inside forward 50. Sparrow - showed enough in the second half to persist with, but is another tortoise. Hore - clearly displayed why he has been stuck in the VFL. Miles away from AFL standard and looked all at sea defensively. Jetta - doesn't look fit and has no confidence in his kicking. Wagner - had a crack and was better value than Spargo, Neal-Bullen or Petracca. Acceptable as the 22nd player on the team sheet, but little more.

Sparrow showed a bit on Saturday and was at least having a crack in the second half when most of his teammates had thrown in the towel. He is clearly better value at present than any of Spargo, Neal-Bullen and Petracca based on Saturday's efforts.

Agree with almost everything you said. We have had three poor to average draft / trade periods in a row. We have too many players who have been around for 4/5/6 years who simply aren't good enough. There were at least six players on the field yesterday who don't deserve to be there. Not one of our so called stars performed yesterday. Our midfield, with the possible exception of Harmes, are not fit enough and clearly believed the hype around them. Our forward line is truly shambolic and the defence even worse. The coaching staff didn't pay Port enough respect and clearly haven't learnt from the Prelim debacle. I can't believe we gave Goodwin a new contract before the first month of the season had passed. Viney is not fit, and you can almost guarantee he will be pulled for a period on the sidelines at some stage in the next month. God help us if we have managed to stuff his foot again.

After reading the hype filled posts on Demonland re Hore over the past three months I was expecting to see a ready made role player at AFL level. Harrison Petty was thrown to the wolves last year, but at least he was 18 and still developing. Hore is 23 and was woefully out of his depth yesterday. He is not tall or strong enough to play key position and isn't mobile enough or kick well enough to play anywhere else. Sometimes there is a reason players get overlooked for five drafts in a row.