Watts Jurrah Dunn?

2 minutes ago, Sigil said:

"We screwed up our draft picks again". We didn't.

 

2 first rounders and $800k a year for Lever?

We're just a good ordinary football side.

Harmes, Bugg, Tyson and Wagner will never be up to it.

Lewis is only here for the super top up.

Salem, Lever and Hunt shadows of themselves. 

Nice that Garlett decided to show up this week.

Found one in Fritsch.  

9 minutes ago, Pates said:

Tyson hit someone (ANB I think) lace out off two steps from the boundary line which resulted in a goal. How much better do you want him to get?

Owed us one after the woeful handball backwards to Lever at half back. 

He was very fumbly and ordinary on wings and flanks in AFLX and JLT1. When they threw him into the middle to play the inside mid role against the Saints he was very good.

He's an inside midfielder. I wish they'd play him there. Obviously Oliver and Viney are ahead of him in that role but I can't work out for the life of me why you'd play Maynard ahead of him. He's also a few years younger than Tyson and has more of a future than him. Jones and Lewis shouldn't have to play inside anymore with all these young bulls.

I see Oliver, Viney, Brayshaw with cameos from Petracca as being the 10 year midfield. I wish they'd play him because right now Brayshaw at 3 and Weideman at 9 look very ordinary picks. 

2 hours ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

I would have thought Brayshaw may have been left out last week because he'd only just had his wisdom teeth removed. Not only might that have left him with a sore mouth but he might have been on a limited diet, too, which may have weakened him enough not to be considered fit to play. Of course, if he's not picked this week, that won't have been the reason.

Wouldn't have been listed as first emergency if he wasn't 100% last week.

6 hours ago, Drunkn167 said:

I find it pretty funny how so many people who post on these forums believe they know more about selecting an AFL side then someone who has played in 2 winning premierships, played over 250 AFL games, is a 5x All-Australian and an Australian Football Hall of Famer, not to mention all the others with huge amounts of experience on the coaching panel who go into discussing the selections for each week, but yeah, you've watched a lot of football so you know which guys to pick to play.

Mate, I love your work on here but surely you would agree there was no way Maynard could have been selected to play in Round 1 based on what you saw in any of the pre-season matches?

I don't care how hard he trains, I don't care how good a bloke he is - he did nothing in any of the pre-season matches to warrant selection.  His kicking and endurance are not up to AFL standard.

Goodwin's selection policies are a huge problem.  They cost us a finals spot last year when he went to Jake Spencer and Tim Smith ahead of Cam Pederson.  They also cost us the game on Sunday.

Don't be a sycophant and think that just because he was a great player, he is a great coach.

11 hours ago, Rogue said:

Seriously?

We just lost by a kick to the team that finished 2017 H&A equal top.

That was the worst side Geelong will put on the park in 2018.  3 debutants, no Dangerfield, no Henderson, no Scott Selwood, no Nakia Cockatoo, Harry Taylor gone in the first quarter, Ablett with no pre-season game time.  And a lot of punters have Geelong finishing 6-9th this year anyway!

Given the club has talked a big game for 6 months about how much round 23 hurt and would spur on the players, that loss yesterday has left me absolutely gutted.

It's so predictable that we'll now beat Brisbane and North, and just as we start to get our hopes up again we'll lose to Hawthorn because they have strong leaders, and a culture of winning, and they treat sides like Melbourne with contempt.

If we were serious we would have started this season 4-0.  It was a dream draw to start the year.  It's so predictable that we'll be 2-2 and scratching around the middle of the ladder all year.

Maynard and Wagner for Tyson and Brayshaw. E Graders for D Graders. How exciting.

I'd start getting games into Spargo and Baker.

Clearly this group is just making up the numbers. Start planning for after Lewis, Vince and Jones.

Well done to Petracca and Gawn on talking an incredibly big game all pre-season, going down media street and pumping themselves up and failing when it counts.

Well done to all the players that talked up how the hurt would spur them on this season, and then they fold when Geelong are without Danger, Henderson, have three debutants and lose Harry Taylor 5 minutes in. That was a game a decent side wins well.

Some serious question marks about Goodwin after today. Maynard and Harmes in the same midfield is reminiscent of the Magner and Couch days. Absolute butchers of the footy. What was the gameplan today? Don't look, just kick it high. Pathetic.

A terrible, terrible loss.

6 minutes ago, praha said:

Trac on track for 3 votes.

Seriously? Crucial miss then and should have swallowed the mark earlier in the quarter and gone back and kicked that too.

Absolutely dysfunctional all over the ground. The bombing torps from full back to full forward has been atrocious. Under 9s in the wet footy. 

2 minutes ago, praha said:

if we slow it down we're playing the game on Geelong's terms. need to back our forwards in.

Yeah but we have time to steady for a moment and put it to the forwards advantage. Too many high bombs in hope. Looks like the forward coach just wants to form a pack and have Fritsch jump over it. Not sustainable. 

We're playing the 'jack in the pack' game plan. Bomb it high and hope someone takes a grab. 

Pleased to see they've finally woken up to Tyson. 

Bit surprised by Brayshaw but he was poor in aflx and ordinary in jlt1. He just fumbled so much.

It's naive to think they were left out because they are not quite 100% when they are listed as emergencies, meaning they're ready to play if something goes wrong.

Suspect Wagner frees up Vince or Lewis to play midfield. Hopefully some of the stuff coaches must be seeing Wagner do at training starts appearing in games. I'm yet to see a single thing to suggest he's anything more than a neat VFL player. 

Viney is the most important player on the list.  You only needed to watch that first Quarter against Port Adelaide last year, where we'd missed him for a few weeks before hand, to see how much taller everyone else walks with Viney there.  He's our Joel Selwood.

There is not much between Pedersen and Tom McDonald, and the two sides to win the flags over the last couple of years have both had smaller, more agile forward lines as it leads to more forward pressure.

20 minutes ago, olisik said:

Took the nice guy instead of the mongrel player as per usual. Curnow kicked more goals tonight then probably Weed has in his whole career.

 

Amazing that a top 10 pick with 3 years on the list isn’t pushing for selection despite injuries and first year players like Fritch can stroll right into seniors.

Yeah Weideman at 9, 4 picks before Curnow was a shocker. You get that one right and we are on our way. You'd just love to know how keen we were before the drink driving thing, which was probably setup by Carlton. 

Oddly enough the Geelong game from Round 3 last year is the one that really burns in my guts.

Hibberd didn't play, Hogan and Lewis were suspended and Gawn was gone early in the 2nd quarter yet we completely outplayed them and had 6 more scoring shots.  It was a game we should have won by 4 or 5 goals but we were woeful in front of goal.

You'd like to think with Lever and Hibberd added to our side from that day Menzel and Hawkins won't kick 9 between them.

I'm not as confident without Viney and McDonald and with Oliver in doubt, but I still think if we are fair dinkum and Danger doesn't play we should be way too quick for Geelong and beat them well.

Malthouse is 100%. Whether it's Petracca DJ'ing Skwosh parties and making coffees at spring carnival marquees, Harmes running around asking the Saints what they were doing in September, or Hogan looking questionable at dance festivals, you won't find a team as happy with their own work as Melbourne. 

It is why Goodwin talks ad nauseum about a humble and hard working playing group, and why they had to get rid of Watts. 

Could have made the finals in '16, should have made the finals in '17. Time for a lot of players to stop drinking their own bath water. 

Should have kicked 6. Missed two sitters and gave away one in the goalsquare. 

Looks a terrific prospect and should go past Bugg and Harmes reasonably quickly. Appears to have X factor with his marking, and the quick snap goal while being tackled showed he's good at ground level as well.

All that 'weak draft that falls off a cliff after pick 15' stuff looks wrong already. 

I got along yesterday for a look.  

Joel Smith is quite a specimen.  Let's hope he can stay injury free because he's a great size, super ripped and I believe he's pretty quick, so you can understand why Ben Guthrie said in the AFL.com.au article that the Coaches are incredibly keen to get games into him.

Spargo has used his year of shoulder rehab to master the leg weights.  Nicely defined quads.  I always cringe when small guys automatically get compared to Boomer Harvey in their draft profiles, but I'd suggest Spargo has the frame to become a little ball of muscle like Harvey was.  Seems to always look angry and very serious.

Hannan has bulked up significantly.  Didn't appear to be moving too well with the knee strapped and some more strapping coming out of his sock, but he's noticeably bigger across the chest and shoulders.

Dion Johnstone is another one in great shape.  Appears the right size now not to be pushed off the footy.  Couple of nice low, drilling balls in one of the drills too.  Let's hope he can take his chance in the NAB games.

Pederson super impressive in some of the running I saw, up the front with Hunt and ANB.  Oliver, Petracca and Tyson towards the back.

Lewis was helping Filipovic for a little while there with his lining up/visualisation while kicking for goal.

Lever just does everything well.  Petracca kicks the cover off the ball and I hope he can add a bit of touch into some of his passing to lead as some of the kicks were almost un-markable.

21 minutes ago, rjay said:

Let me simplify it for you...

Maybe none of these players are good enough. The FD would seem to think that's the case.

We don't need more list cloggers but we can develop quality for our own needs and for future trade bait.

You are looking at things in a very one dimensional way and we are far from done and locked out of trading or drafting in 2018...

We haven't played finals for a decade mate.

Question everything the football dept do.

If Goodwin plays Pederson early last year ahead of Spencer and Tim Smith, we play finals.

If Taylor calls out Charlie Curnow instead of Sam Wiedeman a couple of years back, we play finals.

They are not always right. Too many sycophants on here.

On 25/11/2017 at 12:41 PM, rjay said:

This post makes little sense...

You wanted us to draft 2 unknowns to boost our midfield depth when we have a few knowns in Brayshaw and Salem who at the moment have to bide their time on flanks where as you say we have them coming out of our ears.

We will be in a good position to trade in class/needs over the next few years as Jones, Vince and Lewis move on. We do that by having better players on our list not by drafting/taking chances drafting players our recruiters and list management people don't rate to fill so called needs now.

 

Here it is simplified for you.

We are out of the super draft next year, so there's another opportunity gone to get a quality midfielder.

3 of our mids are almost done.

Only 2 are proven AFL midfielders and will be there in 2020 when we are beating down the door.

We don't need another half forward flanker or key position defender.

Constable or Petruccelle at 31, and Worpol at 37 would have been better selections given our lack of midfield depth.

12 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

Flags are won with Rance, Astbury and Grimes as well. Or Morris and Hamling (with Roberts) shutting down Franklin. Or Brian Lake. Or Scarlett and Harley. 

If Weeds comes on we trade Tom McDonald or Hogan. Cross that bridge when we come to it. Weeds has all of Cam Pedersen's games to play first before taking games away from those guys.

Jones has plenty of time left. Vince and Lewis were both ordinary for most of the year. Getting Salem, Oliver, Brayshaw and Petracca fitter means they'll be the possession winners with Viney and Tyson. Along with Hunt, ANB, Melksham, Hannan, Harmes, Stretch. Give me those 12 with a lock down defensive unit and a functional forward line and I'll be happy.

3 picks of running players. 1 pick on a tall and I can see a tall defender being of much more value than a tall forward or back up ruck.

Jones missed 6 weeks last year with a quad and has already done a calf this pre-season. Vince is borderline best 22 and has 1 left. Lewis has 1 good season and 1 ordinary season left. Salem and Brayshaw are far from proven, bona fide afl mids capable of playing 20 good games a season. When Viney misses, as we saw last season - it all falls onto Oliver's shoulders. There is not enough depth. I hope Brayshaw and Salem finally begin to justify their draft ranking, and that Maynard, vandenBerg and Harmes come on to help this.  

I like the look of Petty, but it certainly wasn't a need. Our key defenders are young and developing. The way they have pumped games into him, our FD seem to have great faith in Oscar as a long term prospect. Unlike the midfield, no one retires in a year or two, in fact they'll just be entering their prime. Petty now develops behind Oscar, Lever, Frost and Keilty, who have 8-10 years ahead of them. Who knows how Tom Mac goes as a forward when the oppposition start putting work into him as a forward.

I also see no need to bring in a medium forward who is a clone of Mitch Hannan. Fritsch needs two seasons in the gym and has not proven himself of being able to pinch hit in the midfield at VFL level. Once he puts on 8 kilos, will he be good enough to dislodge Petracca, Hannan, Melksham, ANB, Harmes, Bugg etc from a half forward flank? We have them coming out of our ears!

Anyway, good luck to them and I hope I'm wrong, but for mine, Fritsch and Petty picks should have been Pettrucelle and Worpol.

9 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

What plethora?

Tom is a forward now. Years of turnovers = no more backline.

Oscar, Frost and Lever are our starters. Joel Smith the back up medium, Wagner a 3rd tall option if needed but really a flanker type. Keilty a rookie list mature back up. That's it. 

Frost is a bit out of favour, Oscar isn't solidfied as a genuine long term option, Joel Smith limited experience, makes a lot of sense to bring in another one.

Tom Mac will be Forward 5 minutes if Weideman comes on mate. How many backs do you need? Richmond and the Bulldogs have won flags with how many dominant Key Positions Forwards?

Matches are won and lost in the midfield.

We added a dwarf 170cm forward mid, and an outside winger that averages 16 touches in the NEAFL. 

Petrucelle and Worpol were still on the board.

I hope I'm wrong, but I see the midfield as seriously lacking depth in a year or two when Vince, Jones and Lewis are gone. 

Some of the Phantom drafts mentioned West Coast were really keen. They took the extra time for the very next pick. I reckon we threw them.

Too early for mine.